Course Blog

 

“My revenge is just begun! I spread it over centuries, and time is on my side. Your girls that you all love are mine already; and through them you and others shall yet be mine—my creatures, to do my bidding and to be my jackals when I want to feed.” 

Throughout the 19th century novel Dracula written by Bram Stoker, there are many instances of sex and power intertwining, as well as separately. The basis of the story is a seductive vampire (Count Dracula) who preys on young women, in a time in which sexuality is extremely shunned in Victorian society. Women at this time were seen as pure only in the circumstances of having their virginity or through marriage, where they were being “saved” to be a man’s wife someday. Power is another large undertone in Dracula, as men during this time period were especially in a better position than women. Dracula is immortal, the greatest power of them all, he holds the ability to seduce and manipulate, as well as having an uncanny ability to use his powers for his own advantage. Dracula’s actions are a prime example of how when left unchecked, men’s sexual desires can become dangerously tied into gain of power in this period of time. When Dracula victimized Mina and Lucy, he took away their “purity” and led them into a lifestyle of having the possibility of greater “freedom” (they now have the ability to live forever), yet with greater social consequences.

I believe one claim from Stoker is “everyone is a prisoner.” Simply put, every character in this novel is a prisoner in a unique way. There are two characters that really make this claim evident. First off, the obvious example is Jonathan Harker, who directly claims he felt like Count Dracula’s prisoner. At the end of Chapter II, Harker yells, “The castle is a veritable prison, and I am a prisoner” (Stoker Ch. III). This example of a prisoner is right in front of our eyes. Stoker has Harker directly tell the readers he feels captured… but why? Stoker is doing this to increase the gothic elements of the story. The Count poses as a friendly, quiet, simple man when Harker first enters his estate. A few chapters later he turns into a possessive, hostile, blood-sucking vampire. This quick switch of egos, along with Harker explaining he is a prisoner, helps dramatize and gothicize the story. As this quick switch happens, the reader is then left guessing what vampires were really like in the 19th century. Were they once kind, caring humans who could not fight their darkened transformation or were they always evil bloodthirsty killers who were born into it? The way Stoker describes Harker as a prisoner, it seems like we will never come to an answer.  

Stoker categorizes Lucy as a prisoner of her own true self. In chapter XVI, she resurrects and escapes from her grave. The story reads, “It pleases me that the Un-Dead, Miss Lucy, shall not leave to-night, that so on the morrow night she may be more eager. Therefore I shall fix some things she like not—garlic and a crucifix—and so seal up the door of the tomb” (Stoker Ch. XVI).  From this, I see Lucy’s old self stuck as a prisoner to her current, vampish self. If she were to be in control of her rebirthing self, the men would not be able to restrict her. Something else that portrayed Lucy as a prisoner was when the men drove a stake through her heart. Chapter XV reads, “I shall cut off her head and fill her mouth with garlic, and I shall drive a stake through her body” (Stoker Ch. XV) Her own husband was now mutilating her in the most inhumane way. The men believe this act of violence will save her. I believe Stoker writes this so we will ask ourselves: do men have power over women? Does violence to women save women? So far, the gothic literature we have read contained a lot of feminine power, which seemed to be quite common in 18th-19th century Britain. Stoker portraying Lucy as a prisoner to herself helps him show power from the opposing gender creating a two-sided dispute of who the dominant gender was in 19th century Victorian literature.  

 

This novel is a good illustration of how scientific advancement buttheads with religion in 19th century societies. This progress in science led to people questioning the validity of religion, causing societal unrest. Given that people argued that science was a direct contradiction to religion, it of course made many assume that science itself was evil. Stoker plays off this sentiment in Dracula. Throughout the novel it is the spiritual world against the scientific world. On the one hand Seward uses science to understand the world and fight against Dracula’s forces. Whereas Dracula operates through the supernatural. Seward refuses to diagnose Renfield through reasoning that involves the supernatural, so he is left perplexed. When Seward attempts to save Lucy through blood transfusions, he fails, and she turns into a vampire. These are just two examples that demonstrate this war between old world beliefs that involve the supernatural and new world beliefs that rely on scientific explanation. A good example of this in the text comes from Van Helsing. 

“You are a clever man, friend John; you reason well, and your wit is bold; but you are too prejudiced. . .. Ah, it is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all; and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain. But yet we see around us every day the growth of new beliefs, which think themselves new; and which are yet but the old, which pretend to be young. . ..(Stoker 204) 

Here Van Helsing argues that while science is a great explanation for many things and great for the future, Seward allows it to blind him because he believes in it unequivocally. He argues that the problem with science is that when it has no explanation it remains that way, the answer is that it has no explanation. He says the reason for this is because science attempts to explain everything so when it can’t, it refuses to accept any other non-scientific explanation. This quote perfectly represents the societal tension of science and spirituality in the 19th century, Seward will not accept this idea that science cannot explain something, he is gung-ho on approaching the world through science and only that way, despite the traditional societal pull to see the world spiritually which is represented through Van Helsing and Dracula. These two sides of society are represented through the characters in this novel as this quote demonstrates.  

Throughout the course of the semester, we have encountered various themes and motifs that have both aided our understanding of texts, but have contributed to the mystery, evil, and monstrous elements within the characters and plotlines. Nevertheless, I am convinced that one motif stands out among all others, and that is the gothic motif as described by John Bowen. According to Bowen, there are various ways a text can be considered gothic, and, in my opinion, Dracula stands as the epitome of this motif. As a literary work, Dracula embodies the characteristics outlined by Bowen to classify it as a “gothic” text. However, I believe that these gothic elements function not only as literary tools to evoke a feeling of eeriness in readers but, more significantly, they aim to demonstrate that blood holds a more profound significance than merely being a literary device.  For example, in chapter 8, Mina says ” I looked at her throat just now as she lay asleep, and the tiny wounds seem not to have healed. They are still open, and, if anything, larger than before, and the edges of them are faintly white. They are like little white dots with red centres. Unless they heal within a day or two, I shall insist on the doctor seeing about them.” (Stoker pg. 91). I am convinced that this description carries a more profound meaning that goes beyond a concerned friend. In a literary context, the text emphasizes what Mina find as she looks at Lucy. Upon reading this, it certainly added to the monstrosity of the situation, however, I believe there is a deeper meaning in exposing Dracula’s profound wickedness, revealing how he ruthlessly exploits the innocent, transforming those around him into monstrous beings. Furthermore, I believe this also highlights the concept of “womanly virtues” from the Victorian era and how they were exploited. Employing the symbol of blood to discredit and diminish women not only highlights the disrespect towards them but also reveals Dracula’s predatory nature. This portrayal raises significant questions about the depiction and treatment of women, indicating the unsettling sexual undertones within the narrative. The desire for someone’s blood unveils yet another broader theme: Dracula stripped Lucy of her supposed purity.

In addition, blood establishes various other connections that contribute to a deeper significance beyond the gothic motif. Symbols of Christianity, science and superstition, as well as clashing time periods, all serve to give a deeper understanding that is beyond literary devices. Themes that in a larger assignment, I would certainly like to cover more.

It is not hard to see throughout the book that Jonathan Harker has developed fear and trauma due to his stay at Dracula’s castle. He writes from the time he was in the castle, “Doors, doors, doors everywhere, and all locked and bolted. In no place save from the windows in the castle walls is there an available exit. The castle is a veritable prison, and I am a prisoner!” (Stoker Chapter 2) Reading this quote, although short, with the knowledge that Jonathan does get out, which we still don’t know how, gives the reader a new perspective on it. It explains, as do other quotes around the same time in the book, why Jonathan is so traumatized. He simply could not get out of this place that terrified him. He is traumatized from his visit, and from knowing that Dracula is still out there somewhere, possibly close to him in England. Mina notices it before she even reads the diary, that her husband has been acting strange since she first visited him in the hospital. Later on in the book when Mina and Van Helsing read Jonathan’s notebook, we see another side to this quote, of Jonathan’s friends and loved ones learning what went on when he went to Transylvania. The idea of being a prisoner to Dracula can also be applied, in a very different way, to Lucy Westenra. She became a prisoner to Dracula when she was bitten, and was never the same (turned into a vampire) since. She couldn’t get out, just as Jonathan couldn’t. As she went through those countless blood transfusions and other treatments, she was all the time a prisoner/slave to Dracula’s dark ways, and could not physically escape him as she became the “bloofer lady”. It leaves the reader to wonder, will there be more “prisoners to Dracula”?

 

I found it particularly interesting the descriptions of post-mortem Lucy. Bram Stoker makes sure to frequently contrast the purity and the goodness of Lucy before Dracula gets to her with a severe impurity afterwards. Upon the bite, Lucy experiences a rapid decline to the hellish “other” depicted in the diaries of her peers and suitors. Dr. Seward, in chapter sixteen, refers to vampire Lucy as a “thing,” stating that it bore Lucy’s shape; in fact, Seward writes, the thing had “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.” Stoker also uses words such as “unholy” and the phrase “callous as the devil” in reference to Lucy’s territoriality over her adolescent victim. I think this is a pertinent section, one of many, strongly exemplifying the precarity, or, perhaps, fear in the eyes of Victorian England. 

As the Longman Anthology discusses, Victorian England was riddled with insecurity in regards to religion. The emergence of science which argued the popular beliefs of creationism, as well as a flurry of new religions and foreign lines of thought brought about a time period full of doubt. Relating this to the epistolary, one of the redeeming qualities of Dracula which helps in luring Jonathan Harker as his victim in the early chapters of the novel is the fact that Dracula speaks English fluently, albeit with a strange intonation. Nonetheless, the breaking of the language barrier acts as the first guise in allowing Dracula to permeate the shield of English society. Then, a subsequent important section is contained in the log of the Demeter. The crew writes in the log on July 16, “…Petrofsky, was missing…All said they expected something of the kind, but would not say more than there was something aboard… feared some trouble ahead.” Once again, the existence of Dracula provokes no more than a cautious uncertainty in the characters of the novel. Dracula has breached England ideologically by speaking their language; now, he breaches physically by traveling on boat to England. Dracula is promptly able to begin wreaking havoc in the lives of our English protagonists, pitted as the devilish foreigner. 

“God preserve my sanity, for to this I am reduced. Safety and the assurance of safety are things of the past. Whilst I live on here there is but one thing to hope for: that I may not go mad, if, indeed, I be not mad already. If I be sane, then surely it is maddening to think that of all the foul things that lurk in this hateful place the Count is the least dreadful to me; that to him alone I can look for safety, even though this be only whilst I can serve his purpose. Great God! Merciful God! Let me be calm, for out of that way lies madness indeed.” (Stoker 43)

As in many Gothic novels and stories, the English’s fear of the outside world and outside influences entering and destroying their culture is very prevalent in Dracula. Stoker not only uses Dracula as a representation of the outside world entering England, but shows the outside world to the English through Harker’s journey to Dracula’s domain.

In the beginning of the quote, Harker begs God to save his sanity. These lines demonstrate the level of fear that he currently has, and the torture he has been put through by living outside of England. Dracula, whose identity as a vampire is not clear to Harker, has put Harker through mental torture and challenges, and just the strangeness of his lifestyle, his strength, his castle, and more make Harker feel like he is going mad. Additionally, Harker is aware that Dracula plans to move to England, and this idea that Dracula and his horrors will travel to England furthers Harker’s suffering. Harker is completely powerless in Transylvania and in Dracula’s castle, which is the reason he reaches out to God, and the reason he is going mad. The idea that Dracula, the cause of his suffering, would be traveling to England where Mina, his lover, is, and where everyone he knows and loves is, is another cause for Harker to go mad. Without having any power or chance of stopping Dracula, Harker further shows England’s xenophobia, because he especially fears the idea that Dracula would make his way into his culture, and essentially ruin it by infecting those around him, or just physically harm them.

