Xenophobia In Dracula

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Dracula compares to King Kong on a lot of levels I think one of the main ones is the fear level that he brings but also that same fascination to those around him. King Kong enters New York and people hear about him and are frightened but come to the showing any way out of curiosity and I feel like the characters in the book, especially Lucy for example, are afraid and can feel the danger but are drawn to him anyway because he’s new and exotic and they want to be around him. There are several examples of xenophobia throughout the story and a lot of it comes in the beginnings while Jonothan is starting his journey. In chapter 1 page 5 Jonothan states “The strangest figures we saw were the Slovaks, who were more barbarian than the rest, with their big cow-boy hats, great baggy dirty-white …show more content…

There is a lot of fear of the group turning into monsters like Dracula, when Lucy becomes ill the text states “Lucy’s eyes in form and color; but Lucy’s eyes unclean and full of hell-fire, instead of the pure, gentle orbs we knew” (pg. 234). Lastly Dracula throughout the book monstrously kills innocent people and each time he is depicted as a monster with no mercy towards whoever he is attacking. Freud defines uncanny as something that is frightening and familiar and Dracula to me is the exact definition of that fear mixed with curiosity. Dracula embodies the fear of cultural passing, like we discussed in class, the thought of him being able to move within society undetected is terrifying because now there’s this monster walking among us that could attack at any time.I

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