Hypnotism’s Influence on Bram Stoker and Dracula

The use of hypnotism is extensive throughout the last few chapters of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Van Helsing places Mina in a hypnotic state or trance numerous times in order to locate Dracula and to learn about his premeditated actions. Stoker’s great use of hypnotism is what leads to Dracula’s destruction in the end. However, what influences Stoker to use hypnotherapy in order to kill off the most important character in his book? Taking a New Historical approach can help a reader understand how Stoker was influenced by his culture to incorporate hypnosis into Dracula and why he chose it as a method for destroying Dracula, while healing Mina.

Hypnosis can be dated back to the ancient Chinese and Egyptians, who used it in religious rituals and as a medical treatment. However, in the late 18th century, it was Franz Anton Mesmer who believed that he could cure through “animal magnetism” and soothing words and gestures. In order not to be tied to Mesmer, physicians in France and England introduced the terms hypnosis and hypnotherapy. “In the 1890’s, the British Medical Association approved hypnotherapy as an appropriate adjunct therapy for several conditions” (Hypnotherapy). Considering hypnosis was approved by the British around the time that Dracula was written and published, it is easy to see how Stoker was influenced by the extensive talk about hypnotism and why he decided to incorporate it into his book.

Starting in chapter twenty-three until the final chapter, twenty- seven, Stoker mentions small, yet significant details that have a great influence on the outcome of the hypnosis. These small details illustrate how Stoker researched and understood how hypnosis worked and its final outcome. Analyzing these small details can hel...

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...battle to life. In the novel, on the other hand, Stoker makes sure that his female character triumphs (by surviving) and that she returns home to “become a dutiful wife and caring mother”. This is where we could argue that “Stoker is much ahead of his times in portraying a ‘New Woman surpassing even the best male ‘professionals’ in terms of intellectual labor, a ‘gallant’ woman wit a remarkable ‘man-brain’ who helps save the empire, even though her power abruptly dimishes toward the end of the novel, and she is finally summoned home to become a traditional mother figure” (Kwan-Wai Yu 158). Although Stoker was very accurate in the new scientific and technological advances that he incorporated into Dracula, he was also very accurate in portraying a strong willful woman who is able to complete a job that was unwittingly given to her in the most extraordinarily manner.