Technology In Bram Stoker's Dracula

The evolution of religion, particularly the growth of atheism and the relaxation of catholicism and christianity in the U.S. and throughout the western world is expressed in the film. The film relies heavily on catholicism yet as religion becomes more and more relaxed in the film’s context, Bram Stoker’s Dracula features aspects of other religions. Throughout the novel and this film, crosses, crucifixes and the Body of Christ are used to ward off Dracula. This can be seen in the close up of the reflection of the crucifix that Jonathan wears (28:18). It’s effects on Dracula are immediate and obvious. Moreover, the idea of reincarnation and its accompanying values are evident throughout the text. The comparison between between Dracula’s wife and Mina reveal their physical appearances to be the same through the cut between the shots of Mina looking up at the painting of Dracula and his wife (2:00:42). Additionally and more evidently, Bram Stoker’s Dracula features a Dracula who is more humanised and romanticised than any movie that predecessor it. Dracula and Mina are shown to have a romantic bond as opposed to only the sexual attraction which is expressed in the novel. This relationship is evident in the panning of Mina and Dracula dancing (1:09:02). Through this technique, the intimacy and romanticism of this

To begin with, I will be explaining how the scientific revolution is represented in Bram Stoker’s classical, gothic horror novel about a blood sucking vampire, Dracula. In the first place, there were many change of thoughts in the characters minds on their thoughts and beliefs of “spirits”. As of the beginning of the book, none of the characters believed in ghosts, spirits, demons, vampires or anything of that kind. Everyone had believed it was all just myths that were made up. In the first event of the book,

Bram Stoker makes the argument that technological advancements are ineffective through his representation of Harker’s use of shorthand. Stoker portrays how Harker attempts to challenge the Count by using shorthand, but yet remains vulnerable to his power due to the ineffectiveness of modern advancements. While Harker is trapped in Dracula’s castle at the beginning of the novel, he writes in his journal in shorthand. This abbreviated form of writing allows Harker to write more swiftly and most importantly, it ensures that his writing is unintelligible to Dracula, who is unable to decipher the symbols and abbreviations that he uses. While Harker is confined within Dracula’s castle, the Count requests that he writes letters to his friends back

Van Helsing takes great care and delicacy in proving that the vampire threat is real to his companions, taking a group of men to see for themselves that Lucy had turned into evil undead. To prove to the men that vampires are real, Van Helsing forces the men to see Lucy, whose eyes are “unclean and full of hell-fire” causing Dr. Seward to feel “the remnant of [his] love [pass] into pure hate and loathing” (Stoker 181). Van Helsing is truly brilliant, because after seeing Lucy in her state of ‘un-death’, the men are all ready to listen to him and act against the vampire threat. Van Helsing himself even admits that “at the first [he] was the sceptic” but learned to accept and deal with vampires “through long years [of training himself] to keep an open mind” (Stoker 203). Van Helsing is explaining how he is not insane, but rather more experienced and open minded.

Van Helsing is from Denmark, which lies much further west, representing more spiritual ideas. Therefore, he is able to quickly root vampires as the cause of Lucy’s illness. On the other hand, Seward does not come to this conclusion and it becomes very difficult for him to comprehend Van Heilsin’s methods. Van Helsing buys garlic to hang throughout Lucy’s room. He explains how “I make pretty wreath and hang around your neck, so that you sleep well. Oh yes! They’re like the Lotus flower make your trouble forgotten. It smells like the waters of Lethe . and of that fountain of youth that the Conquistadores sought for in the Floridas”(120-121). Van Helsing does not follow along the English path of diagnosing her sickness and finding a cure that she could take. He completely follows the Eastern thought with mystical cures using garlic. He even draws the parallel to the fountain of youth or lotus flower, which are both completely irrational ideas. Dr. Seward does not follow Van Heising and is confused to see a fellow doctor abandon common methods practice and use garlic in a windowsill to cure Lucy. He said “well, Proffessor, I know you always have a reason for what you do, but this certainly puzzles me. It is well we have no skeptic here, or he would say you are working a spell on a evil spirit” (121). Seward does not understand the spiritual reasoning because he thinks it is ludicrous that a spirit could be vampire or other undead creature could be

After decades of cheesy horror movies, the image of vampires has been misconstrued as sparkly, angsty teenage boys or handsome men that lure in girls for the fresh blood of a virgin. Many of these stereotypical vampires are influenced by the story of Dracula, held in the Victorian era. Yet, many of the stories published about vampires diverge from the message that Bram Stoker is trying to make. During the Victorian period, sexuality is repressed by society, as sexual behaviors from women are viewed as unacceptable. In the Gothic horror novel Dracula, Bram Stoker uses the traumatic experience of Jonathan Harker at Count Dracula’s castle and the invasion of vampires in Great Britain to create a social commentary on the sexual repression occurring in this era and its detrimental effect on the men.

The machinery in Dracula becomes important to the plot as a whole, but also important to Victorian society too. For the sake of the Empire, factories were increasing the size of Britain’s economy and cities were growing, the military was gaining strength, Britain was at the forefront of modern technology during the time. In fact, the way technology is described and used in the novel, it can be viewed as a subliminal compliment from Stoker about the lengths in which society has developed in that regard. Most effectively the Crew of Light gets to utilize technology whereas Dracula is painfully unaware of the advancements of recent sciences. “Well, you know what we have to contend against; but we, too, are not without strength…we have the resources of science” (Stoker 282). The utilization of modern technology and Bram Stoker’s constant reference to trains paints a vivid image of two things. One, science has improved and is praiseworthy, and two, that Victorian society finds itself superior partially because of the technology it possesses. The author was a very inquisitive person consequentially the main characters all seem to share a fascination with modern machinery. As the economy developed under Queen Victoria’s rule, trade ships ended up becoming navies, and towns became thriving cities. Even in communication with each other they used a phonograph, a recording device. This expanse of growth due to modern technology kept England ahead of other countries, and so society

It is almost as if the men want Dracula to have their blood, which is representative of semen in the novel.” The Count is representing a female in this scenario, being the one to “drain” these men of their fluids. In the process of the attack on Lucy, Dracula is very sexually ambivalent, he possesses the fangs needed to penetrate Lucy as a man would do, but then he drains the fluid as a female would. Constantly returning to drain again and again, once each man puts their offering into Lucy the Count drains her of it. This is homoerotic as Dracula is penetrating as well as taking in the fluid as a male in a homosexual relationship may do, which Dracula does repeat over and over.

