Dracula

• Vlad the Impaler


  • Ruled over Wallachia (south Transylvania) with an iron fist
  • Brutal, sadistic leader famous for torturing his foes
  • Responsible for the deaths of more than 80,000 people in his lifetime, a large percentage of them by impalement
  • Killed his enemies and the people of his kingdom who displeased him in the most terrifying ways imaginable: beheadings, disembowelment, boiled, or skinned alive
• Jure Grando


  Croatian figure that symbolises difference and represents foreign contamination, culture, and bloodline
• Gothic fiction represents the fears of society
• Dracula is a transgressive figure from the Carpathian Mountains but comes to London, and hovers between life and death, what it means to be human
• Historical allusion


  Partly based on fact, this allows Stoker to give the novel a sense of truth and intends to suggest the documents that compose the novel are real
• Historical allusion adds depth and meaning to a work by connecting it to a broader historical context
• Bram Stoker does this in a range of ways, one is by introducing fears and ideas of the time which make Dracula scarier
• Key things happening in the victorian era

  • Industrial revolution- advancement of technology
  • Progression in science
  • Evolution- goes against religion, shakes and changes beliefs, science vs religion
  • Gender roles change- women taking a bigger role in society, getting jobs more than being a housewife
  • Revival of occult- interest in contacting the death, more spiritual approach
  • Paranormal research- more scientific approach
• The sublime


  A mingled feeling of awe and terror that can often be inspired by the grandeur of nature. "Realm of experience beyond the measurable" that is beyond rational thought, that arises chiefly from the terrors and awe-inspiring natural phenomena
• The sublime in Gothic literature


  • As the intended experience for the reader
  • As a motif that shows up within the text itself
• Xenophobia


  Dislike of or prejudice against people from other countries
• Dracula drinks blood


  Blood is traditionally a nationalistic marker of identity, indicating the shared heritage of a people that is in their genes
• Dracula's thirst for the blood of English people solidifies him as a symbol of foreign races that will erase English heritage, "sucking the blood" from England
• Dracula is the antithesis of the true born Englishman
• Dracula's ethnicity associates him foremost with Eastern Europe, but Stoker associates the count with a variety of nations and peoples-from China and South America to Scotland and Ireland. Late-Victorian fears were not centred on a single group; rather, they encompassed almost any group that wasn't British
• Count Dracula is well-read, cultured, and reliable: all attributes that separate him from colonial Eastern stereotypes but connect with earlier, aristocratic immigrants
• Vampirism


  Fears of sexually transmitted diseases, such as syphilis in urban areas and the perceived moral decline of society itself
• The foreign predator who sought to destroy English female virtue and encourage sexual biting of someone is a vampire's way of procreating, needing to exchange blood (exchange of blood), any act where there is an exchange in bodily fluids has sexual undertones
• Fear of blood and blood disease, contamination of bloodlines- fear of xenophobia and foreign predators
• The new women sought educational freedom and used it to break free of social restraints
• Mina Murray (later Harker)


  • Typical Victorian female role - virtuous, motherly
  • Portrayed as a progressive female - views on marriage
  • Devoted to Jonathan, innocent of supernatural/evil
  • Best friend of Lucy, Dracula's first English victim
  • Intelligent, composed Jonathan's diary and her own
  • Most complex character, competes with Dracula for central role
  • Described by Van Helsing as having a "man's brain"
  • Her body becomes polluted/scarred by Dracula, but her soul retains purity
• Jonathan Harker


  • English solicitor who travels to Transylvania to consult Dracula
  • Embodiment of ordinary, stereotypical Victorian gentleman
  • Exhibits conformity and evasion, blind to Dracula's evil initially
• Lucy Westenra


  • Epitomises the tragic victim, symbolises innocence and vulnerability
  • Vibrant 19-year-old who falls prey to Dracula, becomes undead
  • Described in white, pure and beautiful
  • Name "light bringer" links to martyrdom and victory over evil
  • Embodies societal perceptions of women, dangers of female independence
  • Transformation into vampire seen as punishment for defiance of traditional roles
  • Attacks on children underscore her corruption
  • Highly sexualised character, expresses desire for multiple men
  • Laments Victorian era expectations of women
• Van Helsing


  • Paranormal hero, embodies duality of natural and supernatural
  • Maintains open mind, recognises significance of traditions/superstitions
  • Agent of good opposing Dracula, aligns with divine forces
• Dracula


  • Antagonist, but we never get his viewpoint
  • Maintains shadowy, illusive presence, rarely visible
  • Easily angered but also charming/desirable facade
  • Represents old world values of superstition, mystery, unknown
  • Embodies evil and sinful deeds, consummation of blood has sexual connotation
  • Has supernatural abilities like manipulating weather
  • Causes suffering of Jonathan, Mina, Lucy
  • Desires a return to power, not pure evil
  • Studied alchemy, change of metals
  • Beneath aristocratic charm, has a dark and evil soul
• If we got Dracula's view in the novel