While Dracula the character is one reason Harker is going mad, he specifically says that he fears everything that is around him in the castle that he is unaware of. These lines also show that beyond the character of Dracula entering and affecting the English people, Stoker reminds the English that they are to fear and disrespect the land around them. This classic Xenophobia is added to Dracula as a character, because Harker also says that he can only feel peace or somewhat comfortable when Dracula is around, making Transylvania truly feel like an un-Earthly place that is host to dangerous, terrifying, and Hellish creatures, and that the westerners are not to interact with that area of the world.

 

 

 

“The Castle is on the very edge of a terrible precipice. A stone falling from the window would fall a thousand feet without touching anything! As far as the eye can reach is a sea of green tree-tops, with occasionally a deep rift where there is a chasm. Here and there are silver threads where the rivers wind in deep gorges through the forests.”  Stoker, Chapter 3

The passage starts with a vivid description of the landscape surrounding Castle Dracula. The detailed imagery of a “terrible precipice” and the abyss beyond, “a sea of green tree-tops,” reflects the Victorian fascination with nature. The Victorians often portrayed nature as both sublime and threatening, emphasizing its power and potential for mystery and terror. This passage immediately sets the mood and atmosphere of the novel. It establishes the dark and mysterious tone that pervades the entire story. The description of a stone falling “a thousand feet without touching anything” foreshadows the perilous journey that Jonathan Harker is about to embark on, which I think is a metaphor for the descent into the unknown and the abyss of evil that is represented by Count Dracula. By emphasizing the dramatic and sensational nature of the setting, the passage aligns with the novel’s overall gothic and sensational themes. The landscape surrounding the castle can be seen as symbol of the unknown and the supernatural. This exactly complements what I’m trying to claim here. Sensational novels like Dracula are heavily dependent (or too dependent!) on the natural world to uphold its supernatural aura. If you were to remove the essential aspects of nature that convey the atmospheric and emotional feelings in “Dracula,” the story would lose its depth and intensity. Nature plays a crucial role in setting the mood, foreshadowing events, and reflecting the characters’ psychological states. Without these elements, the narrative would become less vivid and engaging.

I also found recurring themes within passages in chapter four “The castle is a veritable prison, and I am a prisoner! The ground is full of grooves like ruts that come from the wheels of heavy wagons.”  Similar to the first passage, this excerpt also conveys a sense of imprisonment through the imagery of nature. Jonathan Harker is confined within Castle Dracula, and he describes it as a “veritable prison.” This mirrors the feeling of captivity and isolation found in the earlier passage. Both passages maintain a foreboding and ominous atmosphere. In this passage, Harker senses trouble and danger. The mention of the “heaviness of doubt and fear” in the air aligns with the dark and mysterious mood established in the previous passage. When comparing these differences across these similarities, the first passage describes the external surroundings of Castle Dracula, highlighting the nature and isolation of the castle’s location. In contrast, the second passage focuses on Harker’s internal experience within the castle, including his confinement and the sense of being watched. Harker’s feeling of imprisonment is more intense in this passage from chapter four. He explicitly refers to the castle as a “veritable prison,” indicating a deeper sense of entrapment. This intensification of the confinement adds to the growing tension in the story which is again conveyed through metaphors and imagery of nature.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We begin the novel Dracula with several chapters featuring Johnathan Harker, who slowly realizes he is in a monstrous situation and slowly transforms from a mild real estate agent to one capable of daring deeds when necessary. Given that we know he knows Dracula has left to London, it is potentially easy to expect when he reenters the narrative that he will reenter a reluctant action hero, ready to take the fight to Dracula for good. However, when he meet him next, he has this to say: “… I do not know if it was all real or the dreaming of a madman. … The secret is here, and I do not want to know it. I want to take up my life here, with our marriage,” (Stoker Pg. 115). Instead of a brave hero, Harker is uncertain and unsure, wanting to sweep it all under the rug and start over like it never happened. Just looking at this part of the text, there could be a number of internal reasons for this response. To utilize therapy speak that Bram Stoker would not have been aware of, this is likely a more realistic trauma response than resolutely deciding to head directly to Dracula’s new house with a gun. However, events in later chapters reveal that this explanation is not why Johnathan wants to bury his experience.