They went to her catacomb, when they found her they drove a wooden stake into her heart and soon followed it up with cutting her head off and filling their mouths with garlic. According to Van Helsing, this was the only known way to free Lucy's soul into heaven. Dracula was not stabbed with a wooden stake, nor was he decapitated. These were all the ways that we were led to believe that was the way you were to kill a vampire.

After Lucy’s death, Van Helsing tried to convinced Quincey Morris, Seward and Arthur Holmwood that Lucy has turned into “Un-dead” by bringing them to her tomb. They eventually find a solution by plunging a stake into Lucy’s heart. They chop off her head and stuff her mouth with garlic. After Jonathan and Mina’s returning to England, they joined forces with the others. Mina helps Van Helsing by collecting various journals and dairies to retype them. Their efforts were useless went one of Seward’s patient has let Dracula into the asylum to prey upon Mina. These men divided forces among them tracks Dracula across land and sea. Van Helsing takes Mina with him and he killed three female vampires by using sacred objects. Quincey and Jonathan use knives to destroy Dracula went Dracula is about to reached his castle. In 1992, Francis Ford Coppola has released a Dracula movie based on Bram Stoker’s novel. I would prefer watching a Dracula movie rather than reading a book because Coppola evokes the origins of Dracula before he turn into a vampire, twisted the subplot where Mina is the reincarnation of Dracula’s greatest love and the movie ends with Dracula’s soul

The novel Dracula had, and still has an immense effect on horror through its use of literary elements which are observable in horror movies. Bram Stoker's Dracula was revolutionary in its use of literary devices such as dramatic irony, to convey suspense, and the use of sexuality in literature. These devices were adapted to film in early horror movies and continue to appear till today. Dracula was very influential to the film industry when it comes to horror movies because horror movies draw a lot of devices used in Dracula and use them in their movies, this can be seen in movies such as Halloween, Friday the 13th, and the movie adaptation of Dracula.

Dracula succeeds in doing so with Lucy. After Lucy herself becomes a vampire, she requests a kiss from Arthur Holmwood, her fiancée, which turns voluptuous – a word Stoker continually uses throughout. Here Stoker presents the female characters

“He speaks in perfect English and welcomes Harker inside, shaking his hand with an ice-cold, vice-like grip” (Dracula, 55). Dracula explains to him that he will no be able to make the trip to London, but one of his trusted servants will be going along with Harker back to London. After supper Jonathan analyzes Dracula and notices one very strange feature, his mouth is thick and white; they cover sharp white teeth, which stick out over his lip. What Jonathan does not know is that those teeth are canine teeth only found in animals. There are exceptions, for instance, vampires have these teeth so they can puncture the human’s carotid vessel in their neck and suck their blood. The first time that Jonathan sees Dracula’s cannibal teeth grow is when Harker starts shaving. He accidentally cuts himself and Dracula leaps for his throat so he can suck his blood. Harker touches his crucifix and Dracula’s “demonic fury” vanishes. The strangest event that Harker notices in Dracula’s castle is “Dracula emerge from his room on the floor below, slither out, head downward, in lizard fashion, with his cloak spread out around him like great wings” (Dracula, 179). This shows that “Dracula is not a person. He is a presence, an absence that requires concealing” (Wolf, 368). This tells Harker that something is very wrong with this man. He recalls how the peasants behaved

Dracula uses his supernatural powers to feed his fascination with youth and innocence. In the beginning of the novel, when Dracula is first encountered, he is described as old, although “His face was strong… [his] lips, whose ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years… The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor.” (27). This description of the Count shows that while he is old, he still possess some attributes and features of the young. Once Dracula finds that the men have made a bond against him, he makes a bond to take all of their women. He succeeds in transforming Lucy and scaring her mother to death, although Mina is stronger and the men save her by killing Dracula. Also, the three women vampires in his home are past conquests of beautiful, young women. Dracula only sucks the blood of young women in the novel reflecting his hunger for youth and innocence. As the

Once infected by Dracula, Lucy becomes sexually overt and aggressive; and is portrayed as a monster and a social outcast. She transforms into the ‘Bloofar Lady ' and feeds on children making her the maternal antithesis as well as a child molester (Jones, p. 87). In order to rectify Lucy 's condition she is sexually overpowered by her fiancee Holmwood; he penetrates her to death with a stake through the chest, a staking which is overtly sexual in interpretation, as "the thing in the coffin writhed; and a hideous, blood-curdling screech came from the opened red lips. The body shook and quivered and twisted in wild contortions; the sharp white teeth champed together till the lips were cut, and the mouth was smeared with a crimson foam.........He looked like a figure of Thor as his untrembling arm rose and fell, driving deeper and deeper" (Stoker p. 241). This sexual innuendo restores the Victorian balance of sexual penetration from the female domain back its accepted station within the male domain. Showalter interprets the killing as a gang rape, done with "impressive phallic instrument" (p. 181). "Those serial transfusions which, while they pretend to serve and protect ‘good women, ' actually enable the otherwise inconceivable interfusion of the blood that is semen