Psychoanalytical Analysis of Bram Stoker's 'Dracula'

The most notable theme in ‘Dracula’ and ‘Carmilla’ is sex and how the authors express the theme through their characters. Sexuality is an important theme in these novels as the Victorian culture was about supressing women and keeping them constrained to gender roles. Although in Dracula it is not just about female sexual repression but also about sexual awakening for many of the characters. Harker seems to have a sexual awakening in Dracula’s castle when he meets the three vampire brides of Dracula. Harker writes in his journal “There was something about them that made me uneasy, some longing and at the same time some deadly fear.

Desire and fear some of the most prominent emotions exhibited in Dracula. Bram Stoker, Nosferatu, F.W. Murnau, Dracula, Tod Browning, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Francis Ford Coppola. “Human characters are caught up in the struggle between these emotions when it comes to vampires; this opposition drives forward the different plots… vampire attributes such as physical attraction, sexuality, power and thoughtless violence are common threads throughout the studied works. Characters in these stories fear the powerful abilities of vampires, yet show an unmistakable pull towards them. The vampires in all of these works incorporate physical attraction, sensuality, and awesome power. They often use this superhuman strength

Jonathan Harker starts off the book with his journal of his travels to meet count Dracula, and begins to regret ever leaving home soon after. Jonathan is very observant, noting details throughout his journey; he remembers foreign words to look up, many details of the journey to the castle, and sees “a faint flickering blue flame” many times off in the distance

Stoker additionally explores aspects of the feudal system through the idea of free will. Upon arriving at Castle Dracula, Harker is greeted with ‘Welcome to my house, enter freely and of your own will’. It seems Harker is free to do as he wishes, however Harker is now at the mercy of his new surroundings and the Count. Harker recognizes similarities between the Count and the driver, who transports him to the castle: ‘the strength of the hand shake was so much akin to that which I noticed in the driver’, subsequently, for Harker to leave he would need 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.

Stoker’s novel Dracula, presents the fear of female promiscuity, for which vampirism is a metaphor. Such fear can be related to the time in which Dracula was written, where strict Victorian gender norms and sexual mores stipulated

The setting of Bram Stoker’s Dracula is in the late nineteenth-century London, where the flourishing of technology is replacing people’s belief of the old superstitious ways. The characters in this novel experience contacts with the supernatural beings that is unable to be proven even by the most advanced technology at the time, which leads them to doubt their own sanity. However, the progression of the novel proves that peace is restored into the characters’ lives after their doubts and confusions about what is reality and who is really mad. Ultimately, the categorization of the sane against the mad is unnecessary since the distinguishing factors shown in the novel are ambiguous. Subsequently, no characters can

In Dracula, Stoker portrays the typical women: The new woman, the femme fatale and the damsel in distress, all common concepts in gothic literature. There are three predominant female roles within Dracula: Mina Murray, Lucy Westenra and the three vampire brides, all of which possess different attributes and play different roles within the novel. It is apparent that the feminine portrayal within this novel, especially the sexual nature, is an un-doubtable strong, reoccurring theme.

Of course, throughout the novel we see that vampirism most equates with sexuality.  Without overdoing a Freudian analysis of the story, there are enough sexual references to satisfy the least Victorian in nature among us.  However, the Victorian repression theme plays a role in the sexuality of the novel because though good women and men were able to control their sexual appetites in Victorian society, we see them unable to resist giving into their desires in Dracula.  As Carrol Fry writes "Mina says:  'Strangely enough, I did not want to hinder him'.  But perhaps the most suggestive passage in the novel occurs when Jonathan Harker describes his experienced while in a trance induced by Dracula's wives.  As the fair bride approaches him, he finds in her a 'deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive,' and he feels 'a wicked, burning desire that they would kiss me with those red lips'" (Carter  38).

Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a story of horror, suspense, and repulsion. The main antagonist, Count Dracula, is depicted as an evil, repulsive creature that ends and perverts life to keep himself alive and youthful. To most onlookers that may be the case, but most people fail to see one crucial element to this character. Dracula is a character that, though it may be long gone, was once human, and thus has many human emotions and motives still within him. Let us delve into these emotions of a historically based monster.

The first relationship explored in the novel, that of Dracula and Jonathan, defies the constraints of heteronormative sexuality. Dracula’s interest in seducing, penetrating and draining another male are desires that are acted out in the novel, however not solely by the Count himself, but instead by his three vampiric paramours. The homoerotic desire between Dracula and Jonathan is offered a feminine form for the masculine penetration that is being detailed (Craft,

Although in modern times people are exposed to sexuality from a young age through advertisements, media, and pop culture, during the Victorian era in England, the only acceptable exploration of repressed sexual desire was through a book that upholds the Christian belief of sexuality’s corruptive effects on society. In Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a gothic, horror novel, Dracula, a vampire from Transylvania, preys on Mina Harker, a devoted Christian and intelligent woman, and Lucy Westenra, an innocent, young woman pursued by three suitors, by luring them and sucking their blood; the women and their suitors form a gang of vampire fighters who track and eventually kill Dracula defeating his devilry with the forces of

In a particular addition of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, Maurice Hindle had suggested that “sex was the monster Stoker feared most.” This essay will examine the examples of this statement in the Dracula text, focusing on female sexuality. The essay will also briefly look at an article Stoker had written after Dracula which also displays Stoker’s fear.

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.

This lack of maternal instinct is reaffirmed in Stoker’s work in two separate instances: when Lucy lures small children in order to consume them and feed off of their vitality, and in the scene where the Count takes a newborn to be devoured by the three monstrous women. Insatiable, these femme fatales are also responsible for the physical decline of Jonathan Harker; they consume his blood and strength, in a clear allusion to nineteenth-century representations involving the unbridled consumption of female desires and sexuality: “He is young and strong; there are kisses for us all,” (Stoker 69) celebrates one of the vampires. Here, the heroic capabilities of man are simultaneously admired and undercut.