Dracula: The Picture Perfect Ideal of Gothic Literature. Gothicism has been a very popular genre of book, through past and present, and Bram Stoker’s, Dracula, is no exception. One of the most widely read novels of all time, Dracula possesses all the features of a classic gothic novel. The various dark and dreary features throughout the entire novel paints a perfect gothic picture for the reader and contribute to the mixture of feelings One gets while reading Dracula. The first feature of Gothicism found in Dracula is a constant and oppressive darkness. This feature is a reoccurring theme that is related to everything in the novel from the characters to the events that take place. Another feature found in Dracula is presence of a …show more content…
After hearing the muffled cry from the child, Harker then hears the desperate cries from the mother from outside the castle wall and watches helplessly as the Count calls his wolves to destroy her. The next morning, Jonathan says, ‘No man knows till he has suffered from the night how sweet and how dear to him heart and eye the morning can be.’ (Dracula, 39) This quote shows how the dark night mirrors evil and unpleasantness, which enhances the gloominess of Gothicism. Darkness is also projected on to characters. The villain, Count Dracula, when sighted, is described as a dark and shadowy figure. Mina Harker woke up to find Lucy Westerna missing from her bed in the middle of the night, and knowing her past of sleep walking, Mina hurriedly looked around the house to find the front door open. She stepped outside and looked across to the cliff where their favourite spot to sit was and describes what she saw: ‘...there on our favourite seat, the silver light of the moon struck a half-reclining figure, snowy white...the cloud was too quick for me to see much, for shadow shut down on light...something dark stood behind the seat where the white figure shone, and bent over it.’(Dracula,78). Darkness reflects upon many different aspects of the entire novel and shows how it
Throughout the novel Dracula, the text prominently features the ‘uncanny.’ In literature and other texts, the uncanny refers to an unfamiliarity that is frightening familiar. It’s presence in Dracula is obvious as we and the novel characters see Dracula as uncanny. Both appropriations of Dracula, Nosferatu (1922) and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), reflect their context and hence reflect the values, idea and themes prominent in their context. Nosferatu resembles its isolated German Expressionist Cinema context through its jewish propaganda portrayed by many techniques, most notably its heavy use of dramatic lighting. Bram Stoker’s Dracula’s contrasting themes include its romanticisation of Dracula which expresses the romantic notions prominent
A horror classic by Abraham Stocker, Dracula, may be one of the most notorious villain stories of all time. Bram Stocker is a Irish writer who changed the view of what to read in his time. He shows dark and twisted situations and metaphors throughout Dracula and many other of his horror novels. This novel was released in the Victorian era, which saw his type of writing as equivalent to the devil. This era was a long time of peace and bright minded people. Stockers style surprised many readers, because he always has you thinking it can’t get any darker than it is but it always exceeds the previous twisted situation or event. Bram Stocker shows Dracula as an iconic creature, with many reasons to be feared, but displayed in the wrong time era.
Dracula by Bram Stoker is the original vampire book, the one that started it all. From it derived the now so beloved and famous teen-romance vampire genre, with novels like Twilight. However, Dracula is not remotely like the sparkle-in-the-sunlight, falling-in-love-with-mortals vampire any more than Harry Potter is like the Wicked Witch of the West. Dracula is a gothic horror novel set in Transylvania and England during the Victorian Era. Letters, diary entries, and newspaper clippings from the viewpoint of several characters tell the story, allowing for a wide variety of viewpoints that highlight happenings in Dracula as well as present the social issues pertained within. While it contains action, suspense, horror, and romance, it also displays the corruption within the everyday society. The way the women are presented, interacted with, and how Count Dracula affects them brings forth the issues within the Victorian society, especially the men’s treatment of women and the different social and gender roles, which Stoker uses to highlight the situational irony found within the novel.
Bram Stoker`s “Dracula” is one of his most prominent work, originally published in 1897. Forming part of the gothic literature; the novel focuses, through the character of Dracula, on the theme of Supernatural and Religion in an era largely dominated by Science and Rationality. This critical essay, will therefore demonstrate how Dracula, portrayed as the “other,” is essentially different from the rest and, how he subtly manage to incite people and challenge values and ideals of the British Society.
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 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.
