Dracula's Love Story
Bram Stoker’s Dracula is the title of Francis Ford Coppola’s film adaptation of the classic novel Dracula. Coppola signified that the film would stay with the original plot and theme from the novel by putting the author’s name in the title of the film. However, even though he claims that his film is patterned after the novel, Coppola still could not help but put his own twist on the novel by sensualizing the story and adding a love story between Dracula and Mina. By adding a romantic subplot, Coppola makes the viewers feel sympathy for the evil Dracula when he is finally killed at the hand of his loved one. Also, the character of Mina turns from heroine in the novel to victim in the movie by having her
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When Jonathan Harker shows Dracula a picture of Mina, Dracula notices the similarities between his dead Elisabeta and Harker’s intended bride Mina. Dracula knows at once that he must find Mina and claim her as his own.
The novel does contain the notion that Count Dracula is in fact Vlad the Impaler, but it does not mention the character of Elisabeta. While Abraham Van Helsing is explaining his theory of Dracula’s origins he says, “He must, indeed, have been that Voivode Dracula who won his name against the Turk…”(Stoker 309). Voivode was the real name of the prince of Romania whose nickname was Vlad the Impaler. Therefore, Stoker does imply that the Count was once the prince from Romania, yet nowhere does he mention that he had a lover named Elisabeta that resembled Mina. This creation for the film was necessary to provide a motive for the love story between Dracula and Mina to occur.
When Mina meets Dracula on the streets of London, a meeting that did not occur in the novel, Mina says that Dracula seems familiar to her even though she had never met him before. The movie infers that Elisabeta was reincarnated in the body of Mina. As Dracula and Mina begin to date, their love for each other resumes after centuries of separation. This love affair is halted by the return of Mina’s fiancé Jonathan Harker. Mina leaves Dracula to tend to her sick fiancé and then marries
The 1992 movie adaptation of Dracula is quite loyal to the book. However it made quite an exaggeration in Dracula and Mina’s connection. Also there are fabricated parts in the movie, particularly the way it begins having the origin of Vlad the impaler that is not technically found in Stoker’s writing. Character of Dracula is not that scary as it was in the book than being projected visually in the screen. Perhaps to have a more impact in viewers’ emotions. Some scenes were also fractured in the movie, for instance is Mina’s and Lucy’s stay in Whitby which never occurred in the book. Even so, the film had interpreted the book well and it although some scenes were fractured, it did not depart much
Though it appears on the surface to be an engaging horror story about a blood-sucking Transylvanian man, upon diving deeper into Bram Stoker's novel Dracula, one can find issues of female sexuality, homoeroticism, and gender roles. Many read Dracula as an entertaining story full of scary castles, seductive vampires, and mysterious forces, yet at the same time, they are being bombarded with descriptions of sex, images of rape, and homosexual relationships. In Francis Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula, Stoker's presentation of homoeroticism is taken, reworked, and presented in a different, stronger light. Coppola does much in the area of emphasizing a homoerotic relationship between Mina Harker and Lucy Westerna: a relationship Bram Stoker
Mina Murray is the fiancée of Jonathan Harker. She is portrayed as a good character in the book because she is shown as a really kind hearted and vivacious school mistress that always seems and is innocent and helps in anyway that she is able too. Mina is Lucy Westerna’s best friend and she is a very intelligent and resourceful young woman who eventually leads Dr. Van Helsing’s men to Castle Dracula.
The protagonist and story of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula have been widely interpreted and adapted in films throughout many years. Despite almost a century of time since the initial publication, Dracula has maintained its ability to frighten and mesmerize readers. Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula; however, utilizes the erotic romance of the original novel in order to depict a tragic love story. The film accurately follows the general plot of the novel, yet presents the characters in a unique manner that provides for a different appreciation of the characters.
Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” came to print in 1897, at the height of Nineteenth century Victorian life in Europe, a progressively modern era that saw much medical and technological advancement. This era brought with it the contentious idea of an empowered woman, the “New Woman,” a woman who aspires to be educated as well as sexually and economically independent. Stoker gives a contrasting view of this notion in “Dracula.” While the main characters, Lucy and Mina, are clearly opposite in personality, they are both portrayed as unequal, defenseless objects that are to be protected and desired. However, one woman’s fate is determined by her weakness, while the other is determined by her strength.
