According to Dictonary.com a vampire can be described as, “A preternatural being, commonly believed to be a reanimated corpse, which is said to suck the blood of sleeping persons at night.” Dracula fits into that definition of a vampire perfectly, because vampires are essentially dead people that came back to life to drink other people’s blood, and that is exactly what Dracula does in the story. He goes around capturing any victim that he could possibly get, Jonathan would be a prime example, although he did not completely get him. Furthermore, Dracula makes people think that vampires have to be exactly the same and act the same way. It sets the way for modern day television and movies. Although Stoker didn’t create the concept of …show more content…
As Mina tried to figure out why Jonathan was getting angry she just turned around and saw a figure that was “… very pale, and his eyes seemed bulging out as, half in terror and half amazement, he gazed at a tall, thin man, with a beaky nose and black moustache and pointed beard” (Stoker 183). Apparently, Dracula has a beard and a moustache. In most stories Dracula is tall and thin, so that is typical and fits the stereotype that he set. Dracula’s image is not where the media and today’s television is making him a stereotype, because on most television shows the vampire doesn’t even look tall, thin, and mysterious. Most of the time, their faces are clean shaven with no beard or moustache.
It is typical that vampires cannot come outside during the daylight, but modern television had also changed that concept. In Jonathan’s journal entry on May 8th, he says: “All at once we heard the crow of a cock coming up with preternatural shrillness through the clear morning air; Count Dracula, jumping to his feet, said:--‘Why, there is the morning again!” (Stoker 26). This example shows how Dracula has to rush to his feet when he sees sunlight, so that he does not burn in the light. That is the reason that there are absolutely no windows anywhere in Castle Dracula. This quote is also not the only time that Dracula has rushed up to his feet in order to avoid the sunlight and getting burned. When Dracula or any of the
Dracula is one of the earliest and successful vampire novels in history, which is why Dracula is considered to be the traditional vampire. Beginning with the fact that Dracula must sleep during the day, otherwise he will weaken in sunlight. The first clue was Jonathan Harker’s thought, “I have not yet seen the Count in the daylight” (Bram Stoker, 49). His thought is later proved to be true when Harker sneaks into Dracula’s room and is said, “There in one of the great boxes, of which there were fifty in all, on a pile of newly dug earth, lay the Count” (50). The next being the obvious and most important is his consumption of blood. Another element is he is petrified of
The 1992 movie adaptation of Dracula is quite loyal to the book. However it made quite an exaggeration in Dracula and Mina’s connection. Also there are fabricated parts in the movie, particularly the way it begins having the origin of Vlad the impaler that is not technically found in Stoker’s writing. Character of Dracula is not that scary as it was in the book than being projected visually in the screen. Perhaps to have a more impact in viewers’ emotions. Some scenes were also fractured in the movie, for instance is Mina’s and Lucy’s stay in Whitby which never occurred in the book. Even so, the film had interpreted the book well and it although some scenes were fractured, it did not depart much
In addition to his actions, much has previously been made of Dracula's physical appearance. However, as Stevenson so aptly puts it, Dracula's physical appearance is only "a convenient metaphor to describe the undeniable human tendency to separate 'us' from 'them' " (140).
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 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
Dracula is a novel written by Bram Stoker during the late 1800’s. The book starts out with Jonathan Harker, who is a smart young business man, who wants to travel to Count Dracula for a business ordeal. Many locals from the European area warned Jonathan about Count Dracula, and would offer him crosses and other trinkets to help fend against him. Mina, who is at the time Jonathans soon to be wife, visits to catch up with an old friend named Lucy Westenra. Lucy gives Mina an update on her love life telling her how she’s been proposed to by three different men. The men are introduced as Dr. Seward, Arthur Holmwood, and Quincey Morris. Unfortunately for her she will need to reject two of the men, and Lucy ends up choosing to marry Holmwood. Later on after Mina visits Lucy, Lucy starts to sleep walk, becomes sick, and then finds out she has bite marks on her throat. Due to this incident, another new character is introduced who happens to be Van Helsing. As the novel progresses, lady vampires are introduced and Lucy is eventually turned into one of the lady vampires as well. With the introduction of female vampires, the novel Dracula turns into a sexual and sensational novel by Bram Stoker. The female characters in the book are overly sexualized to where we can compare it to how women are viewed from back then in history to today’s world.
In the novel's world, Dracula has many mystical powers, some which has been shown only on several occasions and some which he uses for his daily life. Dracula also has a very unique personality, which could tempt women and make them vulnerable. This means, Dracula could dominate every human being individually, not as a group. His powers and personality has something in common. Count Dracula uses his powers and unique abilities as a tool to ridicule religions and God's decisions and as a great threat to the mainstream society.
Dracula's embodiment of desire played to both genders differently, but the major allure of Dracula's eternal life was one that was not exclusive to a specific class. As said by Punter, "Dracula is passion which never dies, the endless desire of the unconscious for gratification." (Punter,26). Here, Punter is describing the pleasure of eternal passion. As is the norm, people feel the most confident about appearance when they are youngest, and as time progresses we see the emotional ramification of age as well.
Dracula has multi-personalities in the novel Dracula, such as charming when he needed to be charming; and then cruel, nasty, and hostile, at other times. Dracula’s “force”, you could say, had effect on the personalities of several people. Dracula’s main themes he brought out in people were the kind, noble, and brave sides of people, and the more unpleasant sides of people, such as the vicious, easily disliked, and possessed sides of people.
Blood sucking, shapeshifting, killer… These are just some of the myths attached to Count Dracula. Dracula is a vampire, and as we all know, vampires consume blood. In the novel, the author Bram Stoker never mentions how Dracula became a vampire (every other vampire was created off of Dracula), however Van Helsing thinks that he made a deal with the Devil and traded his mortality for that of a cursed soul in return for something else. A lot of myths are attached to Dracula, which is
The late nineteenth century Irish novelist, Bram Stoker is most famous for creating Dracula, one of the most popular and well-known vampire stories ever written. Dracula is a gothic, “horror novel about a vampire named Count Dracula who is looking to move from his native country of Transylvania to England” (Shmoop Editorial Team). Unbeknownst of Dracula’s plans, Jonathan Harker, a young English lawyer, traveled to Castle Dracula to help the count with his plans and talk to him about all his options. At first Jonathan was surprised by the Count’s knowledge, politeness, and overall hospitality. However, the longer Jonathan remained in the castle the more uneasy and suspicious he became as he began to realize just how strange and different
“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
The characters in Dracula are very Gothic. Dracula is the most important antagonist in the novel. Dracula is a very if not the most interesting Gothic character ever created. He like all vampires casts no shadow and possesses no reflection. Dracula cannot die by the mere passing of time for he is
They come in the night, flying from their graves in the form of bats. If not stopped, they will nefariously kill the members of their own families, and then go on to take the lives of others. They are vampires –corpses that rise from their coffins in the middle of the night, seeking out living victims whose blood they drink to sustain their unnatural existence. The most famous of all vampires is Count Dracula, a fictional character made famous in books and movies. Dracula is portrayed as a tall,
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