Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
comparing vampires in twilight and bram stoker's dracula
comparing vampires in twilight and bram stoker's dracula
comparing vampires in twilight and bram stoker's dracula
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Stoker and Rice's Books About Vampires
Bram Stoker's Dracula and Anne Rice's series The Vampire Chronicles are books about vampires. The way the two authors write about the vampires' powers, the way they live and how they are created and destroyed prove that two books about the same subject can be different in many ways. It also shows how the vampire legend has evolved over a long period of time.
Special powers are used in both of the authors writings. A few of the powers are the same, or very close to it, in each account. enhaced or super- human strenth is one of these abilites. On page 7 in Anne Rice's book The
Vampire Lestat, her main chacter Lestast says “As for my strength, well it was three times what it had once been. I could bend a copper penny double.” After becoming a vampire he notices his super human strength. Not much is written about Stoker's use of super-strength for Count DraculaTherefore, One tends to believe that Dracula in fact did not have enhanced strength. Stoker did use the power of morphing into animals in his novel. In Dracula , the Count can morph into a bat and he can turn into a greyish-green mist. He uses these powers so humans dont detect his presence. As a gas he can pass by humans without them even noticing and as a bat he can cover more ground in a shorter amount of time.
Rice's novels mention nothing of being able to morph into a bat, mist or anything else for that matter.
The ability to fly is used in each novel but they are used very differently. In Dracula the count can fly but, in order to do this he must turn into a bat and fly as a bat would fly. More powerful vampires in The
Vampire Chronicles can fly as , for example, super man would fly. In order for a vampire to fly it requires lots of energy and a great force of will Lestat says “ It was as if a current of air had caught me. I went up hundereds of feet in one instant, and then the clouds were below me-a white light that I could scarcely see. I decided to drift.” (Rice, Queen of the damned 286)
Mental powers are used extensivly in both of the authors' creations.
Mind reading is common in The Vampire Chronicles. Vampires in the Chronicles can not read the minds of vampires they themselves have created or minds that are skillfully cloaked against them.
A bat can bend in different ways. For example, if you were to place each end of a bat on a brick and stand on the bat in the middle, then the bat would bend in the middle. That bend in the middle hi where the ball should be hit.
Tom Wolfe explains that a career in flying was like climbing one of those ancient Babylonian pyramids made up of a dizzy progression of steps and ledges, a ziggurat, a pyramid extraordinary high and steep; and the idea was to prove at every foot of the way up that pyramid that you were one of the elected and anointed ones who had the right stuff and could move hig...
Just some of The vampire’s numerous powers are: He can turn humans into the Undead, he is virtually immortal, he has the ability to grow younger by drinking blood, he casts no shadow, he casts no reflection, he has the ability to crawl along walls, he has the ability to control animals, he can control the weather and he also has the power to transform his own shape. Here we can see these powers.
“A stronger light pressed upon my nerves, so that I was obliged to shut my eyes. Darkness then came over me,
Vampires have been viewed with fear and fascination for centuries. Of all the vampires in literature, Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula is probably the most prominent vampire. Recently, there has been an upsurge of public interest in socially acceptable vampires, like the Cullens in the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer. This essay will contrast Stoker’s Dracula with Carlisle Cullen, one of the newer vampires from the Twilight series. They will be examined in terms of their origins and how they dealt with immortality.
Count Dracula has been the frontrunner for the modern day vampire lore and legends since being printed back in 1897, pop culture took the vampire traits from Bram Stoker’s Dracula and twisted them. In modern portrayals of vampire lore, each author chooses an original aspect from Stoker but then creates a little bit of their own lore in the process. Count Dracula appears to be a walking corpse from the pale and gaunt visual aesthetics to the coolness of his undead skin (Stoker). In some cultures, the vampire is able to transform from the body of a human being to that of a fellow creature of the night, a bat. In the novel Dracula more than one town was easily visualized through the detailed descriptions throughout the novel, thus
...is family, and while at first he simply assumes that they are folklore, his gradually accepts the fact that perhaps his ancestors could fly, and perhaps he himself can fly, rejecting any thoughts of suicide or revenge in his mind.