  He may be subject to sympathy rather than the mysterious villain
• Dracula


  • A man that can never die but can never be expected, who can never identify with humanity again
  • He is not only stripped of the pleasures of human life, he is stripped of the choice between good and evil
  • "I am no longer young. And my heart, through weary years of mourning over the dead, is not attuned to mirth" (Dracula page 22)
  • The death he speaks of could likely be the guilt of the many lives he was forced to take in order to survive
  • He does not choose murder; he is forced into it
  • He talks many times of his wishes for a normal life
  • Due to the fact that the novel is told from the perspective of those who fear him he is not subject to sympathy
• If we were to be given Dracula's perspective of these perpetual horrors he must commit and the nightmarish isolation he is forced to eternally endure, his villainous characterisation may dissolve and the reader would be given the chance to identify with this tortured being
• Dracula is a testament to the power of perspective
• Mina


  • Her transformation into a vampire encapsulates the moral societies of the time, the idea of women changing (transformation) society questioning femininity and the role of women in society
  • Initially presented as the traditional women but this changes and is questioned later on the text "she has a man's brain" (Van Helsing), plays a key role in Dracula downfall, pushing the boundaries of the role imposed by her by society but is pushes back into the role towards the end when the men excluding her, phishing her back into the role of the submissive female forcing her to Dracula
• Epistolary form


  Allows a greater duality, conveys more duality then could have been done by a single narrator, to get multiple perspectives on the women both their personal viewpoints but the men's views of them
• Key themes


  • Good vs. Evil, Light vs. Dark
  • Gender Roles
  • Science vs. Superstition
  • Fear of the Unknown/Other
• Good vs. Evil, Light vs. Dark


  • The eternal struggle between good and evil, light and dark, is the most significant theme in the text, reflecting deep societal fears
  • Dracula, portrayed as the epitome of evil, embodies darkness in every sense
  • His description is almost satanic and inhuman, emphasising his sinister nature
  • His survival hinges on feeding on blood, a symbol of his malevolence
  • Renfield's fervent worship of Dracula, referring to him as "master" and "lord," further underscores his demonic influence, challenging religious norms
  • Religion emerges as the triumphant force against evil, with religious imagery and symbols representing its power in combating Dracula
  • Other characters are defined by their honour and duty, embodying goodness and honesty
• Gender Roles


  • The text also explores gender roles, with Mina symbolising female virtue
  • She embodies the key qualities expected of a Victorian woman: protective, nurturing, and virtuous, as evidenced by her white nightdress stained with blood
• Science vs. Superstition


  • The clash between science and superstition is evident throughout the narrative
  • Harker's inclination to dismiss his experiences as hallucinations underscores society's overreliance on science to explain the inexplicable
  • Seward's insistence on solving Lucy's ailment through science leads to her demise, highlighting the tension between rationality and belief in the supernatural
  • Mina's salvation, in contrast, is attributed to religion and folklore, challenging the dominance of scientific thought
• Fear of the Unknown/Other


  • Dracula embodies the fear of the unknown and the "other," representing everything unholy and unclean
  • His vulnerability to religious symbols and sunlight emphasises his monstrous nature
  • His meticulous study of England mirrors preparation for an impending invasion, intensifying the sense of impending doom
• Writing journalism and messaging


  • The use of an epistolary structure lends credence to events that, if told in a third-person omniscient narrator, may seem too fantastical for the readers to believe
  • Mina in a sense is the 'author' as she knits together all these various accounts creating an intriguing 'meta narrative' effect- the characters in the novel are reading the 'novel' as we, the readers, make our way through it
  • Puts the readers and characters in the same position
  • The use of newspaper articles of the supernatural reports also fill out the uncanny of the narrative, from perspectives beyond those of Mina and the rest of the group
  • Harker notes at the end that the whole story are 'accounts' and not 'objectively validated' at the end of Dracula and must take the character's word for what has happened
• Illness, madness and confinement


  • The treatment for both insanity and illness is confinement in the novel and recurs throughout
  • Almost every character in the group questions their sanity or wellness at one point throughout the novel
  • The function of this theme in the novel is various things. First, the theme draws out late Victorian attitudes towards illness and madness- any social aberrant (away from social standards) behaviours 'mad' and women are more prone to this behaviour than men
  • Both illness and madness require that the patient is removed from society
  • Dracula is often compared to a poison or vermin- he is an illness, a social virus that must be isolated and destroyed
• Christianity, science and the occult


  • The novel considers the interactions of christian beliefs, superstitions or 'occult' practices and rational science
  • The tracking of dracula requires methodical investigation to echo these fields and as such at the end of the novel these fields are interrelated or entirely entangled
  • Most of the characters in the group profess a serious and proper christian belief
• Exoteric to esoteric


  Describes the relationship between spirituality, mysticism, and organised or institutional religion/community