The explanation Johnathan himself gives comes after Mina has journals to Dr. Van Helsing, and the doctor has responded in letter form. He writes, “She showed me in the doctor’s letter that all I had wrote down was true. It seems to have made a new man of me. It was doubt as to the reality of the whole thing that had knocked me over. … But now that I know, I am not afraid, even of the count,” (Stoker Pg. 200). Here is the bold hero we may have expected, 95 pages later. It only took direct proof to banish the uncertainty and make the hero appear. Not that a man Harker has never met saying the experience was true without any evidence counts much for real proof, but no doubt it was the authority granted in Helsing’s title as doctor that did all the work. Note the emphasis of ‘doctor’s letter’ in the first line. There, then. Question answered. Not exactly much to make a blog post over, is it?

I disagree. If what was holding him back was uncertainty, why not determine a way to resolve it, instead of burying it? The answer to this question is clear when you look at both quotes. In the first, he is unsure if he went through an awful experience or underwent ‘the dreams of a madman’. This potential of madness means he must do nothing, because to do anything on the matter would risk acting on madness, or even worse, confirming it. The only thing a respectable English man is to do is to forget the matter entirely. Thank goodness Helsing arrives with his ‘doctor’s letter’ certifying truth, and thus sanity, taking the risk of madness from the situation entirely. Johnathan Harker swears he does not fear Dracula, but his fear of being perceived as mad is certainly here to stay.

In Dracula, Bram Stoker shows how the societal pressure against madness led many to hold themselves back in fear.

As we have progressed through Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula, in concert with our understanding of women in the various other pieces of Victorian literature that we have encountered so far, the age-old motif of, “good versus evil”, continually emerges. This is no better emphasized than in chapter 16 of Stoker’s novel, as Lucy, in her infantile vampiric state beseeches that Arthur,

“Come to [her]… Leave these others and come to me. My arms are hungry for you. Come, and we can rest together. Come, my husband, come!” There was something diabolically sweet in her tones—something of the tingling of glass when struck—which rang through the brains even of us who heard the words addressed to another. As for Arthur, he seemed under a spell; moving his hands from his face, he opened wide his arms” (Stoker, Ch. 16). Lucy, after “enchanting” Arthur, then leapt towards the group of men, only to withdraw when Van Helsing presented his crucifix to her face, revealing her true intentions to harm the men as shown by the distortion and rage in her subsequent expressions. In simple terms, it appears that this passage points out what is obvious, the men, Van Helsing, Arthur, etc. are good and Lucy is representative of evil. After all, Lucy is repelled by the iconography of God, further emphasizing that, as noted in chapter 12, “…the devil may work against us for all he’s worth, but God sends us men when we want them” (Stoker, Ch. 12).

While Lucy may be representative of some sort of evil, as harming children is inherently an evil deed, the simple assignment of good and bad does a disservice to the underlying societal values and harms that disadvantaged Lucy from the beginning. Lucy’s ultimate power, similarly to that of the alleged fairy in “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”, by John Keats, or Lady Audley in “Lady Audley’s Secret”, by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, notes that beautiful women are not only enchanting, but that they are ultimately dangerous. The connectivity between desire and lust; some of the goals of Satan, and the stringent Victorian values that opposed these emotions as “immoral” being ultimately represented in a character like Lucy makes her downfall almost inevitable prior to her turn towards vampirism. I would argue that her night-stalking primarily targeting children is further proof that she is representative of the Victorian fears of what a new woman could look like. In Lucy hunting children, and harming then, she engages in an entirely different set of behaviors than the domestic and caregiving modes that are expected of her. In her soft and tender tones towards Arthur, this “deception”, through engaging in the expected “Victorian woman” mannerisms and countenance, is made all the more troubling when she flips towards her “true” form.