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The main moral in dracula
The main moral in dracula
The main moral in dracula
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In novels it is not uncommon for characters to be identified as morally ambiguous. It can be extremely difficult to identify a character as purely evil or purely good. In the novel Dracula, Bram Stoker presents a morally ambiguous title character, Dracula. Dracula can be seen as evil by the obvious: he is a vampire that bites people to get their blood. But on the other hand, Dracula can also be seen as good. Dracula is not purposely trying to kill people, he is just trying to protect himself. Lots of people believe that they can understand and analyse other people and try to come up with conclusions on how that person is but Stoker shows how in some cases, analyzing a person cannot easily be done. Most people are not black and white. Their …show more content…
Dracula kills Lucy who is a sweet, victorian woman that did not deserve to be bit by Dracula. Killing people, to most people, would be an action only a purely evil person would do “Lucy’s eyes in form and colour; but Lucy’s eyes unclean and full of hell-fire, instead of the pure, gentle ors we knew” (226). Lucy getting bit not only hurt Lucy, but it caused all the people near and dear to her hurt also. Vampire-Lucy still looks pure and sweet which is even harder on the people she loves because they see that she looks beautiful and like herself but she is not herself. When something evil is being hidden as something good it is extremely evil and hurts the people that love and care for her. He does not act how a civilized and well manored man should act. He hurts other people to benefit himself. Clearly such actions are incredibly evil and no sane person would think to do such a …show more content…
“‘We have learnt-much! Notwithstanding his brave words, he fears us; he hear time, he fear want! For if not, why he hurry so? His very tone betray him, or my ears deceive” (333). Dracula could have attacked the men quite easily, but instead he chose to run away from them. Dracula’s actions show that he is not out to hurt the men. Dracula is susceptible to death and does not want to attack men when he does not have to.Dracula may have attacked the girls because he thought he was helping them escape victorian society rules. In Transylvania women did not have such strict rules so maybe Dracula’s intentions of killing the women were actually for the best. The ladies in England must abide by the men and keep to themselves or else they were whorish and impure. Living a life like that is no life at all. So it is understandable that Dracula would go after the women and not the men. The men can live great lives and prosper in society, while the women would have a tough time doing that without a man by her side. He is saving the women, not hurting
This fictional character was soon to be famous, and modified for years to come into movie characters or even into cereal commercials. But the original will never be forgotten: a story of a group of friends all with the same mission, to destroy Dracula. The Count has scared many people, from critics to mere children, but if one reads between the lines, Stoker’s true message can be revealed. His personal experiences and the time period in which he lived, influenced him to write Dracula in which he communicated the universal truth that good always prevails over evil. Religion was a big part of people’s lives back in Stoker’s time.
Even at the ending, there still is suspense after Dracula is killed because it was anticlimactic. My only question, is “Who is this ‘we’ mentioned when Dracula is talking about Transylvania’s past and the battles?” That one unanswered question leaves suspense because it makes it seem like there are more vampires not really mentioned in the book. I believe that Stoker purposely used his word choice to show good and evil because he used the word “voluptuous” to describe the three evil women and also described Lucy when she turned/passed away. I believe that Stoker uses British womanhood to show weakness since Lucy was the first one bit and that if she did not get help then she would have passed away faster and would have transformed into a vampire and would continue terrorizing little kids. However, I believe that through Mina, Stoker uses a new form of British womanhood to show a strong woman that after overcoming an obstacle can rise above it and work with the men to defeat evil. I think Mina is my favorite character in Dracula because she does just that. She did not just get saved and not do anything, she got saved and then used her visions to help the men find Dracula. That is what I admire about her. She is a strong woman. I like the suspense in the end of the book with how Dracula just dies and then everyone seems to live a happy life, however, I would have ended the book with a better “fight scene” that would have proved that Dracula was either the only vampire or that there were more. I think Stoker uses word choice to denote good and evil in Dracula and does an excellent job in doing so by describing the three women and then adding on to Lucy when she
In a world with ghosts, monsters, demons, and ghouls, there is one being that resonates in everyone’s mind. The idea of these creatures can be found in almost every culture on the planet in one form or another. They prey on the weak and they feast on the blood of their victims. They are compared to a fox for being quick and cunning, but also rather seductive in their nature. With their unholy existence one can only describe them as almost demonic. So what is this horrid creature? Well it is none other than the vampire, a creature as old as time itself. Throughout history there have been many different variations of the vampire, each with their own unique abilities. But one cannot help but mention
Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a classic piece of literature that has survived through the ages. Dracula has become a famous villain in countless movies and has been the inspiration for many others. What many people may miss about this book first written in 1897 is the purpose and symbolism behind this famous vampire. To begin to understand the symbolism and theme in the text, first you must understand a little background of the Victorian era in which Stoker lived. Named after Queen Victoria from 1837-190, this era was a time of “…sexual moralism, domestic propriety, and imperialist ambition” (“Dracula & the Fears of Victorian England”). Through these ideals and a declining economy, tensions were on the rise in the working class. Things such as sexual deviance or being improper was seen as a threat to proper Victorian society. Dracula and his mini...
