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Bram stokers dracula gothic review essay
Bram stokers dracula gothic review essay
Bram stokers dracula gothic review essay
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Dracula, by Bram Stoker, began the new era of horror novels when it was published in 1897. It was also the first book to be written in the vampire genre. It still frightens and shocks its readers even today, over one hundred years after it was published. Stoker looked to vampire and Gothic myths, legends, and history as inspiration for Dracula. It tells the story of a Jonathan Harker through his personal journal and letters, and his and others’ interactions with Dracula.
The novel’s main characters are Jonathan Harker; his fiancée, Mina Harker: Arthur Holmwood; Lucy Westenra, who is Arthur’s fiancée and Mina’s best friend; Abraham Van Helsing; a vampire hunter; Jack Seward a past student of Van Helsing; Renfield, a victim of Dracula; Quincey
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The Count only appears a handful of times throughout the entire book. Each time he does make an appearance, however, makes even the audience wary and anxious, and contributes to the mystery of the story.
Jonathan Harker is one of the only characters in the novel who uses his logic. He is a new lawyer, organized and sensible. Considering all the fantastical events that happen, Jonathan’s natural character allows Bram Stoker to make the story more believable and less hysterical. Jonathan attempts to rationally analyze the strange things that happen to him and the other characters using common sense.
The first time Count Dracula appears in the book, it is in an unfamiliar land with new languages and traditions. It is very specifically in early spring, a time of change, for nature as well as for Lucy and Mina alike—with Lucy preparing for marriage and Mina getting ready to start a family. It’s even a time of transition for Dracula, as he moves into the castle. Under these foreign conditions, it’s easy to succumb to irrational fears, and succumb to the unknown. Bram Stoker begins to whip the characters into a frenzy at this point, using descriptions of the dark colors in nature, and strange and mysterious
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When Jonathan Harker arrives at Count Dracula’s castle for the first time, Dracula comes out of complete darkness, wearing all black, with no color except his white face. He’s tall and old, with a white moustache (p. 23). Jonathan remarks in his journal entry that despite the Count’s old age, his grip is incredibly strong. His hand was ice cold, too cold to belong to a living human (p 24). He has a face like a bird, bright red lips, a thin nose, thick eyebrows and abnormally sharp teeth. He is impossibly pale with ears that come to a point. The strangest thing about him is the hair on his palms(p.26-27). Later, on page 195, the zookeeper says he has a hooked nose and a pointy beard with a white streak. His normally blue eyes change to red when he is angry. Every time he appears, he seems to become younger and younger. Dracula is frightening to the other characters and the audience because they don’t understand this new fear. He changes so much, as soon as the other characters and the audience get to a point where they understand him, he transforms again. Bram Stoker does this to keep his audience wary, poised, and ready for new action. It also makes Dracula seem even more
Firstly, Stoker describes Dracula’s physical appearance in Chapter two, ‘a tall old man, clean shaven save for a long white moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck
... period where there was a mix of different feeling and ideas coming about. Religion was the core of his tale, and also modeled it. On one side were the humans and on the other Dracula. Through their struggles to defeat the monster they experienced changes in gender roles, which was also present in real time. Women were becoming more free and working. The only way this change happened was because of the trust and the love between family members; that led to good stable home and ultimately success in life. Stoker wrote Dracula later on his career, this way he had more experience and knowledge of life and grew to believe in common universal truth. Dracula was a hit because it had truth and history in it, and it turned the ordinary good beats bad story into a compelling and interesting narrative, and if readers read carefully they could even find themselves in the book.
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...
To begin, the author incorporates the act of Religion to parish off the malicious Dracula. When Jonathan Harker is shaving, Dracula emerges behind him without seeing his reflection in Jonathan 's mirror. stunned, Jonathan ends up cutting his face. Dracula replies: “When the Count saw my face, his eyes blazed with a sort of demoniac fury, and he suddenly made a grab at my throat. I drew
Anyone who has ever seen one of the several adaptations of Dracula as a movie will know that it was intended to be a horror story. Stoker goes to great lengths in order to create an atmosphere of terror and villainy, while hinting at exciting things to come. Straight from the beginning of the book, foreshadowing is utilized to hint at horrifying future events. As Jonathan Harker was about to depart for Castle Dracula, an old lady accosted him and said, "It is the eve of St. George's Day. Do you not know that to-night when the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things in the world will have full sway?" (Stoker, 4). However Harker leaves anyway, despite the warning. Thus the reader is fully aware that something awful is going to happen to him. This quote makes one's mind think of possible future events, thus creating imagery. Every writer aspires to create good imagery, and Bram Stoker is particularly good at doing so.
