DRACULABY BRAM STOKER

GOTHIC SYMBOLS

INTRODUCTION

Written in 1897, Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a novel based on the gothic/horror genre containing gothic imagery and bizarre characters. Told in epistolary format (as a series of letters, diary entries) and using gothic imagery in order to enhance the horror of his novel, Stoker's Dracula involves all the classic ingredients of a gothic horror story:

GOTHIC FEATURES

horror scenes (driving a stake through Lucy’s heart),

the supernatural (men turning into vampires),

castles (in the forests of Transylvania),

darkness (when Dracula went sucking blood),

good versus evil (crosses, garlic, stakes, etc. to kill vampires).

WHY DID THE AUTHOR CHOOSE THIS NAME FOR HIS CHARACTER?

Bram Stoker was initially going to call his vampire “Count Wampyr” but changed it to “Count Dracula” basically because he liked the name Dracula. The original Vlad Dracula was not a Count, nor a vampire. His name was originally Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, also known as Vlad Dracula or “Vlad the Impaler” because of his preferred method of executing people (by leaving them to die slowly impaled on steaks while displaying them publicly to frighten his enemies).

GOTHIC SYMBOLSBLOOD is the most powerful symbol associated with vampires and vampirism, a virtually universal food source for the undead taking it from animals or drawing it from the necks of helpless human victims. The simple idea of blood is seen to be more complex as blood seems to affect all of the characters in a certain way. Two of the most important symbolic ideas for blood in Bram Stoker’s novel would be: the idea of blood representing sex and lust or the idea of blood consumption as an act of obtaining vitality.

GOTHIC SYMBOLS

Therefore blood has always been held to possess supernatural and mystical qualities, as it is the keeper and giver of life.

One of the central themes in the novel Dracula is that after drinking blood, the count begins to look younger. This idea did not come to the novelist from any known vampire folklore but from the legendary blood-bathing of Countess Bathory to keep her skin looking young and healthy.

GOTHIC SYMBOLS

CHRISTIAN CONFLICTION

Dracula seems to be a total opposite of Christ and Christian values, driven purely by desire and lust, showing his demonic soul through the fire that burns in his eyes. Stoker repeatedly uses biblical imagery and references to compare Dracula to Christ, creating deliberate parallels throughout the novel.

GOTHIC SYMBOLS

Stoker's most critical comparison comes with the drinking of Dracula's blood by Mina, when he proclaims to her “And you, their best beloved one, are now to me flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood, kin of my kin; my bountiful wine press for a while; and shall be later on my companion and my helper” (Dr. Seward’s Diary, ch. XXI) This scene makes reference to the biblical creation of the woman in which Adam says “..this is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh” (Genesis, 2.23).

GOTHIC SYMBOLSDARKNESS associated with the nightmare and the traditional time of evil, was usually the preferred time of vampires’ attack. It is in darkness that a vampire of contemporary imagination must function, residing in a dark subterranean place, a coffin, or a darkened house or castle. The legendary undead were not always rendered helpless or destroyed by light or sunshine. This concept, developed by writers and especially by Bram Stoker in Dracula was transferred to the screen and became one of the main characteristics of the cinematic vampire.

GOTHIC SYMBOLS

HALLOWED WEAPONS

In many legends of vampires, religious icons play a strong role in defending against the undead.

Crosses and Crucifixes: the most used weapons against a vampire, bearing the figure of Christ hanging from it that represents Jesus's crucifixion on Good Friday. In both cases their energy is largely dependent on how strongly the person holding it believes in its symbolism.

GOTHIC SYMBOLS

In Dracula, the crucifix did not burn the flesh of the vampire, but being near one did cause him to lose his supernatural strength.Garlic: The vampire’s aversion to garlic also has its roots in Stoker’s Dracula. Van Helsing treated Lucy with garlic by bringing garlands of it into her room, which kept the vampire from entering.

GOTHIC SYMBOLS

Holy Water: being considered one of the primary symbols of life, the Holy Water is used in many religious ceremonies especially in the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. It is believed to have special powers and uses. Among them is the ability to repel most unholy creatures — including vampires.

GOTHIC SYMBOLS

Eucharist Wafer: represents another religious symbol that is thought to offer protection against vampires, though it's not as commonly mentioned as crosses or Holy Water. The wafer, which is a thin piece of blessed bread, represents the body of Christ in the Holy Communion ceremony. Like a crucifix, the wafer can burn the flesh of a vampire and leave a mark if pressed against the skin of its “victims”.

GOTHIC SYMBOLS

Stoker's use of the Eucharist underlines the religious significance of the wafer, emphasizing the spiritual tumult of the Victorian era through a range of issues, including good versus evil, moral versus immoral, and dark versus light.

GOTHIC SYMBOLS

LANDSCAPES

Carpathians are associated most closely with vampire lore in the region of Transylvania in our country. Romania. The novel Dracula was crucial in bringing the Carpathians (and Transylvania especially) to wide public attention, placing Castle Dracula there, accessible only by traversing high, jagged, and rugged roads and crossing the Borgo Pass.

GOTHIC SYMBOLS

MIRROR

Dracula casts no reflection. The first time that we have a notion that he doesn’t like mirrors is when Jonathan Harker makes the statement “there is not a single mirror in the entire castle”. The most memorable mirror scene is when Dracula comes to see Jonathan, he (Dracula) is exposed to mirror and becomes enraged when he sees it. Dracula takes it and throws it into the courtyard below.

GOTHIC SYMBOLS

SUPERNATURAL POWERS

Dracula possesses supernatural powers: he casts no shadow, has the strength of twenty men, grows younger on the blood of his victims, controls the elements (such as fog, thunder, and rain), controls many animals (including the owl, bat, fox, wolf, and rat), and can travel on moon rays as elemental dust or as a mist.

GOTHIC SYMBOLS

VAMPIRE

The vampire myth has appeared over the centuries in almost every culture, beginning with the earliest recorded epic from Babylonia, about 2000 years B.C. Although there are cultural variations in the various legends, there is always one defining trait of a vampire: a vampire sucks blood. It consumes another to sustain its own life.

GOTHIC SYMBOLS

From what Stoker tells us, that the vampire's powers are considerably extended: he can turn humans into the Undead, is virtually immortal, has the ability to grow younger by drinking blood, he casts no shadow, no reflection, he has the ability to crawl along walls, to control animals and the weather and he also has the power to transform his own shape.

GOTHIC SYMBOLS

Human beings have a strange, sometime unreasonable fascination with terror, mystery, horror and supernatural events and the Gothic novels provide their readers with an opportunity to experience that terror, that thrill passively.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Karg, Barb; Spaite, Arjean The Everything Vampire Book: From Vlad the Impaler to the vampire Lestat - a history of vampires in Literature, Film, and Legend , Adams Media, 2008

Leatherdale, Clive Dracula: The Novel and the Legend, Desert Island Books Limited, 3rd edition, 2001

Melton, Gordon The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead, Visible Ink Press, 2nd edition, 1998