Bram Stoker Research Paper

Throughout history, several intellectual and cultural movements have shaped the way that humanity thinks and, subsequently, the formation of our modern society as a whole. Perhaps one of the most remarkable of these movements is simply known as Gothicism. An offshoot of the movement known as Romanticism, the emergence of Gothicism introduced unconventional literary tropes for its time and it introduced many legendary novelists, poets, and storytellers whose works continue to inspire modern authors today.

To understand the emergence of Gothicism, we must delve back several hundred years to the fall of Rome. In 410 A.D., a Germanic tribe of barbarians known as the Goths sacked Rome, which subsequently led to the collapse of the Roman Empire.

One of these authors, Bram Stoker, and his prolific monster known as Dracula, are quite frequently referenced in modern media. Bram Stoker was born in Ireland as the third of seven children in 1847, staying bedridden from a childhood illness until the age of seven. His father’s civil service job did not make enough to support the family of nine and thus Stoker grew up very poor (“Bram Stoker” 1). Stoker was formally taught by a tutor until entering Trinity College in 1864, where he became the auditor of the Historical Society and president of the Philosophical Society (“Bram Stoker” 2). During his childhood, Stoker developed an intense love for theater and constantly attended the Theatre Royale in Dublin while enrolled in Trinity. It was here he would see Henry Irving, a man so integral to his life, perform for the first time. Stoker graduated from Trinity in 1868 and gained a job as a civil service clerk, although he found the job very tedious (“Bram Stoker” 3). Stoker had noticed that plays received no recognition in newspapers and thus offered his services as a drama critic for the Dublin Mail. Stoker obtained the job, although he received no pay for his services. Sometime after this, Stoker became the editor of The Halfpenny Press and published his first horror tale, “The Chain of Destiny”, from 1866 to 1920 (“Bram Stoker” 4). Stoker was invited to meet Henry Irving after writing a

Lovecraft. Gothicism was also popular enough to produce its own offshoot called Southern Gothicism. Southern Gothicism focused primarily on antisocial behavior and southern settings. It also produced many great literary creators, including Tennessee Williams, Flannery O’Connell, and Truman Capote (Gothic Literature). However the most popular Southern Gothic is a novelist named Harper Lee. Lee was born in Monroeville, Alabama and became interested in writing at age 7. Lee left the University of Alabama to pursue a writing career in New York. Lee soon published To Kill a Mockingbird in 1960, which won several prizes including a Pulitzer Prize. It was also adapted into an Academy Award winning movie (Altman). In 2015, shortly before dying, Lee published the first draft of To Kill a Mockingbird as a sequel entitled Go Set a Watchman, although it received terrible reviews from