Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla: Bram Stoker’s Inspiration for Dracula

This essay will attempt to discuss the two gothic tales ‘Carmilla’ and ‘Dracula’ in relation to cultural contexts in which they exist as being presented to the reader through the gender behaviour and sexuality that is portrayed through the texts. Vampire stories always seem to involve some aspect of sexuality and power.

Abraham "Bram" Stoker was an Irish author, most famous for his novel Dracula. After working as a daily paper writer, Stoker started composing his realistic novel and incorporated the written work abilities he learned. In order to make the novel more genuine, he included journal sections, letters and telegrams to enable the reader to dive further into his characters. ‘Dracula’ is still today a standout amongst the best-known horror stories composed and is considered a classic. Therefore his life will be investigated since it affected his style and tone of the story, and in addition why ‘Dracula’ is viewed as a classic text.

Bram Stokers, Dracula, from the late-Victorian era, is one of the best stories of vampire folklore. Dracula was tall, dark, handsome, and mysterious with immense sexual character. His snow white teeth which outlined his rosy red lips made us fantasize of him and ultimately become obsessed. The overwhelming fascination of Stoker’s novel has created individuals to overlook the true metaphoric mechanism behind the story. “Technologies of Monstrosity: Bram Stoker’s “Dracula””, Judith Halberstam points out the metaphor in which Dracula was created.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula is not only a classic story of men and monsters, but a dramatic reactionary work to the perceived threats to Victorian society in nineteenth century England. In modern times there have been many film adaptations of the novel, each developing a unique analysis or criticism of the literary text within the framework of the society and time period in which it was created. The 1972 film Blacula is one of the most culturally specific variations on the story of Dracula, and highlights many of the themes and messages found in Stoker’s original text. Among the primary similarities between the novel and the film is the portrayal of race, sexuality, nationality, and culture, and the characterization in each work speaks to the

Bram Stoker’s Dracula does not follow the norm of the nineteenth century novels, that is, it is not written in a straightforward narrative but instead comprises of a collection of letters, journal entries and diary scrawls. Apart from that, it also includes a ship's log, numberless clippings from newspaper and also, a "phonograph diary.” This form of writing invariably helps in developing the “mystery” aspect of this horror novel since it either gives us no information about a particular thing or gives us information from various points of view so that it is impossible for the readers to come to one conclusion and they keep playing with different possibilities in their minds.

Despite the fact that Irishman Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) is arguably replete with Catholic allegory, little critical attention has been paid to its pro-Catholic theme. Nor does any stage or screen adaptation faithfully foreground the text’s Catholicism. The novel’s religious analogy is obvious: in the most basic of his many perversions of Catholic lore, Count Dracula is the figurative anti-Christ who promises eternal life through the ingestion not of sacramental wine representing the blood of Christ, but of actual human blood.

Despite the plot’s complete failure in inciting interest within me, I was intrigued by Stoker’s style and storytelling capabilities. I was constantly curious as to why Stoker was revealing a vast amount of information about the scenery and internal feelings of each character while developing the plot in such a dull manner. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that Stoker is attempting to use rich imagery about both settings and the characters’ emotions to emphasize Count Dracula. While reading each chapter, clear mental images of the settings and the characters’ feelings are formed. Through the story being told from extremely

on the place; this makes us feel anxious to find out where he is going

After reading the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker, we learn many things about the style of writing he used to capture the reader’s attention. We also learned about the main ideas Stoker brought in his writing, like how evil is all around us and how when humans join together, they could overcome the evil. In addition, he also describes the protagonist of the story and the way it behaves throughout the whole story and how it gets involved with all the characters. Last but not least, Stoker shows the reader what he used as a symbol to defeat evil, which helped developed the outcome of the novel.

Dracula reflects both Bram Stoker’s context and his interest in controversial ideas. Use ‘Dracula’ and ‘Van Helsing’ to demonstrate what concepts and concerns have endured and how they have been represented in both texts.

In Bram Stoker’s Dracula, we are introduced to the monster that is Dracula. Throughout his Stoker touches on several themes of Dracula’s monstrosity. This paper will explore Bram Stoker’s Dracula under the theory of, “The Monster Dwells at the Gates of Difference” The rejection of modernity, sexual expression, and the xenophobic threat from Old World Europe are all gates of difference that Stoker touches on.

A woman changes everything; finally there is vindication for the knight who gave up life to avenge the death of his one true love, as he chose to become the undead. Director, Francis Ford Coppola, in his work, “Bram Stoker’s Dracula”, reaches beyond the words to prove Dracula was more than a monster in creating the movie. Coppola focuses on Dracula as a man, as well as a knight, who is both deeply in love with his church and his bride. The historical elements in the writings of Bram Stoker come to life more so in Coppola’s work with the movie, than in the book. My goal of this paper is to prove how the differences between the book and the movie are predominantly in the beginning and in the end of the film and depict Dracula as the man he

Dracula is a novel composed of letters, diary entries, and journal entries. There are also occasionally newspaper clippings in this novel as well. The novel reads as a vampire story in Transylvania. Though Dracula can be read that way, the novel has a “strong religious thrust of this novel has correspondingly been ignored, not to say suppressed…” (Herbert 100). While Dracula often reads as a horror novel and has been interpreted by some readers as anti-religious, it nevertheless contains religious symbols, and Christian themes. This paper argues that Dracula can be read as a salvation narrative.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a novel full of horror, superstition, and evil excitement. It tells the story of a dedicated middle-class group’s challenging experience of destroying the leader of the undead, Dracula. The suspenseful qualities of the novel leave the reader thirsting for more, it is easy to say that this novel was written to entertain the reader. However, I feel there is more to Dracula than just a want to entertain others. Bram Stoker wrote Dracula to also exhibit life and beliefs during the Victorian Era.

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.