Analysis of a Novel About Dracula

1. Time: The role of time in Dracula is very important. Looking at life through each person’s eyes makes the whole ordeal seem more realistic. After Jonathan's last entry in Chapter 4, we are left wondering whether he made it out alive or not. The time suspense here draws us in wanting to know more and more. Time’s importance also has to do with occurrences of good versus evil. The evil things always happen at night in the dark, and night has always been represented as a dark, evil concept.

2. Sleep, dreams, and hypnosis: The use of hypnosis in Dracula is simply proving who has the upper-hand in the timeline. Hypnosis directly comes down to manipulating someone for something you want. In the case of Mina in Chapter 21, when the men rush to her aid, they find her in a trance. She wanted to drink his blood under his trance, but as soon as he left her and she left the trance, she was appalled at the idea of it.

The person who control the others is the one who ultimately hold the power. While sleeping or under hypnosis, you have little to no control. When Mina uses her connection to Dracula in Chapter 25, she has some consciousness to her being, but it could be said that she is being dragged further into vampirism by using the connection. The mind is easily manipulated, to put it most delicately. That was Bram Stoker’s whole purpose of using hypnosis and sleep in this novel. People believe that they have self-control over themselves, but it’s not true. Anyone’s mind is easily persuaded and he proves this using Dracula and the doctor.

3. Role of women: The role of women in Dracula could possibly be the most important. Comparing Mina to the men in the story, we find little difference. She had just as much bravery and wit as ...

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... religious novel. The holy wafers and crucifixes symbolize that even when something evil is around; something good can be found to ward it off. Evil does have a counter and that’s what the use of the holy symbols show us. In other words, evil can be avoided through Christianity and through salvation. Touching on salvation, at the end of the novel, when Dracula dies, it is said that he had “a look of peace” (401) suggesting that he got his salvation from his damnation as a vampire and moved on to a happier place rather than being undead.

It could be said that Dracula could be compared to the Devil. He gathers souls of people, and even his appearance is described as dark and ominous. Or instead of the devil, maybe a better comparison would be the anti-christ gathering followers in his blood lust pursuit rathering than following Christ, who shed his blood for us.