Dracula From Dracul The Vampire And Gothic Horror In Literature

Since the beginning of time vampires have been categorized into different "types” and are portrayed in different ways throughout several books. This paper will focus on three vampires from the following books: Dracula by Bram Stoker, and I am Legend by Richard Matheson. Dracula is considered to be the traditional vampire, where it all started, and the vampires in Matheson’s book, follow somewhat Stoker’s concept, but is more of a modern “type” of vampires. Certain vampire elements have been presented, but others have been completely removed or altered. In addition, elements along with appearances are used to infer if the vampire is a form of “the other”. There are two types of vampires; the traditional or modern vampire which can be distinguished based on the elements present in their storyline.

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.

The first writer to introduce the vampire in literature was Lord Byron in the eighteenth century, but the most significant writer to develop the myth was Bram Stoker. He is the „father” of the vampire as he gave a complete description of the vampire in his most famous book” Dracula”. After the release of the book, the myth of the vampire became extremely popular amongst writers and as a consequence the books whose main

The truly shocking and terrible, blood-sucking-monster we once  knew have now changed into beautiful, perfect,and healthy human beings. This paper will discuss the change and the reason why  the change of idea many still accept and like the modern picture of vampires.In order to answer this, I will examine the differences between Bram Stoker's Dracula , the typical figure of horror before, and the soft light just before sunrise or after sunset's Edward Cullen, the obvious example of the 21st century vampire. From this, I will be able to decide out what changed in the features of the vampires we know today.Many would think about Edward Cullen as a "shockingly disrespectful behavior of the vampire old example" (Mole).

A horror classic by Abraham Stocker, Dracula, may be one of the most notorious villain stories of all time. Bram Stocker is a Irish writer who changed the view of what to read in his time. He shows dark and twisted situations and metaphors throughout Dracula and many other of his horror novels. This novel was released in the Victorian era, which saw his type of writing as equivalent to the devil. This era was a long time of peace and bright minded people. Stockers style surprised many readers, because he always has you thinking it can’t get any darker than it is but it always exceeds the previous twisted situation or event. Bram Stocker shows Dracula as an iconic creature, with many reasons to be feared, but displayed in the wrong time era.

They shun the light and crave the taste of blood. The mere thought of them could make a grown man tremble. But what if a vampire wasn’t just a horrific creature of the night? What if they were completely human, enabling them to hide in plain sight? Wouldn’t that make them more dangerous? Due to popular Gothic literature, vampires are commonly romanticized to be pale bloodsuckers that hide in the dark, waiting for their next meal. This version of a vampire makes them easy to spot in literature, but is also very limiting in that it only lends itself to that specific genre. However, a different version, laid out by Thomas Foster, shows how anyone, whether they be fictional or nonfictional, can be considered a vampire through analysis of

Vampires have been around for centuries, they represent the fear of many things such as sexuality, race, gender, etc. and above all, they stand for the fear of diseases. Vampires have once been the symbol of horror due to their terrific depictions and were described as a threat to the humanity. Throughout time, the image of vampire has changed dramatically from a monstrous, inhumanely creature that doesn’t belong to human society to such an attractive and adaptive figure that expresses more of the human side than the evil. They developed human feelings, senses, and live within our society. Modern vampire movies are often more romantic and “sympathetic” comparing to the past. Vampires have abandoned their horror and evolved to a more

“” this is the definition of folklore, and from these stories we get a multitude of myths and speculation of what happens to us when we die. They range from just disappearing into nothingness to becoming a higher being or going into a higher plain of existence. There are ideas however, of a life on this earth after we die for those who have committed crimes or have not been buried properly, we become the other, the supernatural or ultimately the undead. The most common of which is the vampire. One of the most known vampires from literature is Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ (1897) who is portrayed as a blood thirty, emotionless monster, which is the idea most often portrayed in folklore. This is a stark contrast from Anne Rice’s (1976) portal of a “” . The traditional idea of a monstrous creature who haunts the night is seen as an old idea and that people’s views of the supernatural are changing to a more humane, beautiful creature, not of a demon. This could be due to the popularity in teen and young adult fiction that happened in the late 1900’s. This change from traditional folklore is due to “” the way we perceive things are changing due to the influence of different cultures and ideas. Most of our ideas of vampires have changed from the traditional views to a beautiful human creature: seen in ‘Twilight’, ‘Vampire Knight’, ‘Vampire Academy’, and ‘Anita Blake’. These novels do have some elements of the monster portrayed in ‘Dracula’ and folklore but the main characters are the

