thesis of dracula

Themes and Analysis

By bram stoker.

Bram Stoker's 'Dracula' contains a number of themes important because they reveal so much about the author's philosophies.

About the Book

Article written by Israel Njoku

Degree in M.C.M with focus on Literature from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

The fictional book ‘Dracula’ by Bram Stoker contains a number of important themes that reflects Stoker’s philosophies and attitudes and, by extension the sensibilities of the period he lived in. Within the narrative, these themes are revealed in the manner in which the characters in ‘Dracula’ interact, as well as in the outcomes of certain events.

Brotherhood

The individuals who united to destroy Dracula were not friends from the start- three of them had competed for the hands of one woman, and two had been saddened by her rejection. Yet there was no feeling of jealousy or resentment at the individual Lucy chose or on Lucy herself. Although they all came as competitors, Arthur, Quincy, and Seward ended up forging an undying bond with themselves, as well as with Harker, Mina, and Van Helsing.

When Lucy was ill, the suitor she rejected, Dr. Seward, was the one who cared for her, while another suitor, Quincy, contributed his blood to be transfused into her when she was in dire need of it. Van Helsing also provided his own blood despite having no prior emotional connection to her. This selflessness and generally noble predispositions are what make the brotherhood so strong and then ultimately successful against Dracula in the face of huge odds.

The Validity of Religion Alongside Technology

Bram Stoker’s ‘ Dracula ‘ was written during the Victorian period , at a time when Charles Darwin’s theory of revolution, as well as recent technological advancements, were leading to less religiosity among people. This sentiment is exemplified in the attitudes of Mina and Dr. Seward who could not solve the mystery of Lucy’s ailments because of a dependence on cold rationalism at the expense of superstitions and spirituality.

It took the arrival of Van Helsing to expand the field of observation and therefore countenance the possibility of a spiritual or supernatural origin to Lucy’s deterioration healthwise. Stoker seems to be advocating an open-mindedness to knowledge that would not dismiss certain areas as being too ridiculous. It is crosses, wafers, and garlic that are able to ward off the vampire, rather than guns or bombs.

The Tangibility of the Soul

One of the major themes in Stoker’s book ‘Dracula ‘ is the tangibility of the soul. The soul is a potent, active force that represents the essence of the individual but can be contaminated. For Stoker, our souls start from a pure state but can then get contaminated by external influences or actors. In the book, vampirism is like a soul-altering plague that either corrupts or shoves aside the pure soul of the individual in other to replace it with a new, much more evil life force.

The state of being “undead” is like a chip complete with bad and evil programs. When Lucy transforms into a vampire, her pure soul is replaced by that of an “undead” life force, and when she is then killed, her pure soul returns and finds rest. This is the case too with Dracula, whose final moment of peace is his most sympathetic. After his death, a tranquil disposition descends over him, replacing the malevolent and evil expression that had been on his face before. So in a sense, the fight against Dracula was also a fight to free his pure soul from the foreign life force that had either corrupted or imprisoned it.

In Stoker’s work, vampirism is associated with the deplorable and demeaning vice of lust. Lust here is an emotion that symbolizes a lack of self-control, in essence, man’s inability to master his own emotions, making him a prisoner to his desires. This man is far from the Victorian ideal, and if these qualities are found in a woman, it would greatly affect her reputation. When Harker first visits Dracula, he is impressed and made to feel comfortable by Dracula’s gentlemanliness and aristocratic charm. But this is a disguise that fades away at Dracula’s first temptation- the moment when Harker cuts himself. Dracula instinctively lunges at Harker at the sight of blood, but he is repulsed by Harker’s cross.

Lust or overt sexual expression is an emotion displayed by only the corrupted or damned in Stoker’s world. Neither Lucy nor Mina displays any degree of sexual expression in their interactions with their respective significant others, but when Dracula forces Mina to drink his blood, Mina recalls being sexually drawn to him, and it is only when Lucy transforms into a vampire that she becomes an evil seductress. The normally gentlemanly Harker cannot help the feeling of overwhelming lust rushing through as he was assailed by the three female vampires in Dracula’s castle. The association of sexual expression to a sort of corruption or contamination of the mind and soul is therefore evident in the book.

While ‘Dracula ‘ cautions against a mindless adoption of modern technology and ideas at the expense of our stash of traditional knowledge on cultures, superstitions, and religions, he still nonetheless recognizes the import of technology in the world. The keeping of diaries and journals, the telegram, the science of hypnosis, transcription, and the art of using a stenograph are some of the valuable skills that help in dispatching Dracula.

Analysis of Key Moments

• Jonathan Harker is warned by an old peasant woman in Bistritz against going on to Dracula’s castle. He accepts the gift of a rosary from her.
• Dracula invites Harker to enter freely into his castle.
• Dracula tries to attack Harker after seeing blood on Harker’s body but is repelled by the rosary Harker carries.
• Harker sees Dracula depart for England with the boxes of earth.
• Dracula arrives at Whitby in a shipwrecked boat after killing off every other person in it.
• Lucy starts sleepwalking and gets repeatedly attacked by Dracula
• Lucy falls ill, and her condition defies Dr. Seward’s treatment; Van Helsing is called in
• Van Helsing diagnoses Lucy’s condition as being a result of a Vampire attack. He takes measures to protect Lucy from subsequent attacks.
• Lucy becomes the ‘bloofer lady’ (as quoted from ‘Dracula’ ) after turning into a vampire
• Dracula attacks Mina and incapacitates Harker.
• The crew of light succeeds in destroying Dracula’s boxes, except for one
• Van Helsing and his team trace Dracula and the final box to the Borgo pass
• Dracula is destroyed.

