{"id":880,"date":"2017-11-03T19:49:14","date_gmt":"2017-11-03T23:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/?p=880"},"modified":"2017-11-30T11:40:41","modified_gmt":"2017-11-30T16:40:41","slug":"who-is-the-real-monster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/2017\/11\/03\/who-is-the-real-monster\/","title":{"rendered":"Who is the Real Monster?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Although <em>Dracula <\/em>at face value is about the fear of a foreign monster, what actually makes <em>Dracula <\/em>so unnerving is watching the descent of normal humans into monsters, rather than the monster itself. While some of the grotesque parts of the novel take place when Jonathan Harker is alone with Dracula, it seems as though these scenes are only exposition for what is to come next: Lucy\u2019s transition into a vampire. The existence of Dracula as a monster is less haunting, as he is never really portrayed as fully human: \u201cStrange to say, there were hairs in the centre of [his] palm\u2026 As the Count leaned over me and his hands touched me, I could not repress a shudder,\u201d (Stoker, 25). By immediately portraying Dracula as such an inhuman looking creature, the uneasiness of the reader lies in the shallow fear of the unknown. However, the real horror comes whenever the sweet, innocent, proper Lucy is transformed into the cruel creature she becomes: \u201c\u2026Lucy\u2019s eyes in form and color; but Lucy\u2019s eyes unclean and full of hell-fire, instead of the pure, gentle orbs we knew. At that moment, the remnant of my love passed into hate and loathing\u2026\u201d (Stoker, 225). The entirety of this passage induces much more horror than any other passage about Dracula, as readers are able to relate and imagine seeing someone that they love morph into something so evil in front of their eyes. It is easier for readers to pass Dracula off as an <em>other, <\/em>but to watch someone a reader can relate to become so barbaric is truly unsettling to the human condition. Therefore, Lucy\u2019s tale of turning into Dracula, as well as Renfield\u2019s descent and Mina\u2019s threat of vampirism, is what makes this story a true horror story, even though they are not the main monsters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Although Dracula at face value is about the fear of a foreign monster, what actually makes Dracula so unnerving is watching the descent of normal humans into monsters, rather than the monster itself. While some of the grotesque parts of the novel take place when Jonathan Harker is alone with Dracula, it seems as though &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/2017\/11\/03\/who-is-the-real-monster\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Who is the Real Monster?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3631,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[123801],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-880","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\/880","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\/3631"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}