“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
He cannot come into a house unless invited or walk in water and his favorite meal is human blood (Stoker). While these traits are consistent in both the novel and the movie there are differences (Stoker). Starting with the novel, it describes Count Dracula’s shadow coordinates with his body, yet in the movie, his shadow works separately from his body movements (“Dracula (Universal Classics)”). The next modification of Count Dracula’s character in the novel is, he cannot be in or near the sunlight or it will kill him, however, in the movie, he meets Mina in the daytime and it does not harm him (Bram Stoker’s). Then, in the novel, Dracula is a purely evil, terrifying blood hungry monster that wreaks havoc on anyone he meets and feels the need to take life or end life with his arch nemesis being with anyone who wants to preserve life (Stoker). But in the movie when he meets Mina on the streets of London, he pursues a courtship with her and he begins to develop feelings for Mina (Bram Stoker’s). When he proclaims his love for her and refuses to condemn her to the life of a vampire, he is no longer a vile, evil monster (Bram Stoker’s). These modifications to Count Dracula’s character in the movie make the audience see him as a vulnerable, loving man with feelings for a woman who reminds him of his dead wife Elisabeta (Bram
The Gothic genre does suppress vulnerable women. They are exploited in order to please the tyrannical male and feed his desires. When the women is no longer of use, she is then discarded. The Gothic genre is described as ‘formulaic” and one of the key features is a tyrannical male who abuses his power to assert his dominance over a perceived futile women. Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ was written in time where women started to want more equal rights and opportunities. For example, in the same year Dracula was published (1897), Millicent Fawcett founded ‘The National Union of Women’s Suffrage’. Bram Stoker feared the decline of the patriarchal figure and could have created ‘Dracula’ as an attempt to scaremonger the public into thinking what would
Count Dracula has a profound effect on all the characters in the work of literature. Jonathan Harker’s true determine and courage is brought about to prove that he is more than just a mere solicitor when he is faced with the troubling dilemma of being trapped in a vampire’s castle. His testament that he will escape may be observed in his journal as so: “I shall not remain alone with them; I shall try to scale the castle wall farther than I have yet attempted. I shall take some of the gold with me, lest I want it later. I may find a way from this dreadful place.” (Stoker 59). One may also observe the complete distraught the Count reeks on Harker. Mina’s diary reveals that he “raved of dreadful things,” (Stoker 116). Lucy Westenra is affected at great lengths also. Dracula causes her horrible nightmares, and transforms her dreams into “a presage of horror,” (Stoker 138). Eventually the Counts consequence is so heavy upon her that she is transformed
This novel is set heavily on the Gothic tradition, which features in the setting, the characters, and atmosphere, all elements that prove Dracula to be a Gothic novel. The first key element of Gothic tradition, is featured prominently in the setting. The novel has multiple setting changes, and nearly all of them has the Gothic tradition. At the opening scenes, Harker journeys out to Count Dracula's castle, which generally operates as a Gothic setting by itself.
Vampires are not completely fictional. In the late 1890s Bram Stoker takes historical information and old European folktales to create famous Gothic novels like Dracula; Before writing Dracula, he studied for eight years stories of vampires. The title of Stoker’s story has historical significance to Vlad Dracul the 3rd, a Wallachian ruler who impaled his victims on stakes. Bram Stoker also was influenced by his lifetime, before the publication of Dracula, Gothic and Epistolary novels were on the rise hence why Dracula is classified as both. Stoker’s life as a Victorian can be seen in his views on social and political reforms and ideals in his novels. The threats of female sexuality also plagued Victorian anxieties, morals were being
With every birth comes a death. With every protagonist comes an antagonist; and with every good comes an evil. For years story tellers have used the simple concept of good beats bad in their stories. Protagonists and antagonists often represent the good and evil sides of the plot; with good prevailing over evil almost every time. This trend continues and is present throughout all of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a constant power struggle between the moral and amoral. Stoker’s novel can frighten anyone from little kids to aged adults, but if you read it from a different perspective, his real message is revealed. His personal experiences coupled with the
Vlad III Dracula was born in the year 1431 in Târgovişte, Transylvania. Sighişoara, Transylvania, but it is not certain that Vlad III was born there, but his father, Vlad II Dracul, owned a residence there. Dracula was the second child born out of four brothers born into the noble family of Vlad II Dracul. Vlad III’s nickname, Dracula, simply means “son of Dracul”. The family received this surname after Dracula’s father was inaugurated into the Order of the Dragon that was the Defense for Christian Europe. Vlad III’s father, Vlad II owned a residence in