Style, Tone, and Figurative Language

The ‘Dracula ‘ book is a horror story, and Bran Stocker utilizes a number of techniques not only to convey this horror but ground it within probable, realistic settings. Stocker is able to create tension through clever use of forebodings, world-building, and imageries. He builds the horror bit by bit; thus, while Jonathan’s journey to Scandinavian starts on a happy and comfortable note, the further inland he goes and the nearer he gets to Dracula, the more we get hints of the danger in front of him. 

The horror builds up from the increasing eccentricities of the natives, the horror of his hosts at the hotel he stays in at Borgo Pass, and climbs up when he is transferred to the mysterious coach driver with strange features. It reaches a fever pitch as Jonathan gets deeper into the forest in the dead of the night, in the midst of the terrifying howling of Wolves. This careful ascendance of the horror constitutes a neat plot device that creates tension and suspense.

The story of ‘ Dracula ,’ however, maintains a measure of realism due to the epistolary, journalistic narrative structure. The narration is advanced by the careful journal entries of rational individuals, the innocent letters of naïve friends, newspaper articles, and even ship logs. This makes the story seem quite plausible. 

Bran Stocker also employs certain tropes and imageries to spice his narration. There is a deliberate use of contrast; the strange and eccentric Scandinavia contrasted with the order and familiarity of England; the innocence and naiveté of Lucy and Mina contrasted with the perversion and evil of Dracula and the turned Lucy; the hustle and bustle of London contrasted with the quiet, isolated Whitby town. Stoker also draws from Christian theology and features, especially the trope of an unheeded prophet (Old Swales), the demonic slave of an evil master (Reinfeld and Dracula), and the efficacy of holy items like Wafers and the cross against evil, among others. 

Analysis of Symbols in ‘ Dracula ‘

The cross represents the sacrifice of Jesus Christ- an event that redeems the Christian faithful from their sins and offers a path to Salvation. The cross has since assumed protective functions and connotations in Christendom. It offers both offensive and defensive powers against evil, and that is exactly the intent towards which it is employed in ‘Dracula’ by Bram Stoker . The Cross is a symbol of salvation. It is what prevents Dracula from attacking Jonathan when he invited Dracula’s bloodlust after accidentally cutting himself while shaving. The cross is part of the protective and weaponized instruments- alongside holy wafers and garlic- that the protagonists use against Dracula, which gave them a fighting chance against his seeming invincibility. In the end, the cross represents the power of Christ, making clear Dracula’s role as a Devil of some sort. 

Coffins ordinarily represent the finality of death. But in ‘Dracula ‘, there is no finality about them. The dead do not seem to stay dead, so Coffins assume a certain diabolic vitality that represents the continued aliveness of vampires. It represents the transformation from pure, innocent life to undead, stopping short of final expiration. So while coffins do not represent the finality of death, they represent the death of innocence and purity and the corruption of or infiltration of lust and evil. Lucy dies a pure soul and awakens a terrorizer who has lost every speck of her humanity. It is clear that it is not Lucy who wakes, but something else entirely. This new being has to be put away for Lucy’s pure soul to have rest. 

Transylvania

Transylvania represents the exotic and the strange. For Stoker, it is important Vampirism is not native to England but is instead imported from some far away, exotic place. The little-known heartlands and far reaches of Transylvania, with their strange people and customs happen to fit the bill for Stoker. So it so happens that evil would come from far away Scandinavia to try and corrupt innocent England and that it would be brave, resourceful, intelligent, and above all, innocent Englishmen (plus an American and a Dutchman) who would combat it. 

What are the major themes in ‘ Dracula? ‘

Some of the important themes in Dracula are brotherhood, modernity, the tangibility of the soul, and religion, among others.

What is the key message of ‘Dracula?’

Open-mindedness. It pays to be open-minded about every possibility and not totally discount any idea because they seem ridiculous or superstitious.

What does Dracula symbolize?

Dracula symbolizes the victorian fears over racial contamination , scientific ascendancy at the expense of religion, sexual expression, and possible invasion

About Israel Njoku

Israel loves to delve into rigorous analysis of themes with broader implications. As a passionate book lover and reviewer, Israel aims to contribute meaningful insights into broader discussions.

