Essays on Dracula

When Dracula was published in 1896, at the close of the century, the concept of vampirism horrified and fascinated readers. The fin de siècle was a time when the century was coming to a close, Victorian society’s fears and anticipation of what to expect of the new century. Stoker used these fears of what haunted the Victorians about the fin de siècle such as degeneration, the new role of science and the change in religious beliefs, and also his childhood experience of his illness to create a ...

Melton (19) views are on the perspective of vampires that refused to take human blood and prefer to fine other alternative giving the vampire the option to keep the human soul so it could make its way to heaven. Melton states that “during the last generation, vampires becoming the hero or the sympathetic figure with whoever the reader identified, they still want to know more about the vampire feeding off humans. If a vampire renounce the taking of blood from victims, there are few nutritional ...

In this essay, I will analyse Bram Stoker's Gothic taking as a reference point his novel Dracula. The main purpose of these pages is to present the aspects conform to conventions of Gothic fiction and the ones that vary from this genre. Gothic fiction is considered a literature and film genre that mainly combines death, fiction and horror, and occasionally romance. Gothic narratives always describe journeys, flight and pursuit tales or stories of escape (Duncker, 2004). 1790s writers, ...

“What manner of a man is this, or what manner of creature is it in the semblance of man? I feel the dread of this fear - and there is no escape for me; I am encompassed about the terrors that I dare not to think of…” (Stoker 2011: 41) Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula is one of the most famous examples of 19th-century literature and the genre of gothic novels. Since its release in 1897, the novel’s story and its idea of a vampire legend have been adapted by print, film, and television many times, ...

In the 19th century, Christianity suffered a decline of faith. Scientific discoveries and the publication of rational studies of the Bible as a historical book and not as God’s word, like The life of Jesus (1808-74) from David Strauss, contributed to the decrease of the Christian belief. Moreover, the publication of theories like On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural selection (1859) from Charles Darwin enforced the idea that God was not the Creator. On the other side, the literature of ...

Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula was published in 1897 and it still stands as his greatest masterpiece. The novel could not find an immediate success but it has inspired several films and other literary pieces of work. Stoker’s intention was to explain the anxieties of his time such as the repercussions and consequences of abandoning traditional beliefs, scientific progress and female sexuality. We must be quite sure that at that time Stoker could not imagine his words associated with sex, but in ...

The last few years have been favorable to the gay community, especially with the legalization of gay marriage occurring last year in the United States. In the past, however, those who fit the description of a homosexual were looked down upon and forced to repress who they truly are. In the Victorian Era, one notable person who had this type of discrimination forced upon them was Bram Stoker, author of Dracula. It is widely believed that Stoker had feelings for or even had been sexually ...

Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) can be read from a feminist perspective, as Mina Murray-Harker, one of the most complex character in the novel, is a mixture between the Victorian woman ideals. That is why she deserves a profound analysis in order to discuss whether she is or not a depiction of the “New Woman”. “Initially Mina Murray is one of those secondary characters born to serve as man’s helpmate”, but readers will see that this fact changes during the novel’s evolution.“Dracula is ...

When Bram Stoker wrote “Dracula” late Victorian society was in a period of relative upheaval. There was a clear move towards feminine liberty and the era of the suffragettes was not too far away. This caused a great deal of tension between those women (and men) who believed in the “New Woman” and those that didn’t. In the late 1900s England was a rapidly changing place, the Empire was becoming more and more powerful and capitalism was proving to be a resounding success, although the old class ...

Dracula converts the society’s conventions into grotesque elements. Religion is deformed by Count Dracula and used to transform women into a demonic-being. This status of fear makes ordinary people to defeat the enemy that comes from the outside, giving the fact that the Count is a foreigner. People are anxious because their society values are changing and transforming their ‘angel in the house’ into ‘The new Women’. Dracula makes his feminine subjects be sexually aggressive challenging the ...

Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a work of fantasy fiction. Its eerie success comes from the ability to prey on human fears, mostly about death and sexuality. Dracula reflects the problems during the Victorian period. Most of the reviewers agreed that Dracula should of be seen as an exquisite example of fulfilling the Victorian male imagination, regarding female sexuality. Victorian society commanded firm restraints on sexuality, especially female sexuality. As Sally J. Kline states in her study of ...

Although Dracula and Frankenstein were written at opposing ends of the 19th century, they both threaten the stability of societal norms and the modern world by subconsciously projecting the repressed anxieties of political cultures onto the readers. The monstrosity of the novels can often be mistaken for the actions of the “monsters”, however, what could be deemed the most egregious aspect of the novels is the author’s capability to inhabit cultural anxieties and indirectly encode them into ...

“Literature is like a flashlight, illuminating the dark recesses of the human mind.” The novel becomes the instrument in which the author uses to portray the ideas that they have about the existing world. The words can blatantly express the author’s position on the idea or the opinions can be imbedded in the text and represented through metaphors and imagery. The exercise of subliminally promoting one’s standpoint, although still widely used today, is something that was used in the earlier ...

Dracula and the Picture of Dorian Gray were both books written a long time ago where they were supposed to shock the original readers. Dracula is a novel written by Bram Stoker. It is set in the Victorian era, but much of the novel takes place in Dracula’s dank and eerie castle. The plot centers around a young English lawyer who travels to Castle Dracula in Transylvania to explain the logistical details to Count Dracula who wants to purchase a house in England. But in reality, the Count wants ...