Values are malleable as they adapt to context, unlike conventions which remain constant through all frameworks. Bram Stoker’s Dracula upholds conventions which have persisted through centuries of time and diverse modes of communication. Identical conventions are distinct in all Vampiric and Gothic texts, such as Stephen Sommers’ film Van Helsing, and Cyber-Ducks Dracula: The Interactive Comic. Although the three mentioned texts preserve invariable conventions, they uphold values that have accommodated for different audiences. The latter two appropriations of Dracula are composed for a modern audience, and therefore portray different values to Bram Stoker’s original text. The most apparent change is acknowledged through Dracula highlighting

Different depictions of vampires are commonly exhibited in vampire folklore in past and present literature and film. The diversity of different variations of vampire legends are prominently seen in most literature, but the main ideas and attributes are generally the same. This is not that case when focusing on specific novels discussed in class. The novels I Am Legend by Richard Matheson and Fledgling by Octavia Butler are two contrasting works of vampire folklore. The novels are about different societies of vampires. They both emerged in different ways, the survive and feed in contrasting ways, and they both represent completely different forms of vampires. This essay will examine the characterizations of the contrasting the vampire species in both I Am Legend and Fledgling, as well as, investigating how these different species of vampires relate to human species.

As one of the most attractive and enduring figures in the Gothic literature, the vampires have moved from being a peripheral element with the genre to a place near the center and are capable of generating its own massive tradition now. In the recent literary history, they have already been adapted to play a role of a rebel against the moral, social, religious, and even sexual taboos. Put simply, the vampires are now a metaphor of human beings in the modern society and life.

In this article it shows how the vampire started as a bloodthirsty monster in stories and how the eventually evolved into the modern envisage seen in media. What makes this important for the thesis, is the evolution form the first stories that spurred this villain in the shadows. The evolution of the vampire across the cultures is a very important aspect for research within this paper in order to fully describe how this creature was first envisioned in the early folklore to what we see today in the recent adaptations. Attempting to describe this progression without bringing to the forefront the classics such as Bram Stokers would be a large disservice to this paper.

The Gothic genre does suppress vulnerable women. They are exploited in order to please the tyrannical male and feed his desires. When the women is no longer of use, she is then discarded. The Gothic genre is described as ‘formulaic” and one of the key features is a tyrannical male who abuses his power to assert his dominance over a perceived futile women. Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ was written in time where women started to want more equal rights and opportunities. For example, in the same year Dracula was published (1897), Millicent Fawcett founded ‘The National Union of Women’s Suffrage’. Bram Stoker feared the decline of the patriarchal figure and could have created ‘Dracula’ as an attempt to scaremonger the public into thinking what would

The legend of the vampire has emerged countless times within human imagination over the past few centuries. The first available representation of the mythical creature in prose fiction can be found in John Polidori’s “The Vampyre” (1810). It was not until eight decades later that Bram Stoker popularized the existence of this figure with the publication of “Dracula” in 1897. The folklore of the vampire has come a long way since and can be found in today’s popular media more frequently than ever before. However, with due course of time, the representation of the creature has taken alternate routes and today’s vampires are noticeable different – socially and physically – from their predecessors. One effective path to trace this

how Van Helsing is still Dracula’s antagonist and becomes the leader of a group to destroy Dracula for loved ones and humanity. Although, in the movie such as Twilight and the Underworld trilogy, the common enemy for vampires were werewolves. In the movies, they were enemies or rivalries to see who was better, but at the end of each movie the enemies came together to fight another enemy such as another group of vampires or humans. Then they won the fights together, and stayed allies but different territories for the vampires and werewolves. Overall, Van Helsing and werewolves are the most famous enemies for Dracula or any other vampire.