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Bram Stoker

Ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

Writing, Journaling, and Messaging

Dracula isn't really a "novel" at all; it does not present itself as the work of a single author or narrator. Instead, Dracula consists of series of diary entries, letters, telegrams, memoranda, and occasional newspaper clippings, assembled and typed up by Mina Harker , with help from Seward , Van Helsing , Jonathan Harker, Quincey Morris , and Arthur , Lord Godalming . In a sense, then, Mina is the "author" of the book: she…

Illness, Madness, and Confinement

Dracula contains a study of the meaning of "sanity" and "insanity," of "wellness" and "illness." The treatment for both "insanity" and "illness" in the novel is confinement, which recurs throughout. Practically every character in the group questions his or her wellness or sanity at some point. Jonathan Harker , on his trip to Dracula's castle, is confined within the castle as a prisoner of Dracula's. Harker believes he is going insane there, and he has…

Christianity, Science, and the Occult

The novel also considers the interactions of Christian belief, superstitious or "occult" practices, and rational science. The tracking of Dracula requires methodical investigations in each of these fields, and the fields themselves, by the end of the novel, appear very much interrelated, even entirely entangled. Most of the characters in the group profess a serious and proper Christian belief. The Harkers are observant Protestants, and God-fearing people; their love is made permanent in the eyes…

Romantic Love, Seduction, and Sexual Purity

Dracula contains a long meditation on "proper," socially-sanctioned love, and "improper" relations of lust and seduction. Much has been made of this aspect of the novel, particularly in 20th-century criticism, and with good reason: it is impossible to separate the act of Dracula's forcible blood -sucking, directed at unsuspecting women, from the process of violent seduction and sexual assault.

Jonathan and Mina Harker , and Arthur (Lord Godalming) and Lucy , are the novel's two…

Life, Death, and the Un-Dead

All the above lead into the final, and perhaps most important, theme of the novel: that of the relationship between life, death, and the state in between these two, known by Van Helsing as "undeadness." Dracula is a creature of the undead. He sleeps during the day and lives at night; he is of incredible strength when awake, but must be invited into one's room in order to begin his "seduction." But the touchstone of…

Dracula Themes

Theme is a pervasive idea presented in a literary piece. Dracula , a masterpiece of Bram Stoker , contains many themes, including the dilemma of knowledge and the dark sides of human nature, such as proclivity to commit evil and limits of human knowledge. Some of the major themes in Dracula are discussed below.

Themes in Dracula

Limits of Knowledge

Knowledge and its limits together form one of the major themes of the novel Dracula. This pursuit of knowledge lies in Van Helsing, Lucy, and Parker’s efforts to understand the nature and working of Dracula as a character . It is because they are not aware of the extent of his power and vicious access to human nature that they must know how to fight against him. Despite the vast technical knowledge of modern gadgets, Stoker, too, fails to understand the nature of Dracula. However, traditional knowledge and knowledge of traditions come to help him and others in the shape of information from Van Helsing. It shows the limits of modern knowledge and the benefits of retaining traditional knowledge.

Another important thing is that this knowledge and its thirst should be in human control, or else it may cause havoc. Professor Van Helsing’s argument that Dracula has overstepped the human limits of knowing things seems correct in that after crossing these limits, Dracula has become a nuisance for human beings so much so that his elimination becomes a must.

Good and Evil

Good and evil is another major theme of the novel, Dracula. Dracula represents evil or evil ways through which he wants to assert his power over others and his superiority. However, Van Helsing knows that this evil could face defeat through goodness. That is why he frames this battle as a conflict between good and evil. However, it is interesting to note that he sees goodness in all Christian objects used for religious rituals to use against Dracula. It shows that if a person does not accept Christianity and Christian goodness, he does not get salvation. His expression of sadness over this exclusion of Dracula is a case in point that Van Helsing considers him evil. Van Helsing shows goodness by saving people from Dracula.

Madness is another theme of the novel. Many of its characters meet and face strange and esoteric events that border madness. Jonathan Harker, who heralds the arrival of Dracula and flees his castle, questions his own memories and whether he should trust them or not. On the other hand, Renfield, who is mad, shows how Dracula can use madness to his advantage. Seward assumes him a mad person though Dracula uses Renfield to look mad to others and talk to him. In this connection, Seward thinks that as it is impossible for him to imagine Dracula and evil associated with him, for he also borders madness.

Fear of Outsiders

Fear of outsiders entering one’s country and causing havoc is another major theme of the novel. It is clear that Dracula is not an English person. His nationality, therefore, makes it even more terrifying for the English characters like Lucy, Van Helsing and others, and forces them to drive him out. He is not only different from others but also his ways are strange, as Harker tells others when exposing Dracula. In fact, Harker’s main worry is not Dracula himself, but the evil that he is going to spread in his country. Therefore, his origin of Transylvania comes into question when Van Helsing starts fighting a battle with him.

The power of money is another major theme of the novel. Dracula is quite wealthy and has the means with which to purchase a mansion in London , a modern suburb of that time. He resorts to legal means to purchase that mansion through financial transactions and has the money to hire a legal consultant. He does not use his supernatural powers to travel and purchase things. Rather, he uses his wealth as Jonathan Harker, too, finds heaps of gold when he is thrown behind bars in his castle. This is a piece of evidence that Dracula is not hungry for wealth. In fact, he has enough cash to facilitate his movements despite the fact that Harker first suspects him but does not expose him until he becomes a danger for him.

Superstition

Along with many major themes, superstition is another secondary theme of the novel. Dr. Seward and Van Helsing’s attempts to find out more about vampires and then fight a battle against them to save others’ lives fall into the realm of supernatural and hence superstitions. When Van Helsing first sees Lucy, he immediately senses something like this. The treatment that he suggests with the sterility of the area using garlic is in itself a superstition. However, there is no pragmatic view about the use of garlic, nor any existence of such vampires in history except in such novels. Therefore, all of Van Helsing’s assumptions about mystical bonds of vampires, the use of religious symbols to ward off such dangerous creatures, and the use of vegetables to ward off supernatural witches are mere superstitions.

