Study Guide: Second Exam RSSS315 (Fall, 2007)
 

General Advice:
Read the works (and see the films)
Try to identify the major events and turning points in the story.
You should always have a good notion of who the major characters are. I'll list some for each of the works below.
Always ask yourself: how is this vampire/werewolf different from the others I've encountered?

Films

Bram Stoker's Dracula (parts seen in class; last half of film); the main characters are very familiar to you now: Lucy, Mina, Jonathan Harker, Van Helsing, Quincey, Dr. Seward, Arthur, Dracula, Renfield

Near Dark (1987): Caleb and Mae are central; Jesse and the "gang" and Caleb's father and sister are also important.

Nosferatu (1979) (excerpts in class): Werner Herzog's film.

The Company of Wolves (part seen in class); Neil Jordan's film. We saw only the first twenty minutes or so.

Parts of Murnau's Nosferatu (1922), The Wolf Man (Lon Chaney; 1941),  Dracula (Bela Lugosi; 1931), Badham's Dracula (1979; Frank Langella played Dracula), The Hunger (1983)

Fiction:

Last parts of Stoker’s Dracula (Chapter 14-end)

Kitzberg’s Werewolf: Tiina and Margus.

Lee’s “Wolfland”: Lisel, Anna (grandmother), Beauty

Rice’s Vampire Armand; focus on a.) Armand's childhood (connections with Eastern Europe, Eastern Orthodoxy); b.) the principal events in his life  c.) the ending (i.e., how the principal problems in the novel are resolved). Characters of interest: Armand, Marius, Bianca, Santini, Lestat, David Talbot, Benji and Sybelle. Important themes: quests to recover what's lost (memories of childhood? religious heritage? religious artifacts? loved ones?); dealing with Evil; dealing with loneliness; dealing with fanaticism.

Identify

Murnau

Nosferatu

Kathryn Bigalow

Klaus Kinski

Lon Chaney, Jr.

Bela Lugosi

Warner Herzog

Kitzberg

Anne Rice

Tanith Lee

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

lycanthropy

Perrault

Brothers Grimm

Needles and Pins (Grandmother's Tale)

Topics

Features of werewolves (in the films and stories)

Features of vampires (in the films and stories)

Werewolf folklore: e.g., stories told in class

Little Red Riding Hood and werewolf stories