Blood Ties and Bonds Beyond Throughout this novel, we are introduced to many, many different characters and their companions. This goes to show us how different and how alike people can be. In this article, you will be shown the crucial differences between the characters we are introduced to during our time of reading Dracula. First and foremost, Count Dracula and Jonathan Harker. The Count is portrayed as a centuries old Vampire, preying on innocent characters to keep himself existent. He shows us what true evil is and how cruel one can really be. On the other hand, Jonathan Harker, the protagonist, is a young man sent to Transylvania to be Dracula's right hand man with real estate. Later in the novel, Jonathan becomes one of Dracula's victims, …show more content…
He's amazed by Dracula's castle, but is horrified by his host and what he may be hiding. Next, Mina Murray and Luca Westenra are very different in their own ways as well. Mina shows us an intelligent and resourceful character, who also shows loyalty and determination. Mina is modern and independent, peaking interest in newer technology such as typewriting. She stands up for herself and doesn't back down when it comes to being bossy with the group of protagonists. Luca Westenra, on the other hand, is portrayed as more of a romantic being, In the reading she is described as beautiful, charming, and very well known and admired by the men. She is easily influenced by others, Count Dracula in particular, and she is also said to be naive. She tends to give up easily on her passions and desires, leading to her vulnerability to Dracula. We know Mina as a “hero” of the story. She played a large role in the defeat of Count Dracula. She survives the defeat and is reunited with her husband, Jonathan, showing true resilience and strength facing such hardship. Lucy, on the other hand, is met with a horrific fate, fully giving in to Dracula's influence, later becoming a vampire
The diary entries or notes used in ‘Dracula’ are fragmented and have an epistolary structure ‘Jonathon Harker’s Journal’. This emphasises each of the character’s feelings of isolation and loneliness, adding to the appeal of the reader. During the entries, Stok...
Bram Stoker was born into a lower-class Irish family in late 1847. He grew up with six siblings, at least four of which were brothers. Throughout his childhood, Stoker was an invalid, sickened with an unknown disease. Many days were spent listening to his mother tell stories of Ireland. It is thought that her stories played a large role in his writing (Stoker 5). Perhaps due to Stoker’s childhood illness and relationship with his brothers, his writing in Dracula exhibited a great deal of homosociality, the idea of same-sex relationships on a social level, rather than romantically. In the novel, Stoker introduces the idea of homosociality by creating a friendship and camaraderie between the main male characters.
...have a strong desire to maintain control within and outside of marriage, they also have the support of a male dominated society. Stoker displays this struggle in the main characters of Dracula. Lucy Westerna is the obtuse, innocent, fragile, yet sultry siren of male desire; her aggressive sexual power is threatening to the Victorian man, making her not quite pure enough of mind or strong enough of will to be saved. On the other hand, Mina Murray Harker is a clever, unadulterated, strong, yet motherly woman, the kind of woman all women should strive to be. Therefore she is deemed superlative and worthy of salvage.
The late nineteenth century Irish novelist, Bram Stoker is most famous for creating Dracula, one of the most popular and well-known vampire stories ever written. Dracula is a gothic, “horror novel about a vampire named Count Dracula who is looking to move from his native country of Transylvania to England” (Shmoop Editorial Team). Unbeknownst of Dracula’s plans, Jonathan Harker, a young English lawyer, traveled to Castle Dracula to help the count with his plans and talk to him about all his options. At first Jonathan was surprised by the Count’s knowledge, politeness, and overall hospitality. However, the longer Jonathan remained in the castle the more uneasy and suspicious he became as he began to realize just how strange and different Dracula was. As the story unfolded, Jonathan realized he is not just a guest, but a prisoner as well. The horror in the novel not only focuses on the “vampiric nature” (Soyokaze), but also on the fear and threat of female sexual expression and aggression in such a conservative Victorian society.
Dracula, as it was written by Bram Stoker, presents to us possibly the most infamous monster in all of literature. Count Dracula, as a fictional character, has come to symbolize the periphery between the majority and being an outsider to that group. Dracula’s appeal throughout the years and genres no doubt stems from his sense of romanticism and monster. Reader’s no doubt are attracted to his “bad-boy” sensibilities, which provide an attraction into the novel. Looking first at his appearance, personality, and behaviour at the beginning of the novel, we can easily see Dracula’s blurred outsider status, as he occupies the boundaries of human and monster. Related to this is Dracula’s geographic sense of outsider. For all intents and purposes, Dracula is an immigrant to England, thus placing him further into the realm of outsider. To look at Bram Stoker’s Dracula as solely a monster in the most violent sense of his actions would to be look at a sole aspect of his character, and so we must look at how he interacts with the outside world to genuinely understand him.
