Setting Of Dracula

            Another important element in creating a good horror story is of course mood, and there are many descriptive passages in Dracula that demonstrate mood.  A great example is in the first chapter of the book, "They were a hundred times more terrible in the grim silence which held them than even when they howled.  For myself, I felt a sort of paralysis of fear."  (Stoker, 12).  This takes place still in the first chapter of Jonathan Harker's journal, when the driver calls to the wolves and then "commands" them to become silent.  Here, the event that the last quote was hinting at is at last revealed, and the quote above summarizes the mood of the protagonist at this point.  He was "paralyzed with fear", meaning that he was so fearful that he could not even move.  Stoker is very proficient at including vivid descriptions of mood in order to create a haunted atmosphere.

Gothic literature is dominated by gothic horror, for instance dark and mysterious objects or events. It is a type of literature that combines fiction, horror, and romanticism. As Bram Stoker wrote his famous novel, Dracula he makes sure to include many different characteristics of gothic literature. Three important motifs that are stated in Dracula which also fit into the gothic literature category would be; blood, dreaming or nightmares, and superstition. This particular novel has many gothic motifs, but these are three that I believe really stand out.

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.

Jonathan Harker starts off the book with his journal of his travels to meet count Dracula, and begins to regret ever leaving home soon after. Jonathan is very observant, noting details throughout his journey; he remembers foreign words to look up, many details of the journey to the castle, and sees “a faint flickering blue flame” many times off in the distance

Stoker incorporates different allusions to various parts of the religious supernatural throughout Dracula to continue his propagation of the Christian faith. During Mina's retelling of her encounter with Dracula she pleads, "Look down on a poor soul in worse than mortal peril; and in mercy pity those to whom she is dear!"(252). The word "mercy" in his dialog draws attention to the fact that Mina fears she may be coming to a bitter end. Mina turns away from logical thought and prays helplessly to the heavens for any sort of assistance it may provide to her. Throughout the story, Mina uses a typewriter to collect each of the characters personal documentation in hopes of catching Dracula. This use of new technology is symbolically shunned by making

On their way to Dracula's castle, Van Helsing suspects Mina changes further, and becomes more and more tainted. He relays a point of weakness and writes "... She is so bright and tender and thoughtful of me that i forgot all fear." showing his bias towards women, and forgetting to fear her for what she really is (Stoker 356). After Johnathan Harker and Quincy Morris succeed in killing Dracula, Quincy cries

The film started with Renfield went to Dracula’s castle in Transylvania, and how he was killed by Dracula. During the scene, the film used the bats to represent he became undead. Later on, Dracula with his maids and Renfield went to London and met with Lucy, her father and her fiance in the theater. During that night, Dracula went to Lucy’s room to suck her blood as a bat. Thus, she became very sick also with bad dreams every night. Meanwhile, her dad invited a professor to help Lucy, which is Dr. Van Helsing. Very soon they found out Dracula is the vampire whom suck her blood and control her mind, then they came up with a plan to kill him. At the end, they found Dracula in a coffin and killed him Lucy was safe at the end. Since the film was produced in 1931 the genre of Gothic horror was new to people, the happy will ending makes people feel

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

In everyday life, as in literature, there will always be an opposing force to evil. In the novel “Dracula,” by Bram Stoker, Professor Van Helsing acts as Dracula’s main antagonist. An antagonist is the character who acts against the main character, which increases the conflict of the story and intensifies the plot. Through the use of theme, characterization and specific events, the author shows readers how Dr. Van Helsing effectively fits the role of Dracula’s most threatening adversary.

Bram Stoker’s use of characterization and imagery to convey one of his many themes in the book Dracula. In Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the author uses characterization and imagery to convey the theme, Follow your instincts.

Even more, the nauseating “cruel-looking” (49) creature described in the novel is turned into a charming young Gary Oldman. Although Coppola starts the film with a brilliant representation of Stoker’s monster, he seems to embellish on the younger Dracula (12:44-13:00). In the novel Dracula becomes younger by gorging himself with blood, but Jonathan Harker describes him “like a filthy leech, exhausted with his repletion” (83). Coppola makes the monster more of a human, and the audience can feel for his and Mina’s love affair. Also, Jonathan seems distant from Mina, and this makes the love is even more

“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

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

During the Victorian Era, which ranged from 1837 to 1901, there was strong growth and prosperity throughout Eastern and Western Europe. Inventions including the railroad, steam engine, and medicinal advancements changed the way people lived. Within the original story of Dracula Bram Stoker used the two main settings, Transylvania and London, as a way to depict the differences Eastern and Western Europe. Stoker used descriptive weather scenes as a symbol to understand natural political and technological divide between the East and West.

Consider as well how the four men in the story risk their lives for that of Mina's. Bram Stoker reveals his attitude towards the nature of Victorian society by making the evil side in this novel very seductive. Even though the side of good is well aware of the harm the evil side can cause, the seductiveness of the evil side tempts our protagonists on many occasions. For example when Van Helsing has trouble bringing himself to stake the three women because of their physical beauty and when Jonathan Harker nearly allows himself to be bitten by one of the women because of how physically attracted he is to her. "I felt in my heart some wicked, burning desire that they would kiss me with those red lips."# Stoker comments on the nature of Victorian society by showing how unacceptable it was to give in to those primal desires. This relates to the struggle between good and evil between our heroes of Victorian society and the devilish vampires. Vampires are in control of those evil, primal desires in the story and good people like Jonathan Harker and Van Helsing must fight off these desires lest they lose their clean and pure Victorian existences.