{"id":826,"date":"2017-10-25T22:01:38","date_gmt":"2017-10-26T02:01:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/?p=826"},"modified":"2017-11-30T11:43:15","modified_gmt":"2017-11-30T16:43:15","slug":"colonialism-and-classism-in-dracula","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/2017\/10\/25\/colonialism-and-classism-in-dracula\/","title":{"rendered":"Colonialism and Classism in Dracula"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Bram Stoker\u2019s <\/span>Dracula<\/span>, themes such as colonial domination, and classism are omnipresent in the attitude of the novel\u2019s titular character, Count Dracula. \u00a0As a nobleman in Transylvania, Dracula prides himself on his family\u2019s history and the effect that it has had on the country as a whole as, \u201c In his speaking of things and people, and especially of battles, he spoke as if he had been present at them all. . . [the] pride of his house and name is his own pride, that their glory is his glory, that their fate is his fate (Stoker, 35).\u201d \u00a0By presenting his family and himself as being integral to the national fate of Romania, Dracula is attempting to prove to Harker (an Englishman) that he is deserving of his noble blood and, therefore, respect. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Dracula wants to immigrate from an impoverished, uninfluential nation (Romania) to the world\u2019s most powerful country (England). \u00a0This shows that even though Dracula is powerful among his own people, he is unsatisfied with it, as seen when Dracula tells about his fellow country men. He says that the “peasant is at heart a coward and a fool!” (Stoker, 32). \u00a0To be able to subjugate the people of the world\u2019s most powerful country would finally prove that Dracula is deserving of his ancestor\u2019s bloodline (as a Boyar, he explains that he is descended from Attila the Hun which may help explain his desire to conquer other lands\/peoples, another reason for him to leave Romania for England).<\/span><\/p>\n

Dracula also feels superior to commoners which shows his classist tendencies. \u00a0For example, when Harker is explaining to Dracula that the estate in England is secluded and that there is an old chapel nearby, Dracula comments, \u201cWe Transylvanian nobles love not to think that our bones may lie amongst the common dead (Stoker, 30).\u201d \u00a0Dracula\u2019s disdain for commoners is so great that even after death, (if Dracula ever does dies) he is comforted by the notion that his bones will not be in the same vicinity as the bones of commoners. \u00a0This class based disdain is also seen in the manner he treats the common woman whose baby he steals. Rather than sucking her blood, he lets the wolves eat her, as if to suggest that her common blood would taint his own noble blood. \u00a0Later in the novel, Count Dracula sucks the blood of Lucy, who is not a commoner as she is to marry the aristocrat Arthur Holmwood. \u00a0Through Count Dracula\u2019s statements and actions, it is apparent that he does not want to be associated with, or interact with people who have common blood.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Bram Stoker\u2019s Dracula, themes such as colonial domination, and classism are omnipresent in the attitude of the novel\u2019s titular character, Count Dracula. \u00a0As a nobleman in Transylvania, Dracula prides himself on his family\u2019s history and the effect that it has had on the country as a whole as, \u201c In his speaking of things … Continue reading Colonialism and Classism in Dracula<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3250,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[123801],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2017-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}