Once Jonathan arrives at the castle, he is met by the mysterious Count Dracula, a man described as strong and pale, with bright ruby lips and sharp white teeth. Although Jonathan is unaware of what Dracula truly is, he can already sense that something is amiss, and he gets worr...
First off, in Stoker’s Dracula the reader’s suspension of disbelief is lower as compared to folklore tales. He is a tall creepy old person when first revealed, but later on in the novel he is shown to be more sinister. This creates a sense of mystery and confusion. Another reason is that he is a well developed antagonist. Often times he outsmarts the main characters creating a sense of suspense and irony because the readers know what is going to happen but the characters do not. But the most important reason of them all is the fact that Count Dracula takes elements from folklore and builds upon it. Stoker uses classic folklore to create a foundation for Dracula, for example; Dracula’s powers give him the ability to live forever, or shapeshift into other creatures as well. They also give him weaknesses such as: holy objects and daylight which mitigates his powers. These powers regularly add to the mysterious tone in the book. Count Dracula climbing down the castle wall upside down or moving slowly across a yard as a cloud of vapor makes the reader question what is happening. He has the ability to control the weather and animals as well. Stoker gives him powers from legend to make him a formidable force in the story. Although his appearance is unpleasant, he is quite the seductive character. He uses this to his advantage when trying to turn Mina and Lucy into vampires. Dracula preys on ‘weaker’ beings in a hierarchical system where he feasts on the women and once the women have turned to vampires, they feed on children. He can also use telepathy to tell where other vampires are, however, this works against him in the final chase of the book. In short his powers are unique and interesting and help to make the Count a powerful
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.
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...
Bram Stoker took the legend of Vlad Tepes and used it as an idea for Dracula. He was the ruler of an old country called Wallachia. He is most famous for impaling his enemies on sticks around his castle. He taught himself how to miss vital organs in the body, causing the victim to die a slow painful death. This is why people consider him an ancient vampire. What people don’t know about him is that the rich loved him, but the poor hated him. To anyone that didn’t have to seal to make it by he was great. But to the poor people who couldn’t buy food, they were always in fear of him. He was abused as a child, and this is what is thought to have caused his behavior. (Melton 1053)
Mansi 2 • When Harker finally gets to the castle, he was welcomed by Dracula. He described Dracula as a tall old man. • When shaking his hand, Harker notices that Dracula not only has a strong grip, but he also had ice cold
Dracula’s peculiar actions begin when Johnathan Harker takes a Journey to help Dracula with some business. When Harker was getting
Dracula is “un-dead”, once human before his vampire state and clearly separate from human form, establishing his frightening allure. His fangs, hands and sharp nails are horrifying up close. He is not corpse at first look, mysteriously resisting the decay of death. Dr. Seward comments, “she was, if possible, more radiantly beautiful than ever; and I could not believe she was dead” on Lucy’s vampire state (Stoker 200). At several points in the novel Dracula is life like, “simply gorged with blood; he lay like a leech, exhausted with his repletion” (Stoker 52). The monstrous life in death is an “essential gift of Stoker’s vampires to the twentieth century; a reminder, not of the dreadfulness of death, but the innate horror of vitality” ( Auerbach 95). Edward is opposite in appearance to Dracula. The venom from the bite that transforms human into vampire freezes their appearance forever. Edward was bitten at 17, and never labeled as horrifying.
Actually, although letters like these compose some of the plot, particularly the exchanges between Mina Murray and Lucy Westenra, the book also relies on journal entries and news articles to tell the tale. In fact, the book begins with an entry in Jonathan Harker's journal. Dracula, which bounces around from character to character, readers receive several first-person accounts. This disjointed approach helps to disorient the reader, who must try to figure out what is going on based on several separate accounts.”
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.