In Dracula, Stoker portrays the typical women: The new woman, the femme fatale and the damsel in distress, all common concepts in gothic literature. There are three predominant female roles within Dracula: Mina Murray, Lucy Westenra and the three vampire brides, all of which possess different attributes and play different roles within the novel. It is apparent that the feminine portrayal within this novel, especially the sexual nature, is an un-doubtable strong, reoccurring theme.
Dracula is a novel written by Bram Stoker during the late 1800’s. The book starts out with Jonathan Harker, who is a smart young business man, who wants to travel to Count Dracula for a business ordeal. Many locals from the European area warned Jonathan about Count Dracula, and would offer him crosses and other trinkets to help fend against him. Mina, who is at the time Jonathans soon to be wife, visits to catch up with an old friend named Lucy Westenra. Lucy gives Mina an update on her love life telling her how she’s been proposed to by three different men. The men are introduced as Dr. Seward, Arthur Holmwood, and Quincey Morris. Unfortunately for her she will need to reject two of the men, and Lucy ends up choosing to marry Holmwood. Later on after Mina visits Lucy, Lucy starts to sleep walk, becomes sick, and then finds out she has bite marks on her throat. Due to this incident, another new character is introduced who happens to be Van Helsing. As the novel progresses, lady vampires are introduced and Lucy is eventually turned into one of the lady vampires as well. With the introduction of female vampires, the novel Dracula turns into a sexual and sensational novel by Bram Stoker. The female characters in the book are overly sexualized to where we can compare it to how women are viewed from back then in history to today’s world.
As far fetched as the idea of a man being scared to death may seem, the old man most likely could have been traumatized to this extent in relation to how Mina noted in her journal about "Death", capitalizing the "D" in significance to that of some supernatural or higher power. We as readers start to believe that this "Death" the old man had seen, could very well be Dracula himself.
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.
Dracula is a signet classic novel written by Bram Stoker. This novel is portrayed by an antagonist character known as Count Dracula. He has been dead for centuries yet he may never die. He has a peculiar power of hypnotic fascination but he is weak in god’s daylight. He is immortal as long as he is able to drink blood from the living. He can change his form into a wolf, a bat or a puff of smoke. Dracula get in touch with Jonathan Harker through a real estate transaction. He went to Dracula’s castle through a carriage as were planned. After a few days, he felt as if he were prisoned in the castle as his movements were restricted. Meanwhile, Harker has a fiancée named Mina
Comparing the 1931 version of Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi, with Frances Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula 1993 version yields some similarities. Both films are of the same genre: Horror. Both films are set around the same time period. Also, both deal with a vampire coming to England and causing disruptions in people's lives. Beyond these few similarities are
In the late 19th century, when Dracula by Bram Stoker is written, women were only perceived as conservative housewives, only tending to their family’s needs and being solely dependent of their husbands to provide for them. This novel portrays that completely in accordance to Mina Harker, but Lucy Westenra is the complete opposite. Lucy parades around in just her demeanor as a promiscuous and sexual person. While Mina only cares about learning new things in order to assist her soon-to-be husband Jonathan Harker. Lucy and Mina both become victims of vampirism in the novel. Mina is fortunate but Lucy is not. Overall, the assumption of women as the weaker specimen is greatly immense in the late 19th century. There are also many underlying
Indeed Mina’s attraction to Dracula in the film leads to one of the defining alterations between the film and movie adaption, the humanization of Dracula. The subtitle of the 1992 film is “Love Never Dies,” (Coppola) which is the love between Dracula and his wife Elisabeta, who is the spitting image of Mina, and is also represented by Winona Ryder. Throughout the film Dracula tries to win over Mina in order to regain his love with Elisabeta, who commits suicide after false rumours of Draculas death are feed to her by priest. The betrayal by the priest and his wife’s death, makes Dracula curse god, and therefore become a vampire. The background story of the character Dracula makes the monster almost understandable, and the audience begins to sympathize with Dracula. (0:33-5:38)
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
Coppola focuses too much upon the personal struggles of Dracula himself and the audience feels a great deal of pity towards Dracula. The genius of Stoker was that his Dracula caused readers to feel both sympathy and at the same time hatred towards the monster. James Craig Holte illustrates this point when he says: