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Bram stoker dracula strengths and weaknesses
The character of dracula
Essay about the character of dracula
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Jonathan Harker
Jonathan Harker is a lawyer who live in London. First, he was Mina’s fiancé and later they got married in Budapest before they reach back to London. Part of his job is to find house in England for rich foreigner. He was send to Transylvania to do real estate transaction with Count Dracula. (Tarner, 2002)
Personality. Jonathan was an honest and truly devote to Mina.
Strengths and weaknesses. At first, Jonathan was quickly find himself a prisoner when he was in the castle of Transylvania. Later on, he becomes stronger to find his way to escape the castle. Also, after Mina was attacked by the vampire, he was fearless to destroy Dracula.
Mina
She is a fiancé to Jonathan. She is a young woman who live in London. Mina was one
The story begins at status quo. Jonathan Harker lived a normal Victorian lifestyle. His fiancé was a virtuous school mistress named Mina Murray. Harkers occupation as a solicitor was how he was called to his adventure. His firm sent him to Transylvania where he was to conclude on a real estate transaction with the foreign client Count Dracula. During his visit to Dracula's castle, Jonathan was made prisoner to the ruthless vampire. He received
...sitive depiction of their sexual relationship. For Mina, however, renunciation of Dracula's evil must include the renunciation of her own physical needs and desires. The roles played by social mores and conceptions of gender and sexuality are, in the end, more than incidental. Indeed, the difference between Victorian England and 1990s America causes the subtle -- but significant -- valuation of the connections between good and evil and women and sexuality in two in many ways similar texts.
As a matter of a fact, when Lucy dies, the men feel great distress and have nowhere else to turn but to Mina. In order not to show weakness in front of the other men, the Englishmen each individually “express [their] feelings on the tender or emotional side,” and confess their anguish for Lucy’s passing (Stoker). To the men, Lucy was only a companion whom they barely knew, but to Mina, Lucy was a lifelong friend. Mina’s loss of Lucy was profound, however, she held her emotions in check and through strength and perseverance she never shed a tear. Moreover, Mina is often portrayed as stronger physically than Jonathan when Dracula emits his wrath upon them. Even though Mina is the one suffering, Jonathan cannot physically handle Dracula’s wrath as he turns “white as death, and shook and shivered,” even though he has yet to sacrifice anything and Mina has sacrificed almost everything and continues to persevere (Stoker). Jonathan’s signs of aging signify that even though Jonathan is a man and supposed to be strong, the stress and anguish derived from the events lately has taken a physical toll on him. However, Mina is the one directly affected by Dracula and aside from the effects of Dracula’s hypnotic spell, Mina was portrayed as happy and youthful. Last but not least, Catherine Eckel, a member of the National Science Foundation and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, conducted a study involving
Even at the ending, there still is suspense after Dracula is killed because it was anticlimactic. My only question, is “Who is this ‘we’ mentioned when Dracula is talking about Transylvania’s past and the battles?” That one unanswered question leaves suspense because it makes it seem like there are more vampires not really mentioned in the book. I believe that Stoker purposely used his word choice to show good and evil because he used the word “voluptuous” to describe the three evil women and also described Lucy when she turned/passed away. I believe that Stoker uses British womanhood to show weakness since Lucy was the first one bit and that if she did not get help then she would have passed away faster and would have transformed into a vampire and would continue terrorizing little kids. However, I believe that through Mina, Stoker uses a new form of British womanhood to show a strong woman that after overcoming an obstacle can rise above it and work with the men to defeat evil. I think Mina is my favorite character in Dracula because she does just that. She did not just get saved and not do anything, she got saved and then used her visions to help the men find Dracula. That is what I admire about her. She is a strong woman. I like the suspense in the end of the book with how Dracula just dies and then everyone seems to live a happy life, however, I would have ended the book with a better “fight scene” that would have proved that Dracula was either the only vampire or that there were more. I think Stoker uses word choice to denote good and evil in Dracula and does an excellent job in doing so by describing the three women and then adding on to Lucy when she
We learn that Jonathan also knows about the criminal theories of Dr Lombroso, although it is Mina who possesses the intelligence to apply Lombroso’s beliefs to the Count. As well the distribution of the crucial information, since she reads and types all the diaries and documents of the characters involved. Only her form of ordering and distribution makes the pursuit and ultimate destruction of Count Dracula possible.
Dracula begins with a diary entry from Jonathan Harker, a real estate agent from England. Mr. Harker is traveling to Transylvania, where he is to confirm a business deal between Count Dracula and his mentor Peter Hawkins. En route to Transylvania, Jonathan comes across many people who caution him about his trip and his host. They cower at the thought of him going into the land, and give him gifts of garlic and a crucifix. At the time, Mr. Harker is unaware of the severity of his troubles. Although these people are friendly and reach out to help Jonathan, it is not considered homosociality, since they do not form the tight, same-sex friendship that is required of the term. For Jonathan, these early helpers are simply companions on a train.
