preview

Vlad The Impaler Research Paper

Decent Essays

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 …show more content…

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

Get Access