Introduction
Is the main message of Dracula, by Bram Stoker really about the exploitation of powers and how they affect Victorian People’s lives?
Since the 19th Century, Bram Stoker’s Dracula has entertained its readers taking them to heights of excitement in the climax
Indeed, the book encompasses a common theme on the usage of immense powers and strengths that are required in order to triumph over the opposition of virtue, no matter what form it might be and Stoker depicts these powers throughout his novel.
II. Body Para 1
There is no strength that is more true, more triumphant and more innocent then the power of goodness and innocence. However, Evil always is at advantage with supernatural powers whereas no matter how strong it is,
…show more content…
good will prevail in the end. In Jonathan Harker’s Novel, he contrasts God against Dracula the monster, “At least God's mercy is better than that of these monsters, and the precipice is steep and high. At its foot a man may sleep—as a man” (Dracula 4.70). where God signifies good and Dracula as evil. Not only is Good and Evil depicted for the characters but also targeted towards the Victorian Politics. “In Dracula the political theme is more covert and certainly less urgent; but it is nevertheless there and in the same peculiar way as in Lady of the Shroud” (Wasson 387). Moreover, The power of Good vs. Evil is not the only theme expressed in the novel that was a concern in the Victorian Era. II. Body Para 2 Love is a force that can halt wars and bring about unity, that is the reason it has been used in this novel. Love has been showed in two different manners in the story, Mina’s love with Jonathan and Lucy’s love with Seward, Quincey and Arthur. Lucy says in her letter to Mina, “A woman ought to tell her husband everything—don't you think so, dear?” (5.6). This shows lucy gives love a lot of emphasis in her relationship to her husband, Whereas Mina also thinks the same way but she is dedicated to her husband just like a perfect Victorian woman is expected to do. “And romance is just the place for creating mythic figures doing mythic things. Like carving 'civilization' out of the wilderness. Like showing us what a hero looks like, a real, American, sprung-from-the soil, lethal-weapon-with-leggings, bona fide hero. And for a guy who never marries, he has a lot of offspring”(Foster 12). This quote again shows importance of love and male roles in Victorian Era. Similarly, where love can represent goodness, evil has its many faces including fear and terror. III. Body Para 3 Power was considered a very important part of Victorian society, whether it be at will or by force, definitely fear was one of the latter methods in controlling the society.
Fear from death, from becoming an Undead and feasting on your loved ones was definitely a big fear in the book and the Undead refers to the morally ill people in society where Stoker messages not to be heartless and morally ill throughout your life or you will turn into a living Undead. Lucy’s acts during her life with being engaged with 3 men was not at all acceptable in Victorian Society and was considered almost a crime to be an adulteress for the females. Fear from turning into evil from these acts can be seen in the book’s main theme.
“She still advanced, however, and with a languorous, voluptuous grace, said:—“Come to me, Arthur. Leave these others and come to me. My arms are hungry or you. Come, and we can rest together. Come, my husband, come!”There was something diabolically sweet in her tones—something of the tinkling of glass when struck-which rang through the brains even of us who heard the words addressed to another. As for Arthur, he seemed under a spell; moving his hands from his face, he opened wide his arms” (Dracula 16). Here the evilness of Undead is shown how she manages to cast an innocent man under her
…show more content…
spell. In his words, Thich Nhat Hanh describes fear as, “Fear keeps us focused on the past or worried about the future.
If we can acknowledge our fear, we can realize that right now we are okay. Right now, today, we are still alive, and our bodies are working marvelously. Our eyes can still see the beautiful sky. Our ears can still hear the voices of our loved ones”.
