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Significance Of Vlad The Third Or Vlad The Impaler

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In 1897, Bram Stoker wrote Dracula, the story of a monstrous Transylvanian count who terrorized local villages and fed on the peasants who lived in them. The book is today widely recognized as a historically significant literary work, and its importance has caused many scholars to debate whether Bram Stoker’s main character Dracula was actually inspired by real historical figures. Although all evidence used in the debate is somewhat unreliable, it can be established that Bram Stoker based his character Count Dracula on historical figures to a certain extent. Many scholars believe that Vlad the 3rd or Vlad the Impaler was the direct inspiration for Count Dracula. Vlad the 3rd was the son of King Vlad the 2nd Dracul and as Prince, was the heir …show more content…

These strategies ranged from sending his own soldiers who were infected with the bubonic plague into enemy camps, to impaling all of the captured enemy soldiers around his castle as a threat to the next wave of enemy soldiers. So while Count Dracula is not characterized by Stoker as being a good military leader, being extremely violent and creating fear in all around him is very consistent between Vlad the 3rd and Count Dracula. But perhaps the single item that makes the best case for Vlad the 3rd being the inspiration for Stoker’s character Count Dracula is the fact that when Vlad the 3rd was 11 years old his, he and his younger brother were kidnapped by the Ottoman Empire who then attempted to force them to convert their beliefs. Vlad III refused to convert while his younger Radu converted, making him a traitor. This was mentioned in Dracula on page 30 when Count Dracula begins to talk about his family’s bloodline. “This was a Dracula indeed. Who was it that his own unworthy brother, when he had fallen, sold his people to the Turk and brought the shame of slavery on them!” (Stoker …show more content…

Interestingly enough, after people discovered these murders she had committed, she was never put on trial, instead she was locked away in her castle till the day she died, which was on August 21, 1614. Like Dracula, Elizabeth was well educated and she was taught to read and write in several different languages, including the language of the peasants. Like Count Dracula, Elizabeth Bathory’s status as a noble person gave her almost complete control over the peasants who lived in the villages she controlled. Elizabeth Bathory was able to bring young girls into her castle by offering food and money ("Elizabeth Bathory" 0:6:17-0:7:00), but when these girls never returned home it wasn’t noticed or cared about by the King because the massive debt the King owed to her and her family ("Elizabeth Bathory"

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