“She saw, I suppose, the doubt in my face, for she put the rosary round my neck, and said, “For your mother’s sake,” and went out of the room. I am writing up this part of the diary whilst I am waiting for the coach, which is, of course, late; and the crucifix is still round my neck. Whether it is the old lady’s fear, or the many ghostly traditions of this place, or the crucifix itself, I do not know, but I am not feeling nearly as easy in my mind as usual.”
While this being a very very early on passage from the book it is something I wanted to talk about in a blog post while we were still focusing on this book. I found it very interesting that a large part of what was used to be religious against a vampire was a religious object. While there are other objects or foods such as garlic that are talked about later in the novel in terms of deterring vampires. However, something about there being a religious object used in detriment was just surprising to me. I also connected this as a theme to other types of monsters in stories as it seems there are always a few objects that are used to fight back against the monsters. I ask in this post though why is it that this un-dead vampire’s weakness is symbolism of religion? I also wondered why it came so early on in the novel, I feel in a lot of novels the way key facts like this are portrayed are through the novel characters uncover information and this would be something they discover mid way through. I thought it was extremely unusual for Stoker to write this information so early on in his book. I also connected this information to some extent to the devil, as a vampire being an un-dead monster, who is harmed by these religious symbolism made me think of how the devil is portrayed in Catholicism and the similarities between the Count and the Devil.
I like this connection between the religion and the novel. This connection between the satanic monster in Dracula and the devil himself furthers the severity that comes with the fear of the outsider. Yes, I understand that Dracula is an extreme threat. The issue is how drastic this fear of that which is different is in this novel as it puts the Eastern European threat in conversation with the devil himself. My question further is what is at the core of this fear that resurfaced in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.