{"id":234,"date":"2016-03-10T14:47:55","date_gmt":"2016-03-10T14:47:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/?p=234"},"modified":"2018-09-02T22:05:55","modified_gmt":"2018-09-02T22:05:55","slug":"harry-potter-and-dracula","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/2016\/03\/10\/harry-potter-and-dracula\/","title":{"rendered":"Harry Potter and Dracula"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dracula <\/em>and the Harry Potter <\/em>series share eerie similarities: Dracula <\/em>features an antagonist who was within society and became evil, just as Voldemort was on track to become a wizard, and decided to instead declare war on his society. Dracula and Mina are psychically connected and Dracula can control Mina, just as Harry and Voldemort can read each other\u2019s thoughts and Voldemort can control Harry (Stoker 344). Mina has a wafer burn on her forehead, a mark of Dracula\u2019s influence on her; Harry has a scar on his forehead, where Voldemort attempted to kill him. Voldemort and Harry have wands whose core came from the same exact phoenix, showing they are inherently connected; Dracula\u2019s blood runs through Mina\u2019s veins.<\/p>\n

Both novels also expose a fear of pollution or contamination within society. Harry worries that he will turn bad like Voldemort since his life resembles Voldemort\u2019s and he contains some of Voldemort\u2019s soul. Likewise, Van Helsing notes changes in Mina after Dracula bites her, including \u201cher eyes are more hard\u201d (Stoke 344). Both books contain an anxiety that the evil will overtake the good, and that we can see warning signs of this, whether the person is becoming a vampire or an evil wizard. All these concerns show that perhaps there is a pattern to societal anxieties that has not changed much since the 1890\u2019s. Dracula <\/em>and Harry Potter <\/em>are so popular because they are relevant to culture; their messages really do represent some of our cultural anxieties. Perhaps they have so much in common because there is a pattern to cultural anxieties, one that changes little regardless of era or world (real or wizarding).<\/p>\n

Considering the similarities the novels share, especially in how the villain affects the \u201chero,\u201d we can glean insight into cultural anxieties. The villain and the hero are irrevocably connected by something we cannot even see, and therefore have no control over. Harry and Voldemort\u2019s wands share a core connection, and Dracula\u2019s blood circulates through Mina\u2019s body, indistinguishable from her \u201cpure\u201d blood (another Harry Potter reference). Perhaps society\u2019s inability to separate the good from the bad represents an anxiety over reverse invasion and its undetectable qualities. We cannot pry apart Mina\u2019s blood from Dracula\u2019s, so we never know if Mina is purely herself, or if she operates under Dracula\u2019s influence. Similarly, Harry has some of Voldemort\u2019s qualities (the ability to speak parseltongue, legilimency, etc.), and we learn that Voldemort actually implanted some of his powers into Harry when he tried to kill Harry. Thus, the two are intrinsically connected, and \u201cone cannot live while the other survives.\u201d This obsession with penetration and planting a seed in someone is prevalent in both novels because it is so irreversible and intimate, making it a major cultural anxiety.<\/p>\n

This uncontrollable, permanent connection terrifies 1890\u2019s England and the 1990\u2019s wizarding world. It represents reverse invasion because it presents a case in which it is impossible to determine who is \u201csupposed\u201d to be in the society and who is a \u201cforeigner.\u201d Because we cannot determine who is stained with the enemy\u2019s influence, we risk invasion by allowing \u201cgood\u201d people to operate within society even though they have been contaminated. Authorities do not banish Mina or Harry from society, but in doing that they risk giving the enemy access to society through presumed \u201cgood\u201d people.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Dracula <\/em>and Harry Potter <\/em>share many similarities, all of which show that villains present a threat to society\u2019s health. Van Helsing even describes Dracula as, \u201conly [a] body groping his so small measure in darkness and not knowing,\u201d (Stoker 340), which is exactly how Voldemort\u2019s body was after he tried to kill baby Harry. These similarities show that 1890\u2019s England and the wizarding world (and perhaps any society) were scared of the outsider coming in and upsetting the balance. Both stories end, too, with a restoration of order. Dracula dies and Harker notes that, seven years later, England has reproduced (Mina and Harker have a child), and society regains its health. Harry Potter has to fight Voldemort to eliminate the threat Voldemort poses, and the last chapter of the Harry Potter series emphasizes that \u201call [is] well.\u201d Harry, Ron, and Hermione have reproduced and Hogwarts has returned to its usual self. It seems the threat to cultural balance persists through eras and across worlds, and given Dracula<\/em> and Harry Potter<\/em>\u2019s lasting popularity, the anxieties they represent persist, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dracula and the Harry Potter series share eerie similarities: Dracula features an antagonist who was within society and became evil, just as Voldemort was on track to become a wizard, and decided to instead declare war on his society. Dracula and Mina are psychically connected and Dracula can control Mina, just as Harry and Voldemort … Continue reading Harry Potter and Dracula<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3038,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[123782,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2016-blog-post","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3038"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}