The narrator of “My Life as a Bat” believes in reincarnation, and believes in her last life she was a bat. She knows by her bat like experiences. Whether it be her dislike of human hair, to her bat
...gue of Vampirism. Stoker plays upon the irony of England, at this time one of, if not the largest, colonizing countries, being colonized, not by another country but by an intangible immigrant. Dracula’s intent is not of material wealth or power, but of controlling the people and using them as livestock. We can see this when Dracula tells Jonathan Harker that he “[has] come to know your great England, and to know her is to love her. I long to go through the crowded streets of your mighty London, to be in the midst of the whirl and rush of humanity, to share its life, its change, its death, and all that makes it what it is” (Stoker 19). Kane reaffirms this by contending that Dracula is an example of “invasion literature” acting upon the readers on England by playing with “a considerable variety of fears regarding the state of England and the English themselves” (9).
Stoker has rendered the reader to see the Count as physically strong and powerful, through Jonathan Harker and his confinement and Lucy Westenra and her failing health. Although the reader does not understand all the omniscient powers and control that Count Dracula possesses over people, they are brought to light through Dr Steward’s accounts of his patient R.M. Renfield. The ‘strange and sudden change’ (Stoker, 86), that has happened in Renfield evokes the reader to contemplate the Count’s influence over people. Dr Steward suggests it is as though a ‘religious mania has seized’ Renfield (Stoker, 87), and is controlling him. The reader is aware that Renfield can feel the Counts presence and that there is a connection between them. This eventually leads Van Helsing to recognize the bond between Mina Harker and the Count, which helps them to find Dracula and finally kill him. Dracula’s invasion over Renfield also reveals a weakness in the Counts power. Renfield, an obedient servant of Dracula, claims he is ‘here to do Your bidding, Master. I am Your slave’ (Stoker, 88). Renfield’s devotion is quickly reversed when he sees that the Count is taking life from Mina. It is his care for her that causes him to turn against Dracula and try to fight for her. Again Renfield’s actions mimic that of the other men as it becomes their goal to save Mina from the invasion running through her body. The key to this invasion is the blood.
In Twilight, Edward Cullen presents the question; “ But what if I’m not the hero? What if I’m the bad guy?” The role of vampires is very controversial. Back in the day they were evil, soulless monsters and people genuinely feared them. However, in the present day it seems that we have grown to love them and even hope to one day be them. There are a plethora of vampire stories and many of them have become immense hits. With so many vampire stories, it is not uncommon that readers are able to identify a vast amount of similarities. Although similar in aspects, there are still many differences between the classic and modern day vampires. Two highly popular stories, in which we can easily identify similarities and differences, are Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight.
The late nineteenth century Irish novelist, Bram Stoker is most famous for creating Dracula, one of the most popular and well-known vampire stories ever written. Dracula is a gothic, “horror novel about a vampire named Count Dracula who is looking to move from his native country of Transylvania to England” (Shmoop Editorial Team). Unbeknownst of Dracula’s plans, Jonathan Harker, a young English lawyer, traveled to Castle Dracula to help the count with his plans and talk to him about all his options. At first Jonathan was surprised by the Count’s knowledge, politeness, and overall hospitality. However, the longer Jonathan remained in the castle the more uneasy and suspicious he became as he began to realize just how strange and different Dracula was. As the story unfolded, Jonathan realized he is not just a guest, but a prisoner as well. The horror in the novel not only focuses on the “vampiric nature” (Soyokaze), but also on the fear and threat of female sexual expression and aggression in such a conservative Victorian society.
as he is moody throughout the first act and is not able to come out of
A close analysis of characters in Dracula reveals that Stoker relieved heavily on gothic elements. Several characters in the novel, experience unusual states of mind. For example, when Jonathon Harker first meets Dracula, he is often confused about reality. The young man describes how he “only slept a few hours” (Stoker 26). Since Jonathon barely sleeps in his stay, he feels disoriented, as if he were in a haze. While shaving the next morning, Jonathon cuts himself when he notices “there was no reflection of [Dracula] in the mirror” (Stoker 27). Linda Bayer-Berenbaum explains how sleeplessness makes an individual “less analytical or rational, less strictly controlled” (78). Stoker introduces familiar examples before exploring more radical mental states such as hypnosis. Dracula is considered a grotesque character, which can be “created through exaggeration rather than by a complete departure from normality” (Bayer- Berenbaum 80). Examples that may follow this side of the definition are the counts “protuberant teeth” or the many other peculiar body parts on him. A second way to characterize someone as grotesque is to use uncommon ways to mislead someone until one is pleased. As Jonathon first arriv...
Ever since I was little I was amazed at the ability for a machine to fly. I have always wanted to explore ideas of flight and be able to actually fly. I think I may have found my childhood fantasy in the world of aeronautical engineering. The object of my paper is to give me more insight on my future career as an aeronautical engineer. This paper was also to give me ideas of the physics of flight and be to apply those physics of flight to compete in a high school competition.