Bram Stoker’s Dracula

Gothic literature is dominated by gothic horror, for instance dark and mysterious objects or events. It is a type of literature that combines fiction, horror, and romanticism. As Bram Stoker wrote his famous novel, Dracula he makes sure to include many different characteristics of gothic literature. Three important motifs that are stated in Dracula which also fit into the gothic literature category would be; blood, dreaming or nightmares, and superstition. This particular novel has many gothic motifs, but these are three that I believe really stand out.

Harker also seems to develop signs of paranoia. An early sign of this paranoia is when Harker accepts the rosary from the old lady at the inn before he continued on with his journey. He did not know how to react to this, stating in his journal that “as an English churchman, I have been taught to regard such things as in some measure idolatrous” This shows the opening signs of paranoia, having neurotic ideas. He does not accept that he is the one going against his views, he instead decides to pin it on the old lady for being so kind in her offer. As he stays in Dracula’s castle, Harker begins to feel trapped, as well stated on page 27. He fights this feeling in many ways. One that stands out though is his method of writing the letters he’s allowed to write by Count Dracula. He keeps them short and concise, for fear that the Count may read them. This demonstrates a fear of being watched, and can also be accounted for as paranoia.

Stoker’s novel Dracula, presents the fear of female promiscuity, for which vampirism is a metaphor. Such fear can be related to the time in which Dracula was written, where strict Victorian gender norms and sexual mores stipulated

After decades of cheesy horror movies, the image of vampires has been misconstrued as sparkly, angsty teenage boys or handsome men that lure in girls for the fresh blood of a virgin. Many of these stereotypical vampires are influenced by the story of Dracula, held in the Victorian era. Yet, many of the stories published about vampires diverge from the message that Bram Stoker is trying to make. During the Victorian period, sexuality is repressed by society, as sexual behaviors from women are viewed as unacceptable. In the Gothic horror novel Dracula, Bram Stoker uses the traumatic experience of Jonathan Harker at Count Dracula’s castle and the invasion of vampires in Great Britain to create a social commentary on the sexual repression occurring in this era and its detrimental effect on the men.

Dracula by Bram Stoker is the original vampire book, the one that started it all. From it derived the now so beloved and famous teen-romance vampire genre, with novels like Twilight. However, Dracula is not remotely like the sparkle-in-the-sunlight, falling-in-love-with-mortals vampire any more than Harry Potter is like the Wicked Witch of the West. Dracula is a gothic horror novel set in Transylvania and England during the Victorian Era. Letters, diary entries, and newspaper clippings from the viewpoint of several characters tell the story, allowing for a wide variety of viewpoints that highlight happenings in Dracula as well as present the social issues pertained within. While it contains action, suspense, horror, and romance, it also displays the corruption within the everyday society. The way the women are presented, interacted with, and how Count Dracula affects them brings forth the issues within the Victorian society, especially the men’s treatment of women and the different social and gender roles, which Stoker uses to highlight the situational irony found within the novel.

The story of Dracula is well documented and has stood the test of time since it’s Victorian age creation. More times than not, literature writings are a reflection of the era from which they are produced. In the case of Dracula, Vampire literature expresses the fears of a society. Which leads me to the topic I chose to review: sexuality. The Victorian Era was viewed as a period diluted in intense sexual repression and I believe that Dracula effectively exploited this as the fear of sexuality was commonplace in the society. In this paper I will examine Bram Stoker’s Dracula and highlight his use of sexuality. I will analysis the female sexuality that is prevalent throughout the book, the complexities are at work within the text, and the

In Dracula, Stoker portrays the typical women: The new woman, the femme fatale and the damsel in distress, all common concepts in gothic literature. There are three predominant female roles within Dracula: Mina Murray, Lucy Westenra and the three vampire brides, all of which possess different attributes and play different roles within the novel. It is apparent that the feminine portrayal within this novel, especially the sexual nature, is an un-doubtable strong, reoccurring theme.

Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” is a story about a Vampire named Count Dracula and his journey to satisfy his lust for blood. The story is told through a series of individuals’ journal entries and a letters sent back and forth between characters. Bram Stoker shows the roll in which a certain gender plays in the Victorian era through the works of Dracula. This discussion not only consists of the roll a certain gender takes, but will be discussing how a certain gender fits into the culture of that time period as well as how males and females interact among each other. The Victorian era was extremely conservative when it came to the female, however there are signs of the changing into the New Woman inside of Dracula. Essentially the woman was to be assistance to a man and stay pure inside of their ways.