Sex Sex and the expression of sexual desires is another secondary theme that runs parallel to various other themes in the novel. Lucy and the three Vampire sisters are literary expressions of sexual desires. For example, the very act of seducing Jonathan Harker by those three sisters is a sexual act that shows their underlying desire to have sexual relations. Even Harker faces a dilemma and then thinks that they are very beautiful though he suppresses his desire.

Science vs. the Supernatural

A very interesting but secondary theme that appears at several places in the novel is the conflict between science and the supernatural elements. In a way, it seems that Seward and Professor Van Helsing try to explain Lucy’s sickness using modern medicine, but they could not until belief comes to their aid. This conflict comes out through Jonathan and Dracula where many others join the battle pitting the new belief system against Christianity.

British Idealism

British idealism is another minor theme of the novel in that Van Helsing’s treatment of Lucy’s illness through the cross points to the fact that Christianity pervades the British social and religious structure. That is why Van Helsing also shows the idealism of British healing touch when treating others and saving them from the fear and terror of Dracula.

Revival of Religious Faith

The revival of religious faith and the renewal of faith in religion is another minor theme of the novel. It has been proved through the cross that makes Dracula flee that religion still has the healing touch and salvation for the misled mankind.

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Typewriters, Blood and Media in Dracula

• First Online: 04 February 2021

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• Aspasia Stephanou 2  

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The chapter focusses on inhuman materiality as opposed to human discursive practices and looks at Dracula’s nonhuman communication as technologies of mediation between a world recognisably human and a world without the human. From texts to typewriters, blood and Dracula’s occult methods, what comes to the surface is the notion of media as depthless, meaningless and inhuman technologies that act beyond our understanding and without us as the privileged pilots navigating them. In this respect, the chapter adheres to steampunk’s distaste for static and linear histories and takes side with Foucault’s genealogical method in meddling hierarchies and times in order to find ruptures and continuities. Consequently, media is expanded to include occult substances and methodologies so as to approach nineteenth-century occult practices in a similar fashion as twentieth and twenty-first-century media, eliminating the limits between older and newer technologies and opening the space for alternate and alternative histories.

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Stephanou, A. (2021). Typewriters, Blood and Media in Dracula . In: Bloom, C. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Steam Age Gothic. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40866-4_22

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Dracula’s Inky Shadows: The Vampire Gothic of Writing

OWEN, LAUREN,ELIZABETH,SARAH (2017) Dracula’s Inky Shadows: The Vampire Gothic of Writing. Doctoral thesis, Durham University.

Always a story about a story, the vampire tale is forever in dialogue with the past, conscious of its own status as a rewrite. This makes the vampire a figure onto which readers and authors can project ambivalence about writing – the gothic of living with texts. Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) vividly illustrates this connection. The novel presents textual interactions as both dangerous and pleasurable. What is more, Dracula has accumulated significance through criticism and adaptation. These retellings tie the novel even more closely to the processes of writing and rewriting. This thesis will begin by examining Dracula’s gothic of reading and writing. After this follows a consideration of the vampire fiction preceding Stoker’s novel, beginning with the figure of the embodied author in early nineteenth-century works like John William Polidori’s The Vampyre’ (1819), and James Malcolm Rymer’s Varney, the Vampyre (1845-47). The thesis will then address the gothic of scientific and institutional language in the vampire fiction of the mid nineteenth-century, including Sheridan Le Fanu’s ‘Carmilla’ (1872). A return to the fin de siècle follows, with a consideration of degeneracy and art vampirism outside Dracula, and discussion of works including Florence Marryat’s The Blood of the Vampire (1897) and George Sylvester Viereck’s The House of the Vampire (1907). The thesis will proceed to the twentieth century, studying the gothic interplay of film and literature in works like F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922). It will then trace the resemblance between Victorians and their modern adapters, suggesting that re-imaginings of Dracula, like Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), betray an affinity between Victorians and the ‘enlightened’ twentieth century. The thesis will conclude by examining the vampire as a figure of intertextuality, and considering the way in which postmodern vampires like those of Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003) acknowledge that their world is comprised of other texts. Buffy offers the possibility that the world shaped by narratives may also be rewritten, with results that can be either terrifying or liberating.

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Dracula by Bram Stoker: Comprehensive Analysis Research Paper

Introduction, “dracula”: a synopsis, “dracula”: structure and setting, analysis of themes, “dracula”: symbolism and subjectivity, works cited.

“Dracula” is a horror novel by Bram Stoker. It was first published in 1897. Over the years, the book has been translated and revised several times. In this paper, the author explores the structure and setting of the novel, themes, characters, as well as symbolism and subjectivity.

An analysis of other scholarly writers and their arguments about the novel will also be provided (Belsey 34). A critical evaluation of “Dracula” reveals that it is an epistolary novel with a number of intertwining themes. The plot of the story is supported by symbolism and subjectivity as literary techniques.

The book tells a horror story. It portrays events taking place in England and Transylvania. The story is set in the 1890s. It begins with John Hacker, a solicitor visiting Count Dracula (Stoker 2). The Count lives in Carpathian Mountains. The solicitor intends to provide legal support. He is working on his employer’s real estate.

