"Nosferatu! Was it he who brought the plague to Bremen in 1838? I have long sought the causes of that terrible epidemic, and found at its origin and its climax the innocent figures of Jonathon Harker and his young wife Nina..." - Nosferatu (1922).
Since at least the Victorian times, the vampire has been associated with sexuality, drug addiction and plague:
"The vampire is like the Chinese addicts who began in the late 1800s to inhabit London's East End opium dens. Both are like new diseases arriving from peripheries that attempt to "colonize the center" ... Against such threats, the imperial center summons all its powers of knowledge and mastery of science and technology to defeat the vampire and, in parallel fashion, ultimately to justify legally outlawing the addict" (McMahon, 'The Fall of the God of Money', 2002; pg 16).
Stoker's Dracula uses the vampire as a metaphor for the Victorian view of sex as innately dangerous; and in Murnau's Nosferatu, plague arrives in Bremen by sea, brought from the East by the odious Other, the undead Nosferatu (and 'Nosferatu' means 'plague-carrier').
And they say they take me home
Like poppies heavy with seed
They take me deeper and deeper...
In And Dream Of Sleep, KB uses the simile 'like poppies heavy with seed'. Opium is the name for the latex produced within the seed pods of the opium poppy. Morphine, the principle ingredient of opium, is named after Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams. Heroin is a processed derivative. The first period of large scale heroin smuggling into the United States since its 1923 prohibition occurred during the years 1967-71 (http://opioids.com/jh/index.html). After injecting heroin, the user reports a surge of euphoria. Most people feel 'a warm glow' (My face is all lit up...), and any concerns become insignificant. After the rush, they enter an alternately wakeful and drowsy state, with substantially reduced psychological pain. In ADOS, the protagonist is wanting to sleep rather than be left to her distressed imagination. She longs to dream cotton wool dreams; and the poppy simile clearly reveals that she understands opiate effects as a drug addict would. ('White Horse' is street slang for heroin or cocaine.)
In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Philip K. Dick; filmed as 'Blade Runner,' 1982) there are three distinct groups: humans, "specials," and androids. Specials are damaged humans, no longer considered real humans; they are looked down upon as sub-human. The novel questions what is human and "humanness." Key here is empathy. At the outset of the novel we see Deckard tending to his fake sheep and wishing for a real one... Since the war that caused the radioactive fallout, real animals are scarce and have become status symbols. Caring for an animal means displaying empathy, humanness, signalling that people with pets are not androids. But during the novel, we see that Deckard who is considered human by society is very cold and unfeeling, while Isidore and Rachael who are considered sub- or non-human display much more emotion.
KB's ADOS could thus be a longing for empathy and warmth, a longing to show empathy and warmth, and a compassionate longing to feel human...
3/7
"Nosferatu! Was it he who brought the plague to Bremen in 1838? I have long sought the causes of that terrible epidemic, and found at its origin and its climax the innocent figures of Jonathon Harker and his young wife Nina..." - Nosferatu (1922).
Since at least the Victorian times, the vampire has been associated with sexuality, drug addiction and plague: "The vampire is like the Chinese addicts who began in the late 1800s to inhabit London's East End opium dens. Both are like new diseases arriving from peripheries that attempt to "colonize the center" ... Against such threats, the imperial center summons all its powers of knowledge and mastery of science and technology to defeat the vampire and, in parallel fashion, ultimately to justify legally outlawing the addict" (McMahon, 'The Fall of the God of Money', 2002; pg 16).
Stoker's Dracula uses the vampire as a metaphor for the Victorian view of sex as innately dangerous; and in Murnau's Nosferatu, plague arrives in Bremen by sea, brought from the East by the odious Other, the undead Nosferatu (and 'Nosferatu' means 'plague-carrier').
And they say they take me home Like poppies heavy with seed They take me deeper and deeper...
In And Dream Of Sleep, KB uses the simile 'like poppies heavy with seed'. Opium is the name for the latex produced within the seed pods of the opium poppy. Morphine, the principle ingredient of opium, is named after Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams. Heroin is a processed derivative. The first period of large scale heroin smuggling into the United States since its 1923 prohibition occurred during the years 1967-71 (http://opioids.com/jh/index.html). After injecting heroin, the user reports a surge of euphoria. Most people feel 'a warm glow' (My face is all lit up...), and any concerns become insignificant. After the rush, they enter an alternately wakeful and drowsy state, with substantially reduced psychological pain. In ADOS, the protagonist is wanting to sleep rather than be left to her distressed imagination. She longs to dream cotton wool dreams; and the poppy simile clearly reveals that she understands opiate effects as a drug addict would. ('White Horse' is street slang for heroin or cocaine.)
In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Philip K. Dick; filmed as 'Blade Runner,' 1982) there are three distinct groups: humans, "specials," and androids. Specials are damaged humans, no longer considered real humans; they are looked down upon as sub-human. The novel questions what is human and "humanness." Key here is empathy. At the outset of the novel we see Deckard tending to his fake sheep and wishing for a real one... Since the war that caused the radioactive fallout, real animals are scarce and have become status symbols. Caring for an animal means displaying empathy, humanness, signalling that people with pets are not androids. But during the novel, we see that Deckard who is considered human by society is very cold and unfeeling, while Isidore and Rachael who are considered sub- or non-human display much more emotion.
KB's ADOS could thus be a longing for empathy and warmth, a longing to show empathy and warmth, and a compassionate longing to feel human...