Of course, throughout the novel we see that vampirism most equates with sexuality.  Without overdoing a Freudian analysis of the story, there are enough sexual references to satisfy the least Victorian in nature among us.  However, the Victorian repression theme plays a role in the sexuality of the novel because though good women and men were able to control their sexual appetites in Victorian society, we see them unable to resist giving into their desires in Dracula.  As Carrol Fry writes "Mina says:  'Strangely enough, I did not want to hinder him'.  But perhaps the most suggestive passage in the novel occurs when Jonathan Harker describes his experienced while in a trance induced by Dracula's wives.  As the fair bride approaches him, he finds in her a 'deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive,' and he feels 'a wicked, burning desire that they would kiss me with those red lips'" (Carter  38).

Bram Stoker, our author, was born in Clontarf (an area near Dublin), Ireland in early November of 1847. He was accomplished in many fields, including athletics, but he was, and probably still is, seen as the most

Dracula is a novel that indulges its male reader’s imagination, predominantly on the topic of female sexuality. When Dracula was first published, Victorian women’s sexual behaviour was extremely restricted by social expectations. To be classed as respectable, a women was either a virgin or a wife. If she was not either, she was considered a whore. We begin to understand once Dracula arrives in Whitby, that the novel has an underlying battle between good and evil, which will hinge on female sexuality. Both Lucy Westenra and Wilhelmina “Mina” Murray embody two-dimensional virtues that have been associated with female. They are both virgins, whom are innocent from the evils of the world and that are devoted to their men. Dracula’s arrival threatens those virtues, threatening to turn Lucy and Mina into the opposites, noted for their voluptuousness, which could lead to an open sexual desire.

Bram Stoker’s ingenious piece of work on writing Dracula has set the expectation for gothic novels all over the world and time to come. The mindset of writing Dracula through the Victorian Era really sets the tone for the reader by creating a spine-tingling sensation right through the novel. With this in mind, Stoker wouldn’t have been able to succeed his masterpiece without the effective uses of symbolism, imagery, foreshadowing, and its overall theme.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a story that narrates the association between a woman and a small group of men led by Professor Abraham Van Helsing that counteracts with Count Dracula. The Count Dracula travels from Transylvania to England to change human beings into something they refer to as, “foul things of the night like him, without heart or conscience, preying on the bodies and the souls of these (they) love best” (p. 223). The author utilizes the epistolary format in the short story (Cranny-Francis 38). Today, Dracula is the most loved epistolary works written in the nineteenth century but representing the current situations in the society. Literary the term epistolary stories represent novels written from various sources documents such as newspaper clippings, letters, and journals (McNally 18). Bram Stoker achieves the effects of using the epistolary style in conveying the characters inner states through different story setups and broad descriptions that develop the conscious self and the context (Cranny-Francis 64). The paper analyzes the gender roles as depicted in the short story by Bram Stoker.

“He speaks in perfect English and welcomes Harker inside, shaking his hand with an ice-cold, vice-like grip” (Dracula, 55). Dracula explains to him that he will no be able to make the trip to London, but one of his trusted servants will be going along with Harker back to London. After supper Jonathan analyzes Dracula and notices one very strange feature, his mouth is thick and white; they cover sharp white teeth, which stick out over his lip. What Jonathan does not know is that those teeth are canine teeth only found in animals. There are exceptions, for instance, vampires have these teeth so they can puncture the human’s carotid vessel in their neck and suck their blood. The first time that Jonathan sees Dracula’s cannibal teeth grow is when Harker starts shaving. He accidentally cuts himself and Dracula leaps for his throat so he can suck his blood. Harker touches his crucifix and Dracula’s “demonic fury” vanishes. The strangest event that Harker notices in Dracula’s castle is “Dracula emerge from his room on the floor below, slither out, head downward, in lizard fashion, with his cloak spread out around him like great wings” (Dracula, 179). This shows that “Dracula is not a person. He is a presence, an absence that requires concealing” (Wolf, 368). This tells Harker that something is very wrong with this man. He recalls how the peasants behaved

Dracula uses his supernatural powers to feed his fascination with youth and innocence. In the beginning of the novel, when Dracula is first encountered, he is described as old, although “His face was strong… [his] lips, whose ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years… The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor.” (27). This description of the Count shows that while he is old, he still possess some attributes and features of the young. Once Dracula finds that the men have made a bond against him, he makes a bond to take all of their women. He succeeds in transforming Lucy and scaring her mother to death, although Mina is stronger and the men save her by killing Dracula. Also, the three women vampires in his home are past conquests of beautiful, young women. Dracula only sucks the blood of young women in the novel reflecting his hunger for youth and innocence. As the