Why I was Scared of Reading "Dracula"

I was scared by the novel. I found the novel difficult to finish reading and I didn’t enjoy reading it. Usually I have no trouble reading books but with Dracula, my fear of the plot, the character and the topics in the novel prevented me from being able to read the book before I go to bed, which unfortunately is when I normally read. I think the fear I experienced when reading the book was mainly due to the circumstances under which I read it. In the time when people were first reading Dracula, vampires and other supernatural themes weren’t really something anyone had thought of writing about, so the readers were caught up in the idea that there could be vampires living in the same down as themselves and their families. To the readers back then, the book and the discourses it included, such as the supernatural and superstition, sexuality, xenophobia and most importantly vampirism, were new, exciting and controversial, which only made reading the book even more appealing. However for me, I have been exposed to ideas about the supernatural for while. Television shows such as Supernatural, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Young Dracula have been part of my life growing up. I think the knowledge that these television shows have given me about vampires is part of what made me most afraid to read the novel, because I could understand what was going to happen in the novel and I could tell that it wasn’t going to be a happy ending for the character.

As it took me a long time to read the book, in the English class that I participate in we had already began to discuss and analyse the book even though I wasn’t even halfway through reading the novel. I think this also may have affected my enjoyment when reading the book. In class we spoke about ...

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...rtunately, this discourse didn’t play a large enough role in the construction of the novel to make me enjoy reading the book.

In conclusion, I think if I had read Dracula under other circumstances I may have been a little less afraid of the novel and a little less stressed about finishing the novel quickly but at the same time trying to understand the storyline and the characters involved. Perhaps if I had previously read the novel before the task was handed out or maybe if in my life I hadn’t been exposed to things such as the supernatural and vampirism, I may have experienced different emotions whilst reading Bram Stoker’s novel. In the future, maybe once I have had the opportunity to mature and I’m not trying to rush through the novel, I may re-read Dracula and experience different emotions and opinions because of different life experiences that I will have had.