As preoccupied with propriety as the Victorian era was, it always surprises me to read a classic from this period that could just as easily have been written a hundred years later. Dracula, a novel by Bram Stoker, was published in 1897, but it reads like any horror novel written today. The novel is so modern, in fact, that it has inspired many movie adaptations, two of the most recent being Bram Stoker's Dracula in 1992 and Van Helsing in 2004. Toward the beginning of the novel, when Jonathan Harker is trapped in Dracula's castle, Harker's journal tells how he was waylaid by three female vampires while resting in an ancient section of the castle: "I could feel the soft, shivering touch of the lips on the super-sensitive skin of my throat,
The settings presented are also dark and eeire, and Dracula himself lives in solitude with no other companion. The film adaptation of Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ is just as reliant on the conventions of Gothic fiction (a genre that was extremely popular in the early nineteenth century when the book was written) as the novel, making it not only follow nicely in the novel’s footsteps but also proving to be a chilling delight for the viewing audience. Gothic fiction traditionally includes elements such as wild landscapes, eerie castles, darkness, and decay, isolation, security, the supernatural and innocent maidens threatened by unspeakable evil. Stoker has utilized all of the above and consequently, as does this film adaptation. An example of this would be in the theme of isolation as Dracula’s castle is hidden in the recesses of Transylvania, kept away from civilization of any description.
The events of Dracula’s life were played out in a region of the world that was still basically medieval, and superstitions of the Dark Ages were common. The general consensus among historians now is that Vlad adopted it from the Order of the Dragon, which he belong to starting at a young age. In spite of, the widespread view in Romania that the vampire connection has been deliberately emphasized in the west to undermine a figure that, for many Romanians, is something of a national hero and not the atrocious monster most made him out to
What values and attitudes are explored within Stoker’s Dracula? How might context have influenced Stoker’s vision? Bram Stoker’s Dracula is, if nothing else, an extraordinary exploration of the values and attitudes at turn-of-the 20th Century London. Stoker portrays the collision of two disparate worlds - the Count’s ancient Transylvania and the protagonist’s rapidly modernising London - along with a variety of other symbols in order to highlight the primary anxieties that characterised his age: the dangers of female sexuality, the ramifications of scientific and technological advancement and the impacts of abandoning religion. Stoker makes continued use of symbols and objects throughout the novel in order to further strengthen on this idea.
Forward thinking in Dracula. In Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Stoker challenges the Victorian mind in ways that had never been done before. The novel is written in a way to fool readers to think the story is true. He covers subjects of religion, sex and the supernatural in an attempt to expand the shallow thinking of the time. The character of Dracula rarely appears in the text after the first few chapters to create a sense of mystique for Dracula, and by doing so proves Dracula is supernatural.
Matre1 Matt matre Lit form Mr. Hoerner 2-16-10 Bram’s Symbolic scenes In the book Dracula by Bram stoker, Many themes in the story represent a deep meaning, these themes usually reveal a major theme in the book, Bram uses many symbolic scenes that express deeper meanings, express an idea and clarify deeper meaning. One scene from the book Dracula by Bram stoker where symbolisms are used is when Lucy is sleepwalking in the night. When the ship crashes onshore and Dracula gets off. Lucy walks up to the seat that really is a grave, which is her favorite seat. Then Dracula finds her and bites her whereby he starts to drain her blood.
“How does ‘Shadow of a Vampire’ appropriate the earlier texts of Nosferatu and Dracula and create something new?” Shadow of a Vampire (2000), directed by Elias Merhige, is a film that recreates the making of the 1922 film ‘Nosferatu’. Shadow of a Vampire distorts the reality of what actually went on whilst filming Nosferatu yet appropriates the text to make it entertaining and scary. As Nosferatu is based on Dracula by Bram Stoker, Shadow of a Vampire also becomes an appropriation of this text, mainly using the elements of gothic to create what is essentially a horror movie. An appropriation that adds to the scary nature is the behaviour of Nosferatu director Friedrich Murnau. Murnau’s behaviour is questionable from the early stages of the film.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula was written in a time of great change. His story had many interesting themes that where symbolic. According to shmoop.com, blood may be one of the most symbolic themes in the story (shmoop.com). The character, Renfield, says, "I tried to kill him for the purpose of strengthening my vital powers by the assimilation with my own body of his life through the medium of his blood – relying, of course, upon the Scriptural phrase, 'For the blood is the life.” He is referring to the idea that by drinking another’s blood you are able to, in some way, take their vital powers. We can relate this passage to the Christian faith and taking communion.
When Bram Stoker wrote his novel Dracula in the later half of the nineteenth century, he could not possibly have fathomed its continuing success for so many years to come. When asking the question what makes a story a valued text you must first ask what does in mean to be valued? Value is defined as having worth in usefulness or importance to the possessor. Dracula is recognised as possessing great worth, or I would not be writing about it now. Dracula has been accepted by our culture as something of value for many reasons.
Brandon Odum English 1102 Professor Turlington 26 May, 2011 Dracula’s Temptation In Bram Stoker's novel Dracula, Dracula has the uncanny ability to expose every person's concealed fantasy, the one thing that they yearn for the most. It is up to the characters nonetheless, to shape their own future. If someone is not careful about what they do or care about what happens, then they would most likely be taken by Dracula. On the contrary, if someone is aware of what is going on around them and cautious about what they do, then Dracula would not be able to overtake them. Mina Harker and Lucy Westenra both determine their own destinies in Dracula.