While at the Count’s castle, the solicitor encounters three female vampires. Dracula comes to his rescue. Afterwards, Dracula moves away from Transylvania. In the meantime, Mina is writing to her friend. The girl is Harker’s fiancée. Three men approach Mina’s friend for marriage. She accepts Holmond’s proposal and rejects those from Seward and Quincey (Schaffer 385).

Mina decides to visit Lucy at Whiteby. A ship has been wrecked. The whereabouts of the crew remain unknown. In addition, the captain died. After a while, Lucy starts to sleepwalk. Mina finds her in the cemetery. She sees an object bending over her. She falls sick and Dr. Seward sends for his mentor, Professor Helsing. The professor determines her condition but refuses to disclose it (Stoker 45).

Mina and Jonathan join others in destroying Dracula. They go through journals and diaries to trace the Count. Dracula is able to access the asylum. He starts nagging Mina. Mina is transformed. She becomes a vampire. Dracula is forced to go back to Transylvania.

His trail is followed over land and sea. Meanwhile, Heising and Mina come into contact with the vampires. They manage to kill them. Finally, they use sacred objects to block access to the building. The people catch up with the Count as he gets into the castle. Jonathan and Quincey use knives to kill him (Schaffer 390).

“Dracula” is an epistolary novel. It is composed of journals, letters, and diary entries. It also uses telegrams and newspaper clippings. A number of people have made contributions to the novel. They include Jonathan Harker, Mina Murray, and Seward. Lucy Westerna and Abraham also made major contributions. The book is largely journalistic (Dittmer 240).

Modernity is evident in the novel. For example, Harker is uncomfortable with the lodgings provided by his host at the castle. In addition, Stoker moves the story from the old castle to modern Victorian London. Helsing brings together modern and ancient schools of thought. For example, in chapter 17, he warns Seward that they should get rid of the monster. The move illustrates modernity (Byron 50).

Female Sexuality and Homosexuality

Stoker addresses the issue of sexuality in the book. A Victorian woman in “Dracula” has two options. She is either ‘pure’ or a mother. If she is neither of these, she is regarded as a whore and a useless person. In addition, homosexuality is regarded as an indecency in the society (Yu 150).

Reverse Colonization

Even though it is a minor theme, reverse colonization gives the reader an understanding of ‘eastern’ and ‘western’ cultures. A case in point is how the British view Transylvania. They regard it as a society full of social and political instabilities. Dracula travels to London. His shift depicts Britain as the scene of the conflicts. One can argue that the Count represents conquerors and vampires. The ‘animals’ colonize their victims instead of killing them. Consequently, they subvert the host’s culture while strengthening theirs (Arata 636).

The novel has several characters. The first is Jonathan Harker. He plays a number of roles. For example, he is a solicitor. In addition, he is engaged to Mina. He is also held captive in Dracula’s castle. Count Dracula is another character. He is from Transylvanian. He owns a residence in London. Westerna is Mina’s best friend. Holmwood is Lucy’s suitor and fiancée. John Seaward is a doctor. Helsing is a Dutch professor (Senf 4).

Stoker uses symbols to enhance the flow of the plot and to make it more captivating (Dittmer 241). A case in point is the depiction of the three sisters. They appear in Hacker’s dreams. They illustrate sexual proficiency, but they are evil. Another use of symbolism involves the stake driven through Lucy’s heart. It is meant to kill the devil in her and purify her. The use of the name Czarina Catherina is also symbolic. It is the name of a ship. It was derived from a Russian empress known for her promiscuity (Yu 154).

Subjectivity is also used in “Dracula”. It relates to how a person experiences things. A case of subjectivity is seen when Jonathan moves into Count’s castle. He shifts from the known to the unknown. On his way, he encounters people with conspicuous features and customs. However, he views his experiences as adventure (Senf 3). He also acknowledges the superstitious nature of people in this region. Gradually, he sees some truth in these superstitions.

“Dracula” is an interesting epistolary novel. It is set in Victorian London. Stoker addresses a number of themes, including modernity, sexuality, and reverse colonization. Symbolism and subjectivity are used to develop the plot of the story and bring to life the various characters.

Arata, Stephen. “The Occidental Tourist: ‘Dracula’ and Anxiety of Reverse Colonization.” Victorian Studies 33.4 (1990): 621-645. Print.

Belsey, Catherine. Critical Practice (New Accents). 2nd ed. 2002. New York: Routledge. Print.

Byron, Glennis, Bram Stoker’s Gothic and the Resources of Science . 2015. Web.

Dittmer, Jason. “Dracula and the Cultural Construction of Europe.” Connotations: A Journal of Critical Debate 12.2-3 (2003): 233-248. Print.

Schaffer, Talia. “‘A Wilde Desire Took Me’: The Homoerotic History of Dracula.” English Literary History 61.2 (1994): 381-425. Print.

Senf, Carol. “Rethinking the New Woman in Stoker’s Fiction: Looking at the Lady Athlyne.” Journal of Dracula Studies 7.1 (2007): 1-8. Print.

Stoker, Bram. Dracula, New York: Dover Publications. Print.

Yu, Eric. “Productive Fear: Labor Sexuality and Mimicry in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 48.2 (2006): 145-170. Print.

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IvyPanda. (2024, March 27). Dracula by Bram Stoker: Comprehensive Analysis. https://ivypanda.com/essays/bram-stokers-dracula-research-paper/

"Dracula by Bram Stoker: Comprehensive Analysis." IvyPanda , 27 Mar. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/bram-stokers-dracula-research-paper/.

IvyPanda . (2024) 'Dracula by Bram Stoker: Comprehensive Analysis'. 27 March.

IvyPanda . 2024. "Dracula by Bram Stoker: Comprehensive Analysis." March 27, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/bram-stokers-dracula-research-paper/.

1. IvyPanda . "Dracula by Bram Stoker: Comprehensive Analysis." March 27, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/bram-stokers-dracula-research-paper/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Dracula by Bram Stoker: Comprehensive Analysis." March 27, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/bram-stokers-dracula-research-paper/.

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"Introduction: The Myth of Dracula’s Critical Reception" [uncorrected proof]

2011, Bram Stoker's Dracula: The Critical Feast, An Annotated Reference of Early Reviews and Reactions, 1897-1913

There is a common misconception that the early critical reception of Bram Stoker’s famed vampire novel, Dracula (1897), was “mixed.” This reference book, as the present introduction lays out, sets out to dispel this myth en force by offering the most exhaustive collection of early critical responses to Stoker’s novel ever assembled, including some 91 reviews and reactions as well as 36 different press notices, many of which have not been seen in print since they appeared over 100 years ago. What these early critical responses reveal about Dracula’s writing is that it was predominantly seen by early reviewers and responders to parallel, even supersede the Gothic horror works of such canonical writers as Mary Shelley, Ann Radcliffe, and Edgar Allan Poe.

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Dracula in Criticism

As evidence for this, one need only consider two statements made almost 40 years apart, by Maurice Richardson in ‘The Psychoanalysis of Ghost Stories’ (1959) and Robert Mighall in ‘Sex, History and the Vampire’ (1998), respectively. Writing at the very beginning of Dracula criticism, Richardson contends that the novel must be read ‘From a Freudian standpoint’ because ‘from no other does the story make any sense’. The vampire, and thus the novel, in other words, represent nothing more than the coded expression of a repressed, unspeakable sexuality. Mighall, no doubt mindful of rhetorical closures such as this, is fully prepared to concede that ‘Modern criticism’ insists upon the presence of ‘some “deeper” sexual secret’ behind the ‘supernatural phenomena’ of Dracula . That ‘“deeper” sexual secret’, though, is for Mighall not Victorian but wholly twentieth century: the preoccupations of post-Freudian criticism, in other words, are being read in the place of anything that the vampire might have meant to a Victorian reader. Perversely, while it seeks to dispel the currency of psychoanalytical or sexual interpretations of Dracula , Mighall’s own rhetoric perpetuates their influence. Simply by naming critics committed to exposing the alleged, coded sexuality vested in the Count, Mighall ironically lends them a semblance of authority, intruding their supposedly anachronistic presence into his critical present, and perpetuating their place in the canon of Dracula criticism. Arguably, a reader in the twenty-first century is as likely to find Richardson and his psychoanalytical successors within a recent critical study of Dracula as he or she is to encounter Mighall and his contemporaries.

To recall but one, very obvious, example, the evocative substance that is blood in Dracula has attracted a phenomenal range of symbolic interpretations. Many of these, of course, are avowedly sexual. Maurice Richardson, for example, is an orthodox Freudian in his suggestion that blood is an unconscious symbolic substitute for semen in Dracula , where Peter Redgrove and Penelope Shuttle’s suggestion, in The Wise Wound: Menstruation and Everywoman (1978), that the fluid subliminally recalls menstrual discharge may be seen as a logical development from the phallocentrism of early psychoanalysis. The influence of Richardson is, not surprisingly, evident in C. F. Bentley’s influential 1972 study ‘The Monster in the Bedroom: Sexual Symbolism in Bram Stoker’s Dracula ’, even though that work’s theoretical orientation veers away from the psychoanalytical dogmatism of ‘The Psychoanalysis of Ghost Stories’. However, even where the literal – rather than symbolic – implications of blood form the focus of analysis, sexual symbolism and critics of sexuality appear to be necessarily invoked as a reference point. In a 1989 article otherwise concerned with the physiological processes of blood transfusion, for example, David Hume Flood seems compelled to acknowledge Bentley. Again, in Beyond Dracula: Bram Stoker’s Fiction and Its Cultural Context (2000), William Hughes acknowledges the sexual interpretations advanced by several other critics in a reading of how blood may function as a signifier of linage, family and race. Neither of these works is preoccupied with sexuality. Thus, as Christopher Craft observes, ‘Modern critical accounts of Dracula . . . almost universally agree that vampirism both expresses and distorts an originally sexual energy’, so that, in the words of Jennifer Wicke, ‘It is not possible to write about Dracula without raising the sexual issue.’

