“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.