Bram Stoker’s use of gender inversion is first evident in the novel when Dracula’s voluptuous brides attempt to seduce Johnathan Harker. “In an agony of delightful anticipation”, “The blonde girl's “deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive awaiting consummation with eyes closed in languorous ecstasy” (p. 48) Johnathan being quite coy “responds” to this occurrence by taking the approach “What happens in Transylvania stays in Transylvania.” As the three women lean over Johnathan he is attracted by their “red” succulent lips on his throat “so powerful an ambivalence, generating both errant erotic impulses”, but when the brides are about to feast and devour Johnathan, Dracula suddenly appears and puts an end to the party. Dracula openly displays his uncontrolled dominance over these women by saying “How...
While studying the diabolical figures in the devil, the idea of presenting Dracula came to mind. Dracula represents the devil in many similar ways. Dracula remains as a character in many diabolical movies and films. For instance, Van Helsing provides a good interpret of how Dracula remains noticed in the past and in present day. Although Dracula’s character obtains different views in every movie and film, he plays an important role in Stephen Sommers Van Helsing movie. In the movie, he acts as many different things. Demonstrating both the kind and evil inside, Dracula portrays his character as a mystery. Different views of Dracula throughout the movie include harsh, strong, powerful, evil, the devil, and unstoppable. The studies of Dracula
...ny other novels of the time, Stoker’s Dracula purposely highlights the superiority of men, while simultaneously belittling women. After only a few pages of this novel, the reader should understand just how helpless the females become. No matter what the issue or controversy, they are unable to find any sort of solution, successful or not, without the help of the male characters. Stoker even goes as far as almost teasing Mina, by allowing her to aid in the hunt for Dracula, yet giving her trivial duties. Lucy on the other hand creates the novel’s most blatant case for male superiority. She is forced to constantly depend on four men for her survival. All blood transfusions she received were from men and even that could not save her life. Stoker manages to make a bold statement by pinpointing the inferiority of the two female main characters in the novel.
Lucy is the Medusa archetype. She is physically attractive, and wins the heart of any man who comes near her (e.g. Arthur, Quincey, Jack, and Van Helsing). Her chief quality is sensual beauty, but her sexual desire is repressed and not allowed to communicate. And yet both the spiritual side and the sexual side are in her, and when the long repressed sexuality finds a vent, it explodes and takes over completely. In other words, she is transformed into the completely voluptuous female vampire precisely because her sexual side of personality had been completely buried by her Victorian education. Her repressed self needs such expression that when Dracula came along, she went out to greet him, and then invited him into the house (by opening her window to the bat). He is her vent for sexual expression.
Firstly I will look at sexuality and sexual deviancy in vampire literature; vampires are often representative of the manifestation of ‘evil’ in society, they are ‘the other’ and are used to portray undesirable moral characteristics. It is not a surprise, then, that vampires are often written as being sexually deviant- especially female vampires. Women living in Britain in the Victorian era were forced to comply with the ideals of society at the time for their gender, they were supposed to be submissive to their husbands, meek and domesticated, this was known as ‘the angel in the house’, a popular term coined to describe the ‘ideal’ Victorian woman. In gothic literature, women are usually portrayed in one of two ways, as ‘the angel in the house’ or a ‘femme fatale’. Female sexuality was seen as being very deviant and scandalous at the time, women were supposed to be virtuous and virginal, it is obvious, then, that female vampires should be sexual. Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) was written at a very important time, both in the midst of the Victorian era and also at a time of an emergence of a new role for women, the ‘new woman’. The ‘new woman’ was educated, more openly sexual, and sought autonomy from her male counterparts
