Technological Advancements In Bram Stoker's Dracula

A recurring theme in Bram Stoker’s Dracula is that technological advancements hinder progression; Stoker’s novel threatens that a focus on new technology without reverence for the ways of the past leads to delayed progress. Only one character in Stoker’s novel recognizes the need for “outdated” practices, which is why the character’s encounters with vampires do not improve until they receive help from Dr. Van Helsing. In Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Dr. Van Helsing is the only character not infatuated with new technology, which allows him to help vanquish Count Dracula once and for all. Dracula follows Jonathan Harking, a young, technologically savvy lawyer as he travels to Transylvania to make a real estate deal with Count Dracula. Harking

He keeps all his notes and his personal diary on his phonograph. He chooses to travel across Europe by way of a steam engine, which was much slower that by ship because of frequent stops and the slow speed of the primitive engine. Nonetheless, Harker never strays from his technology. When trapped in Castle Dracula, he turns to his phonograph to keep him company, and assures himself that being from the modern western world would be able to escape from an ancient eastern castle. Harker tries to escape and then attempts to murder Count Dracula, but the Count escapes on a boat to England. Harker followed Dracula back to England; soon his fiancée’s friend Lucy Westenra is struck ill and believed to have been bitten by a vampire. Harker is unable to believe that such a barbaric act could happen “here in London in the nineteenth century…” (197), showing that Harker thinks his modern nineteenth century England is too civilized for the infiltration of

Lucy utilizes a typewriter, and Doctor Van Helsing practices many modern medicinal practices. When Lucy is struck ill, Dr. Van Helsing performs a blood transfusion to help Lucy regain her health. A blood transfusion was a very new method that worked wonderfully for Lucy, until Count Dracula gave her another visit. Van Helsing had to give Lucy two more transfusions, but Lucy eventually met her demise. Lucy then joined Count Dracula as a vampire and wreaked havoc among little children of the town who called her the “bloofer lady” (174) and returned home with strange markings on their neck. Unlike Harker, Van Helsing maintained respect for the folklore of the time. He suggested the possibility of Lucy having become a vampire, and he was the one who knew to kill her with a wooden