While Cullen chose the path of compassion and became a doctor (Meyers, 2005; pp. 339), the Count planned to invade the British empire (Stoker, 1897/2001; pp. 328). Healing or invading, both can get lonely with time. Cullen, as a physician had decided to turn a human into vampires only if he could save them from death. All the humans that Cullen changed, he called them as his family. They were part of his coven and moved with him wherever he went (Meyer, 2005). On the other hand, count Dracula took by force and against the will of his victims. He possessed the power to hypnotize and control his victims, as he controlled Mina when he forced her to drink his blood (Stoker, 1897/2001). He lives with three beautiful female vampires in his castle, but their relationship to the Count is not clarified in the book. In chapter 3, when they are scolded by the Count for attacking Harker, they taunt him that he does not love, Dracula responds that “Yes, I too can love; you yourselves can tell it from the past” (Stoker 1897/2001; pp. 39). Although they exist in the castle and are fed by the count as noted in Jonathan’s diary entry, Dracula has no apparent interest in them. Similarly, after he changes Lucy Westenra to a vampire he stops visiting her. He feels no need to connect or form relationships with the humans he changes. As immortals, both Cullen and Count Dracula are destined to
As Stade states “Women are...much more susceptible to Dracula because….[women’s] beauty is skin deep....[women] are crazy, criminal, selfish...sexy, half-evolved monsters of appetite….A woman needs a husband to keep her in line.” Though Stade observes, that Mina is pure and “clean” on the exterior, she is a typical woman whom he describes above, i.e; as a wild animalistic being who allegedly needs “protection” of a man; her father, brother than her husband and eventually her son(s) to keep her on the right “path” and guided by the better being, the male. Stade also believes that without her husband and the others, Mina would never have the chance to escape vampirism. As a female, despite the outstanding traits she shows in the novel, she would never be able to outplay Dracula and would surely end up a vampire herself just like Lucy and the Vampire
Stoker chooses to lay some clues out for the readers in order to help them interpret Dracula. The distinct warning presented on the page before the introduction saying the narrators wrote to the best of their knowledge the facts that they witnessed. Next is the chapter where Jonathan Harker openly questions the group’s interpretations of the unsettling events that occur from meeting Dracula, and the sanity of the whole. Several characters could be considered emotionally unstable. Senf suggests that Stoker made the central normal characters hunting Dracula ill-equipped to judge the extraordinary events with which they were faced. The central characters were made two dimensional and had no distinguishing characteristics other then the...
The version that I focused on for the sake of this essay was the book. I did watch eleven of the thirty-three Dracula movies that I own, so some references will be made to the movies. The book is told from the perspective of Jonathan Harker’s journal, with some letters to and from his girlfriend Mina. The purpose of his visit with Count Dracula is that Harker is selling a building to Dracula. Carfax Abby was in England where Dracula wanted to move. Harker went to Transylvania to assist Count Dracula in his move to England.
While the character of Renfield is ostensively extraneous to the central plot of Dracula, he fulfils an important role in Stoker’s exploration of the central themes of the novel. This paper will examine how Renfield character is intertwined with the three central themes of invasion, blood and otherness. Firstly, through Renfield’s inner struggle we learn that he is ‘not his own master’ (Stoker, 211). The theme of invasion is revealed by the controlling and occupying powers of Count Dracula. Secondly, the recurring theme ‘the Blood is the Life’ (Stoker, 121), is portrayed throughout the novel and has been interpreted through Stoker’s character Renfield. Then finally, a look at the social construction of the ‘other’ in Dracula and how, through Renfield, who is ‘unlike the normal lunatic’ (Stoker, 52), the Count emerges as the ‘other’ of all ‘others’.
One of the well-known characters in Dracula is, Mina Murray, virtuous, kind and good-natured, schoolmistress. Murray is the embodiment of the, “New Woman”. She empathically embraces the anti-Victorian feelings of that time in front of the rea...
He is on his way to Transylvania to complete a property transaction with Dracula at his decaying castle (Swan). Then Jonathan soon realizes he is a prisoner at the castle with Dracula and the three sisters who reveal themselves as vampires to Jonathan (Stoker). But there are differences between the novel and the film with the first being in the movie when Jonathan ask the Count why are you buying houses in these specific locations (Bram Stoker’s)? The movie never answers this question, but the novel explains the fifty boxes that have Transylvanian dirt in them need to be at these locations neighboring London, so Dracula could rest and rebuild his strength which must be in a coffin with his homelands dirt (Bram Stoker’s). Next are the variations of how he became to know the sisters of Dracula (Canby). The movie shows the sisters morphing up through his mattress while he is trying to sleep. Although the novel states he wanders into their room where he sits down to write in his journal when he becomes sleepy and they appear out of nowhere trying to feast on his neck (Canby). Next is the contrasting effect of Jonathans religion. In the novel, he is a devout religious God-fearing man praying and asking Him to help and keep him safe each step of his way while in the movie Jonathan wears the crucifix he received on his carriage ride to the
The Quiz Show is a 1994 American historical movie that retells the story of how fame and money can change a person’s strong moral foundation and ethics. Without a solid foundation a person is able to change their morals and values in order to get a better hold of something they want. The strong foundation that a person would need would be their ethics that are essentially what oversee their behaviors toward things. Temptation and drive to prove something or be like someone are also other factors that can change a person’s ethical values. In the Quiz Show, Charles van Doren, a member of America’s great literary families and a Columbia University instructor, is invited to star on the 1950’s NBC show Twenty One after one of the producer’s spots
In the book, Dracula by Bram Stoker there are many characters that display qualities of good verse evil. The Count Dracula is a mysterious character who appears as an odd gentleman but the longer the story goes on Dracula shows his true self. Dracula started infiltrating the lives of anyone who crossed his path and he was not stopping his destruction of others’ lives. Many people were affect by Dracula’s actions but there were two people that Dracula caused an impact on during his rampage. Dracula is an evil, cunning, and selfish character who harms the life of a young man and ruins the future of an innocent woman.
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.