His main victims, Lucy and Mina, are the best examples of how he expresses these desires. Lucy Westenra is the first victim and the first point of emphasis for Dracula's desire to create in the novel. Once Dracula arrives in Whitby a mysteriousness comes about Lucy. She is sleep walking and seems like she has someplace to go or someone to get to. Mina observes this unusual sleepwalking “Strangely enough, Lucy did not wake; but she got up twice and dressed herself” (Stoker 74). The notion of sleepwalking describes the fact that Dracula is somehow trying to draw Lucy to give in and execute his creative desires. Eventually, Lucy escapes from her room, not seen by Mina and is later found in the middle of a graveyard. This is where Dracula executes his desires and makes Lucy his victim: “There was undoubtedly something, long and black, bending over the half-reclining white figure….I could see a white face and red, gleaming eyes” (79). This mysterious figure is Dracula and his making of vampire Lucy was marked with two hole punctures in her neck. These punctures are made from a bite. This action of biting someone's neck is both aggressive and sexual. A pleasure spot on a human beings body is the neck, it is sensitive to the touch of fingers/lips. It is an arousal technique and it just so happens that this is the common method for Dracula to create his vampires. This is a direct evidence to the unleashing of Dracula`s sexual repressions. Dracula’s desire to create and releasing of sexual repressions is also evident when he victimizes Mina. After Lucy’s death, Dracula goes after Mina and the first major event evident to this is when he makes her drink his blood through his chest. “Her white nightdress was smeared with blood, and a thin stream trickled down the man’s bare breast which was shown by his torn open dress” (242). The notion of blood and Mina being victimized by having to suck
Slut shaming; A form of social stigma applied to women and girls, who are perceived to violate traditional expectations or sexual behaviors. Vampire stories existed before Bram Stoker’s Dracula. This story dates back during the victorian society. Significantly, the Victorian era was the era of objectifying and degrading women if they did not meet the certain standards. Bram Stoker uses the weird sisters and Lucy; whom are female vampires as a way of symbolism. This work of literature is significant to european vampire stories. The europeans are the only one's who wrote these stories and mastered the story's underlying message. Bram Stoker's Dracula creates the signature way how to become a vampire and how to kill a vampire. In Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the author uses the symbolism of the weird sisters to display the double standard and unfair treatment of female sexuality.
Dracula, as it was written by Bram Stoker, presents to us possibly the most infamous monster in all of literature. Count Dracula, as a fictional character, has come to symbolize the periphery between the majority and being an outsider to that group. Dracula’s appeal throughout the years and genres no doubt stems from his sense of romanticism and monster. Reader’s no doubt are attracted to his “bad-boy” sensibilities, which provide an attraction into the novel. Looking first at his appearance, personality, and behaviour at the beginning of the novel, we can easily see Dracula’s blurred outsider status, as he occupies the boundaries of human and monster. Related to this is Dracula’s geographic sense of outsider. For all intents and purposes, Dracula is an immigrant to England, thus placing him further into the realm of outsider. To look at Bram Stoker’s Dracula as solely a monster in the most violent sense of his actions would to be look at a sole aspect of his character, and so we must look at how he interacts with the outside world to genuinely understand him.
Despite popular culture today with shows like The Vampire Diaries where vampires are often continuing their daily lives as if they are human and being the heroes to their friends and/or family, Dracula is a depiction of how vampires have, for centuries, been exposed as bloodthirsty, supernatural beings with sexual appeal. The way women are portrayed in Bram Stoker’s, Dracula, is a result of the Victorian ideals. Once Dracula begins to feed on the women, they become bloodthirsty temptresses which are exactly what society fears and try to prevent. In Dracula, Stoker makes sexuality directly linked to the vampirism in the novel. This is seen through the change of Lucy’s somewhat modest behavior into a temptress, the blood-sharing between characters in the novel, and the description of the way Lucy was killed.
...l. After discovering this, Van Helsing, Dr. Seward, Quincey, and Arthur hunted her, and killed the evil soul that had taken over her body. She then truly dies and is left in her natural, humane state. Also, Jonathan facing Dracula is another example of good versus evil, as seen when Jonathan wrote that “when the Count saw [his] face, his eyes blazed with a sort of demoniac fury, and he suddenly made a grab at [his] throat. [Jonathan] drew away, and [the Count’s] hand touched the string of beads that held the crucifix.” (21). Jonathan unknowing put himself in danger by entering the Count’s castle, in which there was only evil. He could only protect himself by possessing religious objects, of which the Count, a demonic character, was afraid of. Good and evil was also demonstrated through the relationship between kind and purely good characters opposing evil characters.
There are a few characters in Dracula that embody society’s views of the time towards the uprising of women for better rights. On the other hand there are also characters that portray the Victorian ideals that men are stronger than women and how it should stay that way. As author Bram Dijkstra mentions in his response essay, “Stokers work demonstrates how thoroughly the war waged by the nineteenth century male culture against the dignity and self -respect of women had been fought”.(Dijkstra , p.460).