All of these critical studies, to a greater or lesser degree, deploy a common range of incidents as evidence, as indeed do many others less concerned with the symbolics of blood. There is a tendency in Dracula criticism, in other words, to reinterpret the same material from the novel rather than to develop new focuses for criticism – and Dracula criticism will be richer when critics consider at length and without prejudice the minor characters and less-explored scenarios of Stoker’s work. For the moment, the only satisfactory way to adequately demonstrate the variety and breadth of critical commentary upon Dracula is to take the scenes customarily regarded as being central to criticism and view them in all their critical plurality. These central scenes are, in order of their appearance in the novel: the depiction of face of Count Dracula, as observed by Jonathan Harker (chapter 2); the attempted ‘seduction’ of Harker by the three female vampires (chapter 3); the staking and ‘death’ of Lucy Westenra (chapter 16); the Count’s attack upon Mina Harker (chapter 21); and – more disparate, in that it is scattered across the extent of the novel – the cohesion of the coalition against Count Dracula. Though often cited and quoted, these scenes do not exist in isolation. Rather, in criticism they have become the central reference points for other events intimately related to their implications, perceived symbolism and narrative consequences. Thus, Jonathan Harker’s account of Count Dracula’s face is intimate to Mina Harker’s ‘scientific’ reading of the vampire’s character in chapter 25, just as Lucy’s trance existence, before and after her conversion to vampirism, is relevant to the Count’s attack upon Mina. These four specific scenes, and the concept of the alliance against the vampire, are, as it were, the staples of Dracula ’s critical repertoire – and the pre-existing foundations upon which new interpretations have so often been raised.

Jenny Tighe

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Tutu, Bloody Tutu: Another Dangerous Ballerina Hits the Screen

The vampire ballerina in the new movie “Abigail” has a long pop culture lineage. She and her sisters are obsessed, tormented and likely to cause harm.

By Margaret Fuhrer

“Ballerina vampire”: It sounds like a particularly good Mad Libs mash-up, deliriously absurd. Even if you haven’t seen “Abigail,” the gore-fest film that premiered last week , you can probably picture the monster of its title — the fangs, the blood-spattered white tutu. Somewhere, a Spirit Halloween executive is salivating.

However unlikely Abigail, the bloodthirsty dancer, seems, she has a long pop-culture lineage. Ballerinas are almost as much of a staple in horror as vampires. For decades, film and television have mined drama from the idea of the ballerina whose onstage elegance conceals terrible darkness — from the 1948 classic “The Red Shoes” to the pulpy 2021 Netflix series “Tiny Pretty Things.” Sometimes that drama is anchored in the truths of ballet life: the pursuit of impossible perfection, the bodily sacrifice required by a physical art. But sometimes these stories lean on the broadest clichés, using ballet as a beautiful canvas to spatter with blood.

“I don’t think anyone is going to see ‘Abigail’ for the dancing,” said Adrienne McLean, a professor of film studies at the University of Texas, Dallas, and the author of “Dying Swans and Madmen: Ballet, the Body, and Narrative Cinema.” “What they’re going to see it for, without necessarily being aware of it, is this pop culture idea of the dangerous ballerina.”

Abigail isn’t the only dangerous ballerina of the moment. Casting is about to begin for a workshop of a new musical based on the movie “Black Swan” (2010), whose disturbed, self-destructive antiheroine embodies many of the gothic-ballet genre’s stickiest stereotypes.

Unlike “Black Swan,” the darkly funny “Abigail” — which follows a band of kidnappers as they discover that their prisoner, supposedly an adolescent ballet student, is actually a centuries-old vampire — doesn’t aim for profundity. But entertainment-world depictions of ballet, even in campy romps like “Abigail,” carry weight.

In 2022, just two percent of American adults saw a live ballet performance, according to a survey by the National Endowment for the Arts . To paraphrase the dance critic Joan Acocella, who died this year , most people know whatever they know about ballet from films and TV shows . Or what they know about ballerinas, at least. However interested or uninterested ballet horror is in ballet itself, this genre is consistently fascinated with female dancers, viewed through a warped and often misogynistic lens. The dangerous ballerina — as imagined onscreen and then in the popular imagination — is obsessed, tormented, and likely to end up harming herself or others.

Dance, which often requires both supreme physical control and complete physical abandon, makes natural body-horror fodder . The pop-culture fascination with ballet in particular often hinges on the contrast between the ethereal grace of the ballerina and the punishing work required to create that grace. In an interview, the directors of “Abigail,” Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, described ballet dancers as masters of a kind of deception.

“They’re dedicated and strong-willed and powerful,” Gillett said. “And they know how to hide all of that.”

Like many ballet thrillers, “Abigail” also riffs on the repertoire classic “Swan Lake.” Once Abigail goes full vampire, she wears a white-feathered tutu; you know she’s coming when you hear Tchaikovsky’s swan theme . His evocative, familiar “Swan Lake” score is at least partly to blame for horror’s ballet fixation: Its plaintive oboe and shimmering harp offer all the dramatic tension a director could need. (The overture even plays during the title sequence of the otherwise ballet-free 1931 film “Dracula.”)

The duality of the leading role in “Swan Lake,” in which one dancer portrays both the virtuous Odette and the evil Odile, lays out the idea of the dangerous ballerina in stark, screen-friendly black and white: Odette’s snowy tutu, Odile’s raven one. And the ballet’s transformational aspect feels designed for horrorification, too. Is a girl who becomes a vampire all that different from a girl who becomes a swan?

Many ballet thrillers play on hoary clichés that hold grains of truth. The overbearing stage mothers, abusive teachers and intense body pressures that animate their storytelling may be heightened for effect, but versions exist in ballet, as they do in many forms of elite physical achievement.

