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Dracula as an outsider
Analysis of the Dracula novel
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Recommended: Dracula as an outsider
Vampires can be a figment of your imagination, but after seeing Dracula, you may be convinced that they could be real. I enjoyed the film, Dracula, because the plot was very thought provoking. The movie was not just blood and gory details, but action filled with good character development. I believe Dracula is one of the more intriguing and captivating films I have seen.
Jonathan Harker, who is a young London lawyer, travels to Transylvania to help Count Dracula purchase an estate in England. At first, Harker is very impressed by Dracula’s castle and his hospitality. However, in a few days, Harker realizes that there is a very dark side to the castle and Count Dracula. Upon Harker’s realization that he is in a dangerous situation, he escapes to a convent in Hungary. Meanwhile Harker’s fiancée, Mina, and her best friend, Lucy, are in England. Through journals and letters, the story unfolds about their love lives and the mysterious illness that Lucy develops. Lucy’s fiancé, Arthur Holmwood, Dr. Seward, and an old acquaintance Van Helsing all struggle to help Lucy. Van Helsing...
Throughout ‘Dracula’, Stoker presents the idea of ‘foreigner’ through the characterisation of Count Dracula and Professor Van Helsing, who are the two main outsiders in the novel. Dracula, being a supernatural creature, is of Transylvanian descent which makes him such a poignant character. On the other hand, Van Helsing is a Roman Catholic, and is of a Dutch background, which also highlights him as a foreigner within ‘Dracula.’ In this essay I will explore how these two characters are represented and the intention behind the idea of ‘foreigner.’
The story begins at status quo. Jonathan Harker lived a normal Victorian lifestyle. His fiancé was a virtuous school mistress named Mina Murray. Harkers occupation as a solicitor was how he was called to his adventure. His firm sent him to Transylvania where he was to conclude on a real estate transaction with the foreign client Count Dracula. During his visit to Dracula's castle, Jonathan was made prisoner to the ruthless vampire. He received
The diary entries or notes used in ‘Dracula’ are fragmented and have an epistolary structure ‘Jonathon Harker’s Journal’. This emphasises each of the character’s feelings of isolation and loneliness, adding to the appeal of the reader. During the entries, Stok...
Dracula begins with a diary entry from Jonathan Harker, a real estate agent from England. Mr. Harker is traveling to Transylvania, where he is to confirm a business deal between Count Dracula and his mentor Peter Hawkins. En route to Transylvania, Jonathan comes across many people who caution him about his trip and his host. They cower at the thought of him going into the land, and give him gifts of garlic and a crucifix. At the time, Mr. Harker is unaware of the severity of his troubles. Although these people are friendly and reach out to help Jonathan, it is not considered homosociality, since they do not form the tight, same-sex friendship that is required of the term. For Jonathan, these early helpers are simply companions on a train.
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.
Dracula: a name that inspires thoughts of intrigue, fear, romance and in some a life style that is all its own. Yet one thing that is not always known is that there is a true story hidden behind the legend of Dracula. More than one actually, one in which a man is a demon who executes a hundred thousand men, impaling them, and dinning on their blood. Then there is the story of a patriot who cares for his people and is only doing what he must to protect them from the invading armies. The latter of which is less known, yet in the most famous book about Dracula, Bram Stoker brings forth many of the true facts about Vlad Țepeș also known as Vlad the Impaler. The tricky thing comes when we look at why Bram Stoker chose what he did for the book, and later what Coppola chose to leave out or modify from the novel when he directed the movie adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula in 1992. Stoker wrote his based more on a German view of Vlad while Coppola modified his based on a more educated modern understanding of the times in which Vlad Țepeș lived, one of which Vlad was seen as a hero to the people of Hungary not initially the savage he is made out to be in many of the earlier studies.
Stoker chooses to lay some clues out for the readers in order to help them interpret Dracula. The distinct warning presented on the page before the introduction saying the narrators wrote to the best of their knowledge the facts that they witnessed. Next is the chapter where Jonathan Harker openly questions the group’s interpretations of the unsettling events that occur from meeting Dracula, and the sanity of the whole. Several characters could be considered emotionally unstable. Senf suggests that Stoker made the central normal characters hunting Dracula ill-equipped to judge the extraordinary events with which they were faced. The central characters were made two dimensional and had no distinguishing characteristics other then the...
The version that I focused on for the sake of this essay was the book. I did watch eleven of the thirty-three Dracula movies that I own, so some references will be made to the movies. The book is told from the perspective of Jonathan Harker’s journal, with some letters to and from his girlfriend Mina. The purpose of his visit with Count Dracula is that Harker is selling a building to Dracula. Carfax Abby was in England where Dracula wanted to move. Harker went to Transylvania to assist Count Dracula in his move to England.
Stoker uses phenomenal imagery to produce a late nineteenth century setting, located somewhere within eastern Europe. Transylvania, the infamous home to Dracula himself, is described in great detail in Harker’s journal. There, Stoker purposely and meticulously outlines Dracula’s castle and the surrounding town. Stoker manages to do this with a very gothic tone, immediately lowering the societal status of women. In conjunction with Dracula’s gothic tone comes the understanding of male and female traditional roles of the era. The reader sees that there is no hesitation differentiating between the two, as Stoker “ cast[s] men as rational, strong, protective and decisive…[and] women as emotional (irrational), weak, nurturing and submissive.” (Tyson, 82).
By this point in the story, the repercussions of Jonathon Harker’s visit to Transylvania and his over extended stay with count Dracula has had a mysterious effect on many of the other characters and the plots throughout the continuation of the text. Seward’s diary symbolizes love to me. I feel that Seward shares a love for Lucy that is corresponding with the love that Mina has for Jonathon and the love Dracula also has for Jonathon. I believe that a main theme that is starting to form in the midsection of the story is how love can affect the characters. Lucy must be a very beautiful woman or must have some very attractive trait because many men are lined up, in an attempt to court her. Van Helsing, Holmwood, Seward, and Morris are all very
When Van Helsing figured out what was happening to Lucy he told Dr. Seward and after Lucy passed away the men went to where she was buried and it had been weeks and her body. The sight they saw was “more radiant and beautiful than ever; and I could not believe that she was dead. The lips were red maybe redder than before” (Stoker 171). This line should that Lucy turned into a vampire because Dracula had been sucking her blood. Jonathan Harker was also a victim of Dracula’s games but he fought through his mental trauma with the help of his Wife, Mina. The rein of Dracula’s evil ways came to an end and although Lucy lost her future, all of her friends were finally safe from
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.
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 fall in love with Dracula. Coppola changes the original story of Dracula in the film adaptation in many ways by the addition of a love story between Dracula and Mina.
Dracula, by Bram Stoker, is a classic tale of Gothicism. Traditionally, gothic tales only carried single theme of horror. Through Dracula, Stoker breaks this single theme barrier. The theme throughout Dracula is clearly displayed through the characters as they step from ignorance to realization in this tale of horror.
...es her unconventional treatment. Second, Van Helsing is reminiscent of the occult expert, Doctor Hesselius. Both men engage in study of the supernatural as a hobby outside their medical profession. Finally, Van Helsing is a resonance of Baron Vordenburg. Like the Baron, Van Helsing places great value in his books and papers for knowledge of the supernatural; moreover, he is responsible for confirming Lucy’s undead state and educating the other men in how to stake her; and, it is Baron’s governing principles of the vampire which foreshadow Van Helsing’s characteristics of the enemy, Dracula (344).