- 27/02/2013
- Posted by: essay
- Category: Free essays
In the novel, Dracula himself is presented as not simply a blood-sucker, but also a magician, able to reincarnate, control the powers of nature (cause a storm, for example), he knows the language of wild animals. Thus we come to one of the interpretations of “Dracula” as a novel about the confrontation of two powerful wizards, white and black. Indeed, if to look for something new in Stocker’s product on “vampires”, it might be he for the first time described vampirism as a disease, a deadly infection. He describes in detail the “disease” of Lucy Western and Mina Harker, and which is more – the girls in the novel are actually cured (Slung, 1997).
Characteristically, the Dracula of Stoker’s novel chooses girls as victims, but these girls, having become vampires, are searching for victims among boys and men. This theme of sexual attraction and sexual perversion of vampires transformed some years later. If to combine these two motives – the sexual danger and vampire plague – one will probably answer the question why the “Dracula” remains so popular among readers and filmmakers in the 20th century. If vampires and vampirism symbolize sexually transmitted infection diseases, at Stoker’s time this could symbolize syphilis, and AIDS in the 20th century.
Thus, Dracula famous for his blood-thirsty nature has always been enjoying popularity, which he has achieved due to his cruelty exceeding all conceivable and mental limits. Transylvania which was actually a small and quiet country was shook with only the sound of his name, inspiring fear and horror to everybody who was aware of Dracula’s atrocities. Suffering, pain and misery of his enemies brought Dracula real pleasure and satisfaction. Due to this fact, soon his enemies simply disappeared. All of them were either killed or simply ran away to where they could not be reached by the Count. But the soul of the beast demanded more and more new victims, so Dracula began to execute even his own companions.
And finally, the interpretation of life-death by Stoker, in other words – religious reasons, should be treated very seriously. In the novel, Dracula serves a disciple of Satan, theomachists and atheist. He makes a parody of a church ritual sacrament, turning Mina Harker into his faith. By killing people, Dracula gives his victims eternal life. But this life is the life of a dead person who is always hungry for human blood. Stocker opposes such vampire existence to normal human shift into another world (Stoker, 2007).
The legend of Sweeney Todd, who cut throats of his unsuspecting clients and robbed their corpses, and of his accomplice Mrs. Lovett, who made the stuffing for her pie of his victims’ flesh, is also a classic “horror history”, first imbibed in “The String of Pearls: A Romance”. “Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” not only strikes imagination with the scenes of violence colorful in their brutality, but also makes the readers think about the nature of revenge, of life, death and love. Further, we show how the plot of the story explains the motives of Todd and Lovett.buy term paper
Once upon a time, there lived a young and naïve barber Benjamin Barker in London. He was married to a lovely woman named Lucy, who bore him a charming daughter. For his trouble, the charm of his wife was also appreciated by libidinous Judge Turpin – and sent Benjamin Barker to penal servitude for life in order to provide undisturbed obtainment of Barker’s wife. Having spent 15 years in the Australian prison on trumped-up charges, Barker escaped from prison and reached London under the name of Sweeney Todd. However, he didn’t find his wife and daughter at home (Mack 2007).
Mrs. Lovett, the hostess of a small bakery downstairs, baking “the worst pies in London”, first did not recognize him, and told him his own story. Todd was struck with grief and vowed of terrible vengeance to his oppressors – Judge Turpin and Beadle Bamford, who helped the judge in his unworthy cases. Mrs. Lovett tells Todd that his wife poisoned herself, and now Judge Turpin is trying to achieve reciprocity of Todd’s grown up daughter Johanna. Following the advice of Mrs. Lovett, who does not hide her affection for the escapee, Sweeney Todd returns to his former profession and again becomes a barber, hoping to lure the judge into his barber’s shop someday and kill him (Mack 2007).
The first victim of Todd is the barber Adolfo Pirelli, who once was his apprentice. He recognized Todd and tried to blackmail him. The little orphan Toby, the assistant of murdered Pirelli, taken in the workhouse, comes into the service of Mrs. Lovett. The boy is permeated with the tenderest feelings for Lovett and swears to protect her from any trouble.
The judge continues to be the guardian of Joanna, which has become by this time a real beauty, but hopes soon marry her. However, she does not like him; she loves Anthony Hope, a dashing seafarer. It turned out that he helped Sweeney Todd to get to London after he escaped from prison. The ingenuous young man thought Todd was his friend and told him his deepest secrets. So, Mrs. Lovett pushes Todd to using Anthony for their one benefit, which could help him to reunite with his daughter and then all of them could live happily.
When inspector Bamford was an arbitrator in the barber competition of Pirelli and Todd, he decided to recommend Judge Turpin the services of a barber in order to look younger and attract Johanna in this way. Bamford was astonished by the skills of Sweeney Todd. However, the first attempt to kill the judge who comes to Todd, fails, because Anthony ran in just at the most crucial moment with the announcement of his plan to escape with Johanna, which makes the judge angry and he leaves Todd’s barber shop in a hurry.
Enraged by the fact that the judge escaped retribution and that Joanna was finally lost for him, Todd vows to kill everybody who will come to him, because he is sure that everybody deserves death: it will bring an expected relief from suffering for ones, and prevent others from further evil. Filled with hatred for all mankind, Todd constructs from ordinary chair a special mechanism, which will help him in murdering clients. The corpses of innocent victims of diabolical barber’s fury fall to the bottom of the basement (Mack 2007).
