Importance of the Setting for Dracula

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Importance of the Setting for Dracula

With castles, hidden streets, waterways, recurring rainy weather, interesting European architecture, and mystique, London is the perfect location for Bram Stoker's Dracula. London: The capital of Great Britain, and the center of attention in the nineteenth century, due to the many incidents that were going on at the time. The novel includes many daunting scenes, such as when Dracula heaves a sack withholding a deceased child before three female vampires. Stoker may have been influenced by London's numerous enticements; it is no surprise why he choose it to be the setting of his novel, London seems to be "exotic" and unknown. Stoker is obviously inspired by London's castles, hidden streets, and church yards. Because of all of these points, London is the perfect gothic setting for Stoker's Dracula.

London is recognized for its grand castles. Stoker may have been motivated to use these in his novel describing Dracula's estate in London, "Carfax" and also his castle in Transylvania. This is illustrated when Mr. Harker arrives at Dracula's home "up a great winding stair, and along another great passage great passage, on whose stone floor our steps rang heavily. At the end of this he threw open a heavy door, and I rejoiced to see within a well-lit room in which a table was spread for supper and whose mighty hearth a great fire of logs, freshly replenished, flamed and flared." (Stoker,13).

High small windows, arched ceilings and solid stone walls are also typical for the gothic architecture, these characteristics makes the building cold, dark and forbidding; for example, the text says about the castle in Transylvania that "The Count halted, putting ...

... middle of paper ...

...e empire, with all its important events. So Bram Stoker could not have selected a better gothic setting for his disturbing novel "Dracula."

Works cited:

-Wolffg., John. "Gothic" 2002. Online. 5-20-03 www.clc.edu/~wolffg/gateway/gothic.html

-Roumpou, Eleni. "Is Dracula a gothic novel?" 9-19-00. Online. 5-20-02. www.hausarbeiten.de/faecher/hausarbeit/anl/1106.html

-Jackson, Lee. "Victorian London-Architecture-Victorian Architecture" 2000. Online. 5-20-03 www.victorianlondon.org

-Halsall, Paul. "19th Century Britain" 1-30-99. Online. 5-21-03. www.fordham.edu/halsaall/mod/modsbook20.html

-Johnson, Jane. "19th Century London" 2001. Online. 5-21-03. www.Britannia.com

-Smith, Rebecca. "The Temperance Movement and class struggle in Victorian England" 1993. Online. 5-21-03. www.loyno.edu/~history/journal/1992-3/smith.html

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