Everything is to be overcomed and fear is a challenge that the power of compassion can
overcome. IV. Para 4 There is always a ray of light and hope in the darkest of nights, the hope which is referred to as compassion. According to Van Helsing, “There are darknesses in life and there are lights, and you are one of the lights, the light of all lights” (Dracula 14). Here, through his character Stoker wants to symbolize that no matter how dark you go, how evil and heartless you become, if you are compassionate to change you can, defeating evil can be very easy or extremely difficult depending on one’s will and only passionate ones achieve success. Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world (Tubman). Harriet Tubman in these quotes explains how everything is always possible and with sheer will anything can be achieved. Passion is always the key to success however it is not achievable without strong opposition. V. Para 5 Goodness and right virtue can only prevail over the menacing power of evil if it is persistent and united. Stoker defines his good characters as lovable, passionate towards their goals to kill Dracula, United and very strong. Moreover he defines his evil characters as passionate towards sucking blood, fearful and dangerous “Good and evil cannot exist without one another” (anonymous). Conclusion In Dracula, all the major themes involving power and their strengths seem to be related towards each other and they coexisted in Victorian Society and still do today. Love and Compassion are two strengths that only good heart can have and this is all that it requires to the fear of evil. Evil exists in every society and will always continue to. However without evil there would be no definition of goodness and no need to live and thrive for.
...sitive depiction of their sexual relationship. For Mina, however, renunciation of Dracula's evil must include the renunciation of her own physical needs and desires. The roles played by social mores and conceptions of gender and sexuality are, in the end, more than incidental. Indeed, the difference between Victorian England and 1990s America causes the subtle -- but significant -- valuation of the connections between good and evil and women and sexuality in two in many ways similar texts.
To live with fear and not be overcome by it is the final test of
Bram Stoker’s Dracula includes themes of death, love, and sex. Stoker’s use of empiricism utilizes the idea that everything is happening “now”. The book offers clear insight into who is evil without explicitly saying it. Stoker’s interest in empiricism uses British womanhood as a way to distinguish between good and evil.
It is precisely the point that Hollywood distorts and corrupts serious literature for the entertainment pleasures of a mass audience. In the task of comparing and contrasting the novel of "Dracula" to film extracts of "Bram Stoker’s Dracula", values, meaning and context discovered lie between discrepancy and similarity. The change from differing mediums, novel and film, reveal characteristics and possibilities of narratives. Through the advancement of technology, modern writers have gained a cinematic approach to their writing. However Dracula, written in 1987 by Abraham Stoker, where the introduction of technology was gradual, forging inventions such as the typewriter and phonograph, made reference to in the novel, had no anticipation of what technology would have an effect on such writings. With society’s fascination with the supernatural, and love of technology, Dracula’s many adaptations, film, stage, have ensured its survival through the passage of time.
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.
Podonsky, Amanda . "Bram Stoker's Dracula: A Reflection and Rebuke of Victorian Society." RSS. Student Pulse: The International Student Journal, 1 Jan. 2010. Web. 6 May 2014. .
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...
The Victorian England setting and culture of “Dracula” by: Bram Stoker attributes to many stylistic components and character behaviours in the novel. One of which is the behaviour and actions characters express that are a result of sexual repression. In Dracula, sexual repression is best expressed by the character’s desire to create. This desire is exemplified by the way Dracula creates other vampires, Lucy’s sexual desires, and the men’s expression of aggression. The creation of other Vampires is evident through events including Dracula’s aggressive encounters with Lucy and Mina, and the fact the Dracula is building up a Vampire army. Lucy’s sexual desires are exemplified through her longing to have sex with multiple men and how she compares
Conclusively, while Bram Stokers novel Dracula is seen as a gothic and horror story, I argue that it is a novel that seeks to address female sexuality directly. Seen through numerous passages, Stoker confronts and battles the views between sexuality during the Victorian era though his genius of characterization of characters present within the novel. As it seems highly intentional to me, I respect the way in which he criticizes and critiques upon female sexuality by bringing into light new ideas regarding female desires. When contrasting his text upon today’s culture, the differences to how one perceived the vampire has changed significantly.
