Researching ancient myths, fairy tales, and other fictional characters is a rabbit hole that gets all the more complicated the farther you go. There are constantly new discoveries, different viewpoints, and biases. The man known as Vlad the Impaler, more commonly referred to as Dracula, is a perfect example of this. The goal of this paper is to bring to light the many misconceptions about the man behind the myth as well as give some insight into where the whole story originated.
Misconceptions
Since his rise to fame, Dracula has been found to have many similar connections to Vlad the Impaler, a Romanian prince. However many of these connections made are merely coincidences and wishful thinking from fans around the world. If any connections are to be made, they should be made between Dracula and his creator, Bram Stoker. Many themes of the story reflect Stoker’s own life rather than Vlad the Impaler’s (Pitt). Even Dracula’s castle, Bran Castle, which was assumed to be where Vlad the Impaler had lived, was found to be false. In fact, historians have found that Vlad the Impaler actually passed through the town of Bran, in 1459, and destroyed everything in his path. Three years
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Countless historians around the world bicker back and forth about the truth behind the man. Although, one thing most experts can agree on is that Bram Stoker, the creator of Dracula, actually knew very little about the man Dracula is based on (Allan). This evidence is further shown because "there was no legend of Dracula in Romania before Bram Stoker's book," meaning that the actions made by Vlad the Impaler were merely cruel, but in no way supernatural or even baffling ("Halloween in Transylvania: Where legend ends and history begins"). In fact, as odd as it sounds, “Bram Stoker famously joked that the inspiration for his novel was "born of a nightmare following a supper of dressed
In the novel Dracula, by Bram Stoker, there is much evidence of foreshadowing and parallels to other myths. Dracula was not the first story featuring a vampire myth, nor was it the last. Some would even argue that it was not the best. However, it was the most original, using foreshadowing and mood to create horrific imagery, mythical parallels to draw upon a source of superstition, and original narrative elements that make this story unique.
Dracula is a horror vampire novel written by Bram Stoker. It starts off with Harker's journey from England to Europe to deal with business that Renfield had failed to finish. Harker meets the Count and stays with him for a while. While he is there he notices how trapped he feels in the castle. He is starting to notice very strange things happening around the castle. Once he realizes he is trapped he tries to escape. He does this successfully. Dracula first takes Lucy under his spell. Mina wakes to find Lucy gone from her bed and goes to search for her. Mina finds her and says, ““when I told her to come at once with me home, she rose without a word, with the obedience of a child.” (Dracula, page 135). Mina is Harker's fiance that becomes Dracula's second innocent victim. Dracula takes Mina under his spell and she falls in love with
Vlad the Impaler was descended from Vlad ll Dracula. Vlad made history for how violent he was when he ruled Romania, and this partially came from his relatives and father Vlad ll Dracula. ”It is believed that his father died violently during war. His brother Mircea and younger brother, Radu also suffered untimely
In Dracula: The Unseen Face in the Mirror, written by Carol Senf’s, is a critical analysis of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. There are many points that are made throughout the critical analysis of this beloved novel. One point, on the basis of the unreliability of the narrators. For instance, Senf states, “…Stoker provides several clues to their unreliability and encourages the reader to see the frequent discrepancies between their proposed beliefs and their actions” (Senf 423). Carol Senf argues in her essay, that Jonathan Harker, could have been prejudice against the customs of the Transylvanian lifestyle. Whether it be the way he documented in side notes, the peculiar recipes, or the way Harker would
But what makes Vlad such a controversial historical figure? To answer this we must not only look into the past to find out who Dracula was, we also have to look into how the story came to be and what made
Imagine being impaled, a rod going straight thru you. For Vlads victims this was reality. Why did he impale people? What drove him to kill so many people? What did he do to strike fear into so many people's eyes,even the bravest warriors.
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.
Bram Stoker’s Gothic novel, Dracula, intrigues us in a well plotted story and reveals to us the power in Dracula and how that very forbidden power takes control of both men and women.
The myth of Dracula grew out of the superstition of the villagers and those who heard tales of his impalements. The interests in Vampires started to come about in attempts to explain things of that the people did not understand about death. Beresford (2008) mentions how interests in vampires died down around 1770, but was reborn by novels on the undead and immortality (114-115). Brahms Stoker’s Dracula brought about a romantic view of a Romanian Prince who makes a pact with the devil and given immortality. It is in this myth that Dracula is the seductively dark, mysterious creature of the night.
At the beginning of this movie, it is explained how the character of Dracula became a vampire and it is said that he was a warrior called Draculea, from the Order of the Dragon, who fought to protect the Christian world. What’s more, in the scene where Dracula welcomes Jonathan Harker into his castle, there is a conversation about a picture hanging in a wall. Harker asks the Count who is the man on the picture and he tells him that it is an ancestor of him from the order of the Dragon. This reference to Vlad the Impaler it is not clear in Bram Stoker’s book and what’s more, the story of how Dracula became a vampire it is an invention of the movie
Dracula: Movie vs. Novel Whenever the subject of Dracula is brought up in a conversation, people tend to think of it as a vampire or something closely related. The modern society has ever-changing and expanding guidelines concerning the concept of being undead. The creature’s origin dates back to 1879 when author Bram Stoker wrote a novel of the same title as the character; Dracula. Taking into account the long period of years that have elapsed since the novel, the story has been told and retold innumerable times. Different movie creators and directors such as Cole Haddon, Tod Browning, and John Badham among others have produced different versions of the story of the creature.
Dracula is the founding core of all other vampire stories, but this creations story is not one hundred percent nonfiction like Mary Shelley’s creature is. “Bram Stoker named his infamous character after a real person who happened to have a taste for blood: Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia or — as he is better known — Vlad the Impaler”("Real Dracula” N.P), The origin of Frankenstein goes as the following, “Mary Shelley created the story on a rainy afternoon in 1816 in Geneva, where she was staying with her husband, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and their friend Lord Byron. Byron proposed they each write a gothic ghost story, but only Marry Shelley completed hers”("Frankenstein
The late nineteenth century Irish novelist, Bram Stoker is most famous for creating Dracula, one of the most popular and well-known vampire stories ever written. Dracula is a gothic, “horror novel about a vampire named Count Dracula who is looking to move from his native country of Transylvania to England” (Shmoop Editorial Team). Unbeknownst of Dracula’s plans, Jonathan Harker, a young English lawyer, traveled to Castle Dracula to help the count with his plans and talk to him about all his options. At first Jonathan was surprised by the Count’s knowledge, politeness, and overall hospitality. However, the longer Jonathan remained in the castle the more uneasy and suspicious he became as he began to realize just how strange and different
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.
Discuss possible answers to this question with reference to at least two critical or theoretical essays and at least two tellings ' of the Dracula story._______________________________________________