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Essay on superstitious beliefs
Essay on superstitious beliefs
An essay on reasons behind believing in superstition
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In Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula, the character John Seward assists his friends and team to defeat Dracula, a blood-sucking vampire who has chosen to target Lucy, the woman Seward got rejected from in a marriage proposal. Lucy is attacked, and Dr. Seward witnesses her slow transformation from innocent women to voluptuous vampires. Within her transformation, Seward is faced with multiple opportunities that allow him to choose to either believe that vampires and superstitions are real, or to rely on his own logic and knowledge of science. Through Seward, Stoker conveys the theme of science vs. superstition and shows how Seward's beliefs and way of thinking evolve throughout the novel. When Lucy falls into sickness after her visit to Whitby, Dr. Seward and Van Helsing are called upon to aid her. The two are unable to cure her and Lucy passes away. Although she is dead, Van Helsing has somewhat of an idea as to why she has died. Van Helsing …show more content…
suspects that she was bitten by a vampire and wishes to mutilate her body, by cutting off her head, in order to set her soul free and prevent her from becoming a vampire. After Van Helsing tells Dr. Seward he wishes to cut Lucy’s head off, Seward expresses feelings of disbelief and questions why this needs to be done because, “The girl is dead [...] there is no necessity for a post- mortem and nothing to gain by it no good to her, to us, to science, to human knowledge- why do it?” (Stoker 142). Seward has no trust in the fact that Lucy has been bitten and still thinks of it as a simple sickness that turned fatal. Even though Van Helsing knows the truth and has shared his beliefs with Seward, Seward refuses to believe his ideas and sides with the logical reasoning of the situation. After this occurs, many more instances happen that begin to shed light on the fact that Lucy was indeed bitten by a vampire, and Dr. Seward’s way of thinking slowly changes, but he refuses to believe it. As Van Helsing and Dr.
Seward continue to investigate Lucy’s death, more and more evidence surfaces which begins to change Seward’s beliefs about Lucy. In one event, Van Helsing persuades Dr. Seward to accompany him to Lucy’s tomb to see if she is still there. They arrive during the night when Lucy leaves her tomb to feed and find her tomb empty. On the account of Dr. Seward and Van Helsing finding Lucy to be absent in her tomb, Dr. Seward makes excuses as to why her body was not there, “Perhaps a body-snatcher, [...] some of the undertaker’s people may have stolen it” (Stoker 169). Seward begins to make excuses because he is slowly being persuaded to believe Lucy’s conditions and does not want to believe it. Seward tries extremely hard to come up with solutions as to why and how Lucy. His accusations as to why this is occurring are so far-fetched, showing how Sewards mind is forcing him to believe these ideas. This event leads Seward to begin to forget everything he knows about science and believe in superstitions and
logic. After Seward abandons the idea of using logic to describe what happened to Lucy, he now accepts the fact that vampires exist. He knew that his explanations of Lucy’s missing dead body and other excuses did not make sense, and has now accepted the truth. When he visits Lucy’s tomb to kill her, he finally realizes that Lucy is a vampire and eliminates his logical explanations. When Dr. Seward along with the rest of the search squad encounter Lucy in her vampiress state, Seward describes his disgust and repulsion with phrases such as, “sweetness was turned into adamantine, heartless cruelty, and the purity to voluptuous wantonness” (Stoker 181). Seward can clearly see the change in Lucy’s figure and attitude. He knows that the old, sweet Lucy no longer exists, and in her place is a voluptuous, animalistic vampire. It takes Seward a long time to realize this, but he now believes Van Helsing’s superstitions. Dr. Seward’s last encounter with Lucy is what makes Seward believe in vampires and it changes his thought process. Seward learns hwo to contrast both the scientific, logical part of his brain and the superstitious part of his brain, which helps him defeat Dracula once and for all. Throughout Dracula, Seward transitions from a logic driven mind to one that is more accepting of concepts that go against the natural order. Dr. Seward is an example of a narrow minded person that is influenced by the people around him and eventually learns to be more accepting of things that are not scientifically proven. In the beginning of the novel, John Seward uses scientific and logical thinking with his actions, but by the end of the novel, he is persuaded to think superstitiously and less scientific.
This book is set in an age where science and the world of the Enlightenment, that is the world of rational thought and proven theories, ruled. Dr. Seward represents this world. It is opposed to the seemingly unexplainable world of Dracula and his world of mystery and fable. The events that the different characters experience, although documented faithfully are thought too unbelievable by Professor Van Helsing to be passed on (p 486). It is as if the truth can't be handled by the world at large or that by retaining the story to themselves the central characters will preserve a very terrible but precious memory. A memory made precious because of the depths of courage and faith that had to be mined by and in each of them.
Since the 19th Century, Bram Stoker’s Dracula has entertained its readers taking them to heights of excitement in the climax
Bram Stoker’s Dracula includes themes of death, love, and sex. Stoker’s use of empiricism utilizes the idea that everything is happening “now”. The book offers clear insight into who is evil without explicitly saying it. Stoker’s interest in empiricism uses British womanhood as a way to distinguish between good and evil.
