Writing a letter

Dear Joe Batom,

My name is Jassmyn Lopez, and I’m reaching out to introduce myself today as we’re gonna be writing partners. I’m a second year marine biology major, and obviously I love marine biology but I actually do not want to be a marine biologist, I want to become a vet. I want to become a zoological veterinarian and move somewhere with land where I can have an entire farm of rescued animals. I would say I enjoy writing but I have not taken a writing class for a very long time now and it is taking me a bit of adjusting to get used to writing academically again.

So far I am genuinely enjoying reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula. My favorite part is Stoker’s use of dramatic irony. I love the way in which it is so obvious that Dracula is a vampire to us as the reader and the recurring imagery of blood which foreshadows Harker’s own revelation of Dracula. This is my first time reading horror fiction and I love the way that Stoker builds the suspense slowly and the utilization of the journal entries to tell it is really great way of aiding in that. When Harker described watching Dracula move out the window “lizard-like” I had to stop reading for a second because the description of lizard-like to describe how he moved down the wall was so hilarious to imagine in my head but at the same time it was most definitely chilling. I found myself scared to read on to discover if Harker would be caught for watching for some reason, but Harker lived on to describe Dracula yet again leaving in a lizard-like fashion. Overall I love the book and this just was a funny part that I still enjoyed. The end with the lady vampires was my favorite part as I loved the connection between horror and desire. It is very obvious that the female vampires are sexualized. Even though Harker describes himself as being paralyzed with fear he can’t help but want them still! He’s crazy for sure.

As for research topics I’m not too sure if I’m interested in anything yet, but as of right now I think that one on the connection between the sexualization of the vampires and desire vs. horror would be interesting. I’m not sure yet if this is going to be recurring but with it being a horror novel I can assume these female vampires will return, and with them bring both lust and horror. If it ends up being a substantial topic then maybe I will research this.

I’m excited to read about what you thought about Dracula and if there were any scenes in particular that you liked. Personally I feel like the two best scenes have to be the lizard-like descent and the sexy female vampires, but I can’t wait to see what comes next in Dracula. Thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts on Dracula and I look forward to the quarter.

Sincerely,

Jassmyn