Compare And Contrast Dracula And The City Of Ember

    In the novel Dracula, by Bram Stoker, there is much evidence of foreshadowing and parallels to other myths.  Dracula was not the first story featuring a vampire myth, nor was it the last.  Some would even argue that it was not the best.  However, it was the most original, using foreshadowing and mood to create horrific imagery, mythical parallels to draw upon a source of superstition, and original narrative elements that make this story unique.

While Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Polidori’s The Vampyre share some minor details, mostly regarding the basics of vampires and the location and date in which the stories take place, the majority of the stories differ greatly. The Vampyre was published almost a hundred years earlier, so it is easy to see how some details of that story can be seen in Dracula. Bram Stoker no doubt must have used The Vampyre as an influence, but only as an influence, as his story has its own unique details regarding characters and plot. I will discuss how the stories of The Vampyre and Dracula begin in a similar fashion, and then explain how there are key differences in narration,

Are there still connections between Bram Stokers famous novel Dracula and modern day society? In Dracula, Stoker expands on many themes that indeed exist today. Not only does he touch on the most obvious theme, sex. He expands on gender division and good versus evil. Some say since times have changed the themes I introduced have changed as well, leaving connections between then and now irrelevant. However, I feel that although times have changed they still have roots from the time of the novel to now. In this essay I will expand on the themes of this novel while connecting them to modern day society, the critical texts I have chosen and will mention later on in the essay are a good representation of the commonalities between the chill, dark Victorian days in which the era that Dracula was written in and modern day.

The novel, Dracula, was written by Bram Stoker in the late eighteen hundreds. The setting of Dracula is during the end of the nineteenth century, in England and Eastern Europe. The entirety of the novel is based on a vampire with heinous intentions that he casts upon a group of English citizens whom decide to rid the town of his evil. While reading the novel it is apparent that the genre is horror and gothic and that the tone is very dark and dramatic. Bram Stoker does this in a very intentional way. Therefore, discovering the ways Stoker implements Dracula into the criteria of the gothic fiction genre is simple.

The novel Dracula is a very popular book that was written in the form of Gothic Literature. This novel was written by Bram Stoker in the Victorian Age. A large portion of this piece of writing deals with many famous Gothic motifs. Gothic Literature combines the usual Gothic horror with fiction and Romanticism (Wikipedia). A motif is a distinctive symbol or dominant idea used in literature. So therefore, a Gothic motif is a literary symbol that usually combines fiction with either horror or romance. Bram Stoker’s usage of Gothic motifs not only helps define Dracula as a piece of Gothic Literature, but also helps the reader become better acquainted with what is happening in the novel. Gothic motifs are found in many different forms in pieces of work, and if readers are already accustomed to these motifs, it makes reading Dracula clearer and easier. Stoker uses many different Gothic motifs throughout this novel, but there are only a few that are the more important and stand out from the rest. These motifs are: castles and strange places, power and constraint, and revenants.

By presenting Count Dracula as an evil, demonic being, the story is therefore laid out as a fight between good and evil. Contrastively, the vampires in I Am Legend are not physically described in as much detail, but rather the details and attention are focused on their behaviour and their origin. The horror aspects of these vampires are pushed to the side and the readers are made to focus solely on their threatening presence as they prowl around at night and hunt for Neville while he, in turn, tries to discover what the specific virus that infected the world and caused the vampire epidemic. These differences are key in setting up how the readers respond to the novels’ plot and themes.

Most people wonder where the idea of vampires came from and how did the first one come about. The novel, Dracula, starts and was written in, the nineteenth century during the Victorian era. The Victorian people had certain beliefs about Christianity and the roles of men and women in society. Women were allowed only to do certain things and were expected to do specific things in regards to men. The Victorian people also had their own interpretation of superstitions. Stoker introduced the Victorian people to gothic elements in his literary works. In literature, gothic novels often use gothic elements to support their themes and the mood. Since Dracula is a gothic novel Stoker used the same gothic element technique to portray various themes and ideas for the specific time era. In the novel, Dracula, Bram Stoker uses gothic elements to establish the vampire tradition and supports the theme of Good versus Evil for the Victorian audience.

Evil features in both ‘Dracula’ and ‘Frankenstein’ but the personification of this evil is different in both novels. A feeling of menace and doom pervades ‘Dracula’ because of his supernatural powers. One feels that he has control of the evil and he has the power to manipulate the environment and people for his own ends. ‘Frankenstein’ centres on the creation of a monster made from parts of dead bodies and the fear created by the monster due to circumstance and the ignorance of society. Also, one feels a certain amount of apprehension that the monster is deserted by his creator and loses control without his support and guidance.

Comparing the 1931 version of Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi, with Frances Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula 1993 version yields some similarities. Both films are of the same genre: Horror. Both films are set around the same time period. Also, both deal with a vampire coming to England and causing disruptions in people's lives. Beyond these few similarities are

Bram Stoker’s use of characterization and imagery to convey one of his many themes in the book Dracula. In Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the author uses characterization and imagery to convey the theme, Follow your instincts.

In the 1897 novel “Dracula” by Bram Stoker, a vampire named Count Dracula is brought about and brung into the “real world”. Many stories, books, movies, and games have developed from this novel. In the novel, Dracula has a lot of myths attached to him. These myths are what make him a vampire, and so when other people come up with these new stories or books or movies, they also implement myths into their characters to give them life as a vampire. In every story, most of the characters are considered either “bad” and “evil” or “good” and “friendly”. These labels are based on the characters actions, thoughts (when possible), and personality traits. In Dracula, Count Dracula would primarily be classified as the antagonist and evil. As previously mentioned, this is based on the fact that he made evil decisions, and had very bad qualities about him. However, in Twilight, Edward is a much more difficult character to label. Him and the Count have many similarities, however they are also much different.

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.

The theme in Dracula is that classic Gothic theme of the epic battle of good versus evil. In this novel this is expressed in a very direct way, there is never any question as to who is right and who is wrong. As it can be clearly seen the protagonists on the side of good have many endearing qualities while the antagonists on the side of evil have a pact with Lucifer and are of the purest evil. The main antagonist in this story, Dracula, has

Count Dracula lives in a Gothic period castle in Transylvania. He is an aristocratic nobleman who possesses gentlemanly manners but uses it to conceal his evil intentions of regaining feudal power over people. Jonathan Harker is a young and intelligent lawyer from London who visits

The Vampire in Dracula threatens the very existence of Victorian England. Stoker constructs the vampire as an embodiment of threat by surpassing his Gothic novelist predecessors to bring the threat of the Gothic home to Victorian England (Arata 119). This in turn crosses the boundary between what is foreign and what is national; and dually East and West. Dracula is open to many