...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.
When we compare the portrayal of characters in the areas of gender, race, and age, we find striking contrasts. In the 1931 version, men's roles are well-defined: they are the protectors. For example, Jonathan hovers over Mina in many scenes, giving us the impression that Mina is a helpless creature. In Coppola's version, Jonathan is by no means a protector. He barely escapes Dracula's castle; Mina has to go to him--to protect him.
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.
Even though he was technically the villain, I challenged myself to analyze Dracula as the hero in the story. If it weren't for Dracula, vampires wouldn't be so popular in pop culture today. There are a lot of vampire characters that speak on how much of an impact Dracula had on culture (Melton 303). Bram Stoker took the legend of Vlad Tepes and used it as an idea for Dracula. He was the ruler of an old country called Wallachia.
Stoker has rendered the reader to see the Count as physically strong and powerful, through Jonathan Harker and his confinement and Lucy Westenra and her failing health. Although the reader does not understand all the omniscient powers and control that Count Dracula possesses over people, they are brought to light through Dr Steward’s accounts of his patient R.M. Renfield. The ‘strange and sudden change’ (Stoker, 86), that has happened in Renfield evokes the reader to contemplate the Count’s influence over people. Dr Steward suggests it is as though a ‘religious mania has seized’ Renfield (Stoker, 87), and is controlling him. The reader is aware that Renfield can feel the Counts presence and that there is a connection between them. This eventually leads Van Helsing to recognize the bond between Mina Harker and the Count, which helps them to find Dracula and finally kill him. Dracula’s invasion over Renfield also reveals a weakness in the Counts power. Renfield, an obedient servant of Dracula, claims he is ‘here to do Your bidding, Master. I am Your slave’ (Stoker, 88). Renfield’s devotion is quickly reversed when he sees that the Count is taking life from Mina. It is his care for her that causes him to turn against Dracula and try to fight for her. Again Renfield’s actions mimic that of the other men as it becomes their goal to save Mina from the invasion running through her body. The key to this invasion is the blood.
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 an undead centuries-old vampire who sleeps in a coffin in the basement, can assume the form of animals, control the weather and is stronger than twenty men, he cannot come into a house unless invited, he cannot walk in water and his favorite meal is human blood, which these traits are consistent with his portrayal in both the novel and the movie (Stoker). Although the novel and movie share many likenesses with Count Dracula’s character there are some unique qualities that are slightly different the book describes a shadow coordinated with Count Dracula’s body while in the movie his shadow works separately from his body movements (“Dracula (Universal Classics)”). Another feature of Count Dracula’s character in the novel is that he cannot be in or near the sunlight or it will kill him, but in the movie, he meets Mina in the daytime and it does not harm him (Bram Stoker’s). Nevertheless, in the book Dracula is a pure evil, terrifying blood hungry monster that wreaks havoc on anyone he meets and feels the need to take life or end life with his arch nemesis being with anyone who wants to preserve life (Stoker). But in the movie when he meets Mina on the streets of London, he pursues her, starts a courtship with Mina and he falls in love with her so when he
Mina Murray was engaged to Jonathan Harker and when Dracula kept him prisoner, the Count wrote letters to Harker’s boss and pretended to be Jonathan and to inform his boss and his fiancé that things were going good with his business trip. The Count was giving Mina and Jonathan’s boss false hope and keeping Harker prisoner at his castle. Dracula would even dress up in Harker’s clothes and mail the letters so it would not arise any suspicion. The Count seemed to only focus on turning women into vampires and he used the men to lure the women into his trap. Therefore, that is why he was keeping Jonathan alive. Everything Dracula did was made with lots of forethought. Such as when Lucy a young woman who also was a friend of Mina was mysteriously getting ill and sleep-walking during the night no one knew what was happening to Lucy because she would get sicker after they discovered she was sleepwalking. Lucy was sleep walking because she had gotten bite by Dracula and every night he called to her so he could feed off her again. He also made sure she was alone and waited a few days before attempting to suck her blood again. Although, Dracula was a smart man in his cunning actions he could not hide the fact that something evil was
The connection is made when Dracula sees a picture of Mina while Jonathan is held up in Dracula’s castle in Transylvania. With Jonathan trapped Dracula and Mina become quite close and go as far as to fall in love with each other. Throughout the novel, there is no love connection between Dracula and Mina and the only relation they encounter is as he attempts to seduce her to her death in spite of the men meddling with his plans of destruction. In the novel Mina resented Dracula for what he had done to her good friend Lucy Westenra. (Stoker Dracula) (Coppola "Bram Stoker 's Dracula")