Xenophobia In Dracula

Dracula compares to King Kong on a lot of levels I think one of the main ones is the fear level that he brings but also that same fascination to those around him. King Kong enters New York and people hear about him and are frightened but come to the showing any way out of curiosity and I feel like the characters in the book, especially Lucy for example, are afraid and can feel the danger but are drawn to him anyway because he’s new and exotic and they want to be around him.

There are several examples of xenophobia throughout the story and a lot of it comes in the beginnings while Jonothan is starting his journey. In chapter 1 page 5 Jonothan states “The strangest figures we saw were the Slovaks, who were more barbarian than the rest, with their big cow-boy hats, great baggy dirty-white

trousers…” and he goes on to discuss how disgusting and barbaric the Slovaks are with extreme distaste.

There is a lot of fear of the group turning into monsters like Dracula, when Lucy becomes ill the text states “Lucy’s eyes in form and color; but Lucy’s eyes unclean and full of hell-fire, instead of the pure, gentle orbs we knew” (pg. 234). Lastly Dracula throughout the book monstrously kills innocent people and each time he is depicted as a monster with no mercy towards whoever he is attacking.

Freud defines uncanny as something that is frightening and familiar and Dracula to me is the exact definition of that fear mixed with curiosity. Dracula embodies the fear of cultural passing, like we discussed in class, the thought of him being able to move within society undetected is terrifying because now there’s this monster walking among us that could attack at any time.I

think this relates not only to the time Stoker wrote this in but also now when there’s so many multicultural families and so much diversity, and people trying harder than ever to keep them out. Just take Donald Trump for example, another fear that comes along with this is if the other is walking among us and is one of us then all those horrible things that I said to them or about them can be applied to me as well. Since Dracula represents the other I think he also represents a sexual attraction to other races that was just not allowed in those times and is still frowned upon in a way during our current times. For example when Jonothan encounters the vampire women he is intrigued but suddenly ‘snaps back to reality’ when he realizes what he’s doing. I think Dracula also represents a violent side to our culture, the side that would just retaliate with no mercy or think about the consequence for any behavior that they see fit. Reading the story I feel like Dracula thinks himself above mankind and I think that attitude can apply when dealing with someone or an entire culture that you don’t like and it’s possible that rage he feels to allow him to kill innocent people can be applied to a lot of people in society. Not to the extreme of ripping heads and biting necks but that urge to destroy.
One of the reasons I think this is significant is because it has to do with the attraction and desire for other ethnicities and for the desire for something more. I think Lucy’s behavior and comments like ‘who needs more than one man’ can kind of be related to women attempting to do more outside of the household or not do what is traditional. Not to the point of the women’s rights movements but I think Lucy is an extreme dramatization at the male look at what happens when women aren’t married and in the home. Stoker sort of portrays her as a sex crazed women who abandons all common sense because she’s attracted to Dracula and this is what independent women do. Mina is never overly sexualized like Lucy and she’s basically the definition of what a Victorian women should be and I feel like that’s why she is given the intelligence of a ‘mans brain’ and takes a greater role in the book for example helping Van Helsing.
A strong bond forms between Helsing, Seward, Holmwood and Morris, so much so Mina and Jonothan name their child after them. A really tight friendship and family type bond forms between them as they all rally together to kill this monster who killed their friend. Lucy takes the role of the motivator to find and kill Dracula to avenge her death and Mina takes the role of the brain and the steam that gets them moving in the right direction.
Vampirism is light an infectious disease in that it’s transferred from person to person, makes them ill and eventually kills them and in this case turning them into a ravenous monster. In this story it comes from an outsider that’s described as dirty and filthy and it also comes on ships where Dracula has murdered the crew.