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Halberstam, Judith. (1993). Technologies of Monstrosity: Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”. Indiana University Press, 36, 333-352. Spencer, L. Kathleen. (1992). In Purity and Danger: Dracula, The Urban Gothic, and the Late Victorian Degeneracy Crisis. The John Hopkins University Press, 59, 197-225.

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.

This is the main aim of this investigation - to identify and discuss the factors which influenced the constantly changing literary and cultural depiction of vampires. What turned the symbol of threat and horror into a mysterious outsider?

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

Gothicism has been a very popular genre of book, through past and present, and Bram Stoker’s, Dracula, is no exception. One of the most widely read novels of all time, Dracula possesses all the features of a classic gothic novel. The various dark and dreary features throughout the entire novel paints a perfect gothic picture for the reader and contribute to the mixture of feelings One gets while reading Dracula. The first feature of Gothicism found in Dracula is a constant and oppressive darkness. This feature is a reoccurring theme that is related to everything in the novel from the characters to the events that take place. Another feature found in Dracula is presence of a

Vampires have aroused a perennial fascination within humanity since their fictional materialization into history. However, it is over the course of the last century that these creatures have become an iconic symbol of mystifying horror and inexplicable desire. Recently, the vampire has undergone a significant reconstruction of physical appearance, behaviour, and surroundings, along with, extensive modifications to its super-natural disadvantages. These distinct character adaptations are imperative when considering two of the most notable vampires ever fashioned: Count Dracula and Edward Cullen. The dissimilarity between Bram Stoker’s 19th century, Count Dracula, and Stephenie Meyer’s 21st century, Edward Cullen, is a complex reflection of the contrasting societies from which these vampires emerged.

But this horrifying haunt kept readers looking over their shoulders with his despicably wicked ways. Unlike any other vampire of that time, Count Dracula rose to a level of infamy which has lasted for over one hundred years. Like the Wallachian Prince Vlad Dracula, Count Dracula possessed the same “heavy mustache” and terrifying aura (Dracula pg. 16). Even the historical Dracula had a taste for human blood for “as he dined beneath impaled bodies, he dipped his bread in the blood flowing down the hideous spikes, while his servants collected blood in a cup from which the prince drank with great enjoyment” (Searching for the Real Dracula pg.

The glorification of vampires has changed the original view of the monster. Monsters in classic literature were in-human, scary-looking creatures that were inherently evil for varying reasons. Vampires were something to be afraid of, and something that no one would want to find on a dark, cold night. However, in popular culture, vampires have changed dramatically. Because of Hollywood, vampires are revered as the epitome of sexy.

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.

“Dracula” a novel by Bram Stoker, deals with vampire folklore, Christian beliefs, and mostly gothic elements. Gothic elements are tremendous in this novel as it is seen a lot throughout the novel. The components of classic gothic elements as seen in “Dracula” includes the setting of the novel, the tone, a villainous character, and the fact that there is a hero that is struggling against an inescapable fate. Bram Stoker uses gothic elements such as isolated settings, gloom and doom, and secret passages in Dracula in which portray it

All too often the gothic literature genre is reduced in its interpretation to gloomy weather and archaic haunted houses. These patterns do exist, but they do not define the genre. Gothic literature found its niche in the 18th and 19th centuries, and during the Victorian era it served a more nuanced purpose than simply to scare readers. Many gothic authors used a monster as a vessel to symbolize topics that the Victorian era sensibilities would label as “monstrous.” They are the incarnation of the taboo subjects society is trying to repress. In Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Edgar Allan Poe’s “A Tell-Tale Heart”, the authors use Freudian symbolism along with literary symbolism to demonstrate the repercussions of repressing “id” desires.

“The idea of an undead night-stalker that feeds on human blood has been around for centuries and endures to this day. Numerous countries and cultures across the globe have personal deviations of a similar folkloric entity. No matter the variation, all vampire tales have a key commonality—the lust for human blood. It was not until the late 19th century that an Irish author compiled a breadth of knowledge on such folkloric tales and concocted the character that now acts as the template for the vampire myth. Bram Stoker’s Dracula was first published in 1897 and from that point forward the novelist’s title character set the precedent for all fictional vampires.” -The Evolution of the Vampire in Fiction and Popular Culture

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

Gothic as a genre is concerned with the past, which is conveyed through both historical settings and narrative interruptions of the past into the present. The word “Gothic” has a long usage, with its origins linked back to the northern European peoples who sacked Rome in the fifth century AD. The term re-emerged in the seventeenth century in Britain as a style of architecture, in which it ignores the clean lines and curves of Classical styles with pointed arches,

“I believe the stones of Gothic revival architecture, the terrors painted by Gothic painters, and the words of the great Gothic novelists, amount to nothing less than a secret history of Britain itself during its greatest age of change.” (Graham-Dixon 2014)