Carol A. Senf uses a critical theory lens when she picks apart Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The majority of literary critics interpret this popular myth to be the opposition of good and evil, they turn a blind eye to the more specifically literary matters such as method of narration, characterization, and style. Carol Senf’s critical essay “Dracula: the Unseen Face in the Mirror” she believes that Stokers novel “revolves, not around the conquest of Evil by Good, but on the similarities between the two” (Senf 421). Her argument is as follows:
Stoker uses phenomenal imagery to produce a late nineteenth century setting, located somewhere within eastern Europe. Transylvania, the infamous home to Dracula himself, is described in great detail in Harker’s journal. There, Stoker purposely and meticulously outlines Dracula’s castle and the surrounding town. Stoker manages to do this with a very gothic tone, immediately lowering the societal status of women. In conjunction with Dracula’s gothic tone comes the understanding of male and female traditional roles of the era. The reader sees that there is no hesitation differentiating between the two, as Stoker “ cast[s] men as rational, strong, protective and decisive…[and] women as emotional (irrational), weak, nurturing and submissive.” (Tyson, 82).
Over the course of cinematic history, many filmmakers have attempted to recreate the chilling, unprecedented world of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Arguably very few have succeeded, for the majority of directors tend to avoid the pervasive sexuality inherent in the novel. It is a difficult task to achieve, considering the blatant imagery surrounding sex and vampirism, such as the reproduction following a vampiric encounter and the phallocentric nature of the violence committed both by and against these creatures: penetration is involved in their hunting, and one must impale them with a stake in order to destroy them. Readers are thereby forced to admit that Dracula is, in fact, a highly eroticized piece of literature, though whether or not Stoker himself was aware of this suggestiveness, we cannot be sure. The most successful effort at capturing that sexual energy on film has been Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 movie, Bram Stoker's Dracula. In fact, it has often been proposed that Coppola’s version is too carnally focused in comparison to the original work, which leads a viewer to wonder about the purpose in this overt sexualization. It can be concluded that adding copious amounts of eroticism to the film is directly related to Coppola’s strive to depict Count Dracula as more human rather than monster, and sexuality in his film serves as a balance so that the lines between good and evil are blurred. Evidence for this deduction is found in three scenes in particular: Jonathan’s seduction by Dracula’s vampiric wives, Lucy’s demonic transformation, and Mina and Van Helsing’s relationship during the climax of the story.
Mina Murray was engaged to Jonathan Harker and when Dracula kept him prisoner, the Count wrote letters to Harker’s boss and pretended to be Jonathan and to inform his boss and his fiancé that things were going good with his business trip. The Count was giving Mina and Jonathan’s boss false hope and keeping Harker prisoner at his castle. Dracula would even dress up in Harker’s clothes and mail the letters so it would not arise any suspicion. The Count seemed to only focus on turning women into vampires and he used the men to lure the women into his trap. Therefore, that is why he was keeping Jonathan alive. Everything Dracula did was made with lots of forethought. Such as when Lucy a young woman who also was a friend of Mina was mysteriously getting ill and sleep-walking during the night no one knew what was happening to Lucy because she would get sicker after they discovered she was sleepwalking. Lucy was sleep walking because she had gotten bite by Dracula and every night he called to her so he could feed off her again. He also made sure she was alone and waited a few days before attempting to suck her blood again. Although, Dracula was a smart man in his cunning actions he could not hide the fact that something evil was
The novel Dracula by Bram Stoker has plentiful examples of key concepts we have examined in class including: Purity and impurity, magical thinking, strong emotions such as disgust and shame, , formalization, and myth. In this essay I will summarize events that take place within the novel when the protagonists deal with Dracula and then relate these events to the key concepts to demonstrate why the characters view him as dangerous, and therefore something to be avoided completely.
In Bram Stoker's "Dracula", Dracula is portrayed as a monster made evident by his gruesome actions. An analysis of Dracula shows that: shows his evil nature in his planning, brutally killing Lucy Westrenstra causing a violent response from Dr. Seward and others, and how his evil ways lead to his downfall. To characterize Dracula in one way, he is a ruthless, cunning monster who uses tricks, torture, and wits to manipulate people to his will. However when he trifled with some courageous people, he had no knowledge that it would be his undoing.