The problem of getting rid of dead bodies was solved by adventurous Mrs. Lovett, who offers the following: in order to benefit from such a gratuitous amount of meat, she will use it as the stuffing for her pies. Her bakery starts flourishing, and even gets equipped with a special device: right under the chair for clients in Todd’s salon, a hatch is arranged through which a corpse can quickly and quietly drop straight into the basement, from which Mrs. Lovett just leaves for her bakery with a tray, full of excellent pies. The rumor of Mrs. Lovett’s great meat pies quickly spreads around the city. Her business is going uphill, and she dreams of a quiet respectable life and marriage with Sweeney Todd. But he does not notice the feelings of Mrs. Lovett, while he’s fully overtaken by his thoughts.
Earlier, Bamford who came to verify Mrs. Lovett’s activity is murdered by Todd. At the same time, Mrs. Lovett arranges Toby a trip to the basement, where she prepares her pies. Unfortunately, Toby who previously suspected of Todd in evil inclinations discovers a part of human fingertip in one of the pies. Later he first finds bloody bones, and then the pieces of human flesh in a huge meat grinder. Toby realizes who his new friends are and is trying to escape from the basement, filled with horror. Sweeney Todd and his mistress start looking for Toby in the labyrinth of London’s sewers aiming to kill the boy.
When the searches gave, Todd returns to his barber shop and finds a mad Beggar Woman there, who appeared in the story from time to time in order to panhandle in a plaintive voice and then offer herself in the most vulgar manner, making clear her craft of a prostitute. She finally recognizes Todd just at the moment, when Sweeney hears the step of Judge Turpin, and trying to avoid exposure, kills the poor woman (Mack 2007).
The judge, hoping to find Johanna in Todd’s house, asks Todd where she is. Todd says that the girl is in the basement and that there’s no way out of there for her. Unsuspecting Anthony really earlier led Johanna, dressed in sailor’s dress, to the salon of Todd and left her there in order to start preparing for their flight to France. Finally, Todd offers Judge Turpin to shave. While shaving, Todd reveals the judge his real name, and just in a moment before his death, Turpin understands that it is Benjamin Barker who is standing in front of him.
Hiding in a huge chest, Johanna becomes a witness of Turpin’s murder who was caught on bait. Having sent the body of Turpin to the basement through a hidden mechanism, Sweeney notices Johanna in a chest. So she nearly becomes the victim of Todd who did not recognize her in a masquerade costume, but at the last moment she manages to escape. Todd was also kept from the murder of the girl by the scream of Mrs. Lovett. In the last moments of his life, judge Turpin grabbed Mrs. Lovett’s dress. Fighting with agonizing Turpin, she sees the body of the Beggar Woman who was just killed by Todd. Lovett is trying to burn her body in the oven.
When Todd enters the basement at the cry of Lovett, he recognizes his wife Lucy in the face of the Beggar Woman just in the light of the flame. He finally finds his wife whom he believed was dead, and angrily accuses Mrs. Lovett in a lie. Lovett tries to get justified, telling that she wasn’t saying that Lucy died after being poisoned, and that she did not want Todd to return to the mad wife, because she loves him and will be a much better wife for him. Todd begins to whirl Mrs. Lovett in a crazy waltz and suddenly throws her in the oven, where she is burned alive for lying so cruelly to Sweeney Todd.
Todd kneels over dead Lucy and does not hinder Toby who quietly climbed out of the sewer to cut his throat with his own razor. When Johanna enters the basement of the gloomy house in Fleet Street with the police, they find only a pile of dead bodies and Tobias with a bloody razor in his hand who gets mad (Mack 2007).
Silent maniac who loves his knives and calls them his friends was an excellent barber. Sweeney Todd killed his clients with a cunning device: the client sat in a chair nailed to the floor; under his weight, a piece of the floor turned, and a victim fell into the cellar. On the upside piece of floor, another chair was attached just the same as the first one. Usually a person dies as a result of the fall. If the victim survives, Sweeney Todd went down and murdered the victim with his razor.
The mind of Sweeney was overtaken with vengeance only, which is above all for him. The reason “Sweeney Todd” continues to be known for 150 years, is that this is a truly fascinating story. This story is about revenge and about how self-destructive it is. In a sense, this is a classic tragedy which tells the story of a man who decides to take revenge, but it destroys him. The reason that “Sweeney Todd” is the classics of the genre lies in the fact that all the cold-blooded murders and mutilations are just the background of a story about lost love and pain (Slung, 1997).
In this novel, the most brutal outbursts are combined with the most tender feelings and emotions. It is a clash of such contradictory qualities that determines the incredible strength and power of work. And it is a deep emotional story that highlights “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” among other topical sketches. The key point in “Sweeney Todd” is emotion, a passionate story about a man who strayed from the true path and thirsts for revenge, but gets mad after achieving it.
References
Mack, R. (2007). Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Oxford University Press.
Slung, M. (1997). Murder and Other Acts of Literature. Saint Martin’s Press Inc.
Stoker, B. (2007). Dracula. Vintage Classics.
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