The presence of racial stereotypes and commentary on the interaction of different races is a cornerstone of the Dracula narrative. In Stoker’s novel, Count Dracula is representative of the growing European culture of xenophobia and anti-Semitism which would rise to near hysteria in the coming decades. The concept of race was not limited to skin color or nationality in the nineteenth century, and was a means of categorizing people by “cultural as well as physical attributes” (Warren 127). Dracula is described as being covetous of ancient gold and jewels, childlike and simple in his malice, and more animalistic than human, traits frequently attributed to the Jewish people by Christian society (Newman). His material appearance is distinguished by extremely pale skin, dark features, a nose with a “high bridge…and peculiarly arched nostrils,” and “bushy hair that seemed to curl of its own profusion.” Stoker’s audience would have recognized...
Witchcraft started in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. Superstition started when women were accused of acting strangely. These superstitions turned into trials, and later lead to mounds of hanged people. Most of the people accused were innocent, but the harsh judge rulings left them with nothing to live for. The only options for the tried, no matter if guilty or not, were to claim guilty, living the rest of their life in prison, or to plead not guilty and hang. Due to both consequences being equally as punishable, many people isolated themselves from society. Unfortunately, some people caused the uprising of the salem witch trials more than others did. In the play The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, Abigail Williams single handedly attributed to the
This fictional character was soon to be famous, and modified for years to come into movie characters or even into cereal commercials. But the original will never be forgotten: a story of a group of friends all with the same mission, to destroy Dracula. The Count has scared many people, from critics to mere children, but if one reads between the lines, Stoker’s true message can be revealed. His personal experiences and the time period in which he lived, influenced him to write Dracula in which he communicated the universal truth that good always prevails over evil. Religion was a big part of people’s lives back in Stoker’s time.
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.
Stevenson, John Allen. A Vampire in the Mirror: The Sexuality of Dracula. 2nd ed. Vol. 103. N.p.: Modern Language Association, 1988. JSTOR. Web. 6 Jan. 2014. .
Vampires have been viewed with fear and fascination for centuries. Of all the vampires in literature, Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula is probably the most prominent vampire. Recently, there has been an upsurge of public interest in socially acceptable vampires, like the Cullens in the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer. This essay will contrast Stoker’s Dracula with Carlisle Cullen, one of the newer vampires from the Twilight series. They will be examined in terms of their origins and how they dealt with immortality.
Carol A. Senf uses a critical theory lens when she picks apart Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The majority of literary critics interpret this popular myth to be the opposition of good and evil, they turn a blind eye to the more specifically literary matters such as method of narration, characterization, and style. Carol Senf’s critical essay “Dracula: the Unseen Face in the Mirror” she believes that Stokers novel “revolves, not around the conquest of Evil by Good, but on the similarities between the two” (Senf 421). Her argument is as follows:
Peters, Sarah L. "Repulsive to Romantic: The Evolution of Bram Stoker’s Dracula." Henderson State University. N.p., Mar. 2002. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.
...(145). This passage alludes that there will not be many days left to her life and a reader’s anxiety about Lucy inclines when a reader recognizes Mina’s letter is unopened by her, which comes immediately after Seward’s diary. If there is only one letter unopened by her, a reader may think about other causes besides Lucy’s inability to open the mail—such as the letter was missing due to a mailman’s mistake. However, the existence of another unopened letter indicates that the cause is neither a coincidence nor someone’s mistake—which consequently leads to consider about Lucy’s misfortune.
The “Otherness” Dracula possesses reinforces our own norms and beliefs through his transgression that separates him from society and the polarity to Western norms and ideals makes him an effective device for extorting revulsion and horror. Stoker’s novel employs Gothic tradition, providing “the principle embodiments and evocations of cultural anxieties” from which the very Gothic mood and horror is produced, establishing the baseline used to distinguish the modern vampires, as part of vampire mythology within the Gothic (Botting Aftergothic 280). Differences Between Dracula and Twilight The similarities between the two novels are namely Gothic imagery and theme, but the Gothic mood predominates in Dracula over Twilight and it is this difference that makes Twilight not belong in the vampire canon. Horror is the element that Dracula possesses that Edward does not, and it is crucial in the interplay between transgression and limit.
The novel Dracula by Bram Stoker has plentiful examples of key concepts we have examined in class including: Purity and impurity, magical thinking, strong emotions such as disgust and shame, , formalization, and myth. In this essay I will summarize events that take place within the novel when the protagonists deal with Dracula and then relate these events to the key concepts to demonstrate why the characters view him as dangerous, and therefore something to be avoided completely.
From the whispers of townsfolk spreading legends and tales of what goes bump in the night to the successful novels, plays and film adaptations, the story of the vampire has remained timeless and admired. One of the main writers responsible for this fame and glory is Bram Stoker with his rendition Dracula, written in 1897. Dracula follows the accounts of Jonathan Harker, Mina Murray, Dr. John Seward, Lucy Westenra, and Dr. Van Helsing, through their journal entries and letters, newspaper articles, and memos. Bram’s vision for Dracula is both terrifying and captivating as the reader follows a small group of men and women led by Dr. Van Helsing through their attempt to retaliate against Count Dracula’s efforts to spread his undead chaos and blood