The actress and former professional ballet dancer Sarah Hay, who played the damaged ballet ingénue Claire Robbins in the 2015 mini-series “Flesh and Bone,” said she drew from her own experiences while shaping the character. “There are things that have happened in ballet’s recent history that are disturbing and dark,” she said. “I was highly critical of my own body, I had low self-esteem, I struggled with self-hatred, just like Claire. I could see myself in that character.”

But there’s been a shift, McLean said, in the onscreen depictions of tortured ballet dancers. The melodramas of 1940s and ’50s, with “The Red Shoes” as the pre-eminent example, tended to feature dancers suffering for their art. More recently, movies and television shows — “Abigail,” “Black Swan,” “Flesh and Bone,” “Tiny Pretty Things” — have shown unhinged ballet dancers inflicting suffering on others, even committing murder.

The through line, McLean said, is the idea that “ballet is going to make you lose your mind.” Whether ballet is preying upon the dancer or the ballet dancer is preying upon others, “the message is, ‘Don’t mess with these people — they’re nuts.’”

Unsurprisingly, many professionals in ballet find that message upsetting. Gavin Larsen, a former dancer and the author of the memoir “Being a Ballerina: The Power and Perfection of a Dancing Life,” said she has seen its corrosive effects firsthand.

“Someone recently mentioned to me that he was thinking of putting his daughter in ballet class, but didn’t want her to ‘go all “Black Swan” on us,’” she said. “He really assumed on some level that there was a chance ballet would turn his daughter into a psychopath.” That could not be farther, she said, from her own largely positive experiences in ballet. “I’m just tired of the perpetuation of this idea that my art form is somehow evil,” Larsen said.

“Abigail,” frankly, is not interested in ballerina psychology. Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett said ballet started out as a kind of window dressing in the film — a “memorable visual flavor,” as Bettinelli-Olpin described it.

“We loved the idea of this innocent-looking ballerina covered in blood, so that every time the camera cuts to her you’re like, ‘Oh, right — I’m in this movie,’” Bettinelli-Olpin said.

That changed after they cast the actress Alisha Weir, 14, as Abigail. Weir — who starred in the 2022 movie “Matilda the Musical” — is a gifted mover, with training in contemporary and jazz dance. Before filming began, she took a ballet crash course with the choreographer Belinda Murphy, who taught Weir the rudiments of dancing in pointe shoes and shaped the extended ballet sequence that opens the film. (Pointe work takes years to master; in the final cut, a dance double, Sofia Giusti, is shown in a close-up of Abigail’s feet.)

Weir’s talent and enthusiasm inspired the “Abigail” team to feature dance more prominently. “By the time we went into filming, we were trying to incorporate dance into everything Abigail was doing,” Weir said. “When she attacked someone, it would be balletic, it would be graceful. It’s a game to her. You can tell she loves a good show.”

A monster with high-art refinements: In a way, Abigail has less in common with Nina Sayers, the heroine of “Black Swan,” than she does with Hannibal Lecter, who likes a little Bach with his (grisly) dinner . Ballet, a dance of courts and gilded theaters, “is shorthand in film for old-world, aristocratic, wealthy, European,” McLean said. It telegraphs that Abigail is no barbaric horror fiend but instead a sophisticated aesthete, which makes her both scarier and funnier.

“Abigail” also inevitably brings to mind last year’s hit “M3GAN,” another campy horror film featuring a dancing girl-who-is-not-a-girl. Both Abigail and the robotic doll M3GAN are performative killers, using dance to keep their victims watching even as they hunt them. “We are very open to the Abigail-versus-M3GAN universe,” Gillett said, laughing.

The way “Abigail” uses ballet evolves over the course of the movie. Before Abigail’s bloody secret is revealed, ballet is meant to code her as young, innocent, an easy mark. One of the kidnappers sneeringly refers to her as “Angelina Ballerina.”

After she enters vampire mode, it becomes an exultant expression of power. Weir’s technique may not be professional grade, and her tutu may be ripped and bloodied, but by the end of “Abigail,” her triumphant, unbridled dancing captures something true about why real ballet dancers love ballet.

Larsen said she wished more shows and movies would “show the physical exaltation that comes from having that kind of mastery, that ability to use your body like a fine-tuned instrument.”

“It is so sublime," she added, “so freeing, so empowering.”

As Abigail pirouettes down the hallway after a victim, there it is, finally: A ballet dancer having fun onscreen.

Stepping Into the World of Dance

As Harlem Stage’s E-Moves dance series turns 25, Bill T. Jones and other major choreographers discuss its impact on Black dance  in New York.

“We the People,” Jamar Roberts’s first dance for the Martha Graham Dance Company, finds the rage and resistance  hidden in an upbeat score by Rhiannon Giddens.

In “Nail Biter,” a New York City premiere, the exacting choreographer Beth Gill explores her ballet roots  and how to be in her body now.

The choreographer Emma Portner, who has spent her career mixing genres and disciplines , comes to ballet with an eye on its sometimes calcified gender relations.

A childhood encounter with an American soldier in Iraq led Hussein Smko to become a dancer. Now the artist performs on New York stages .

“Deep River” is in many ways an apt title for a dance work by Alonzo King, a choreographer fixated on flow .