Literature: overview and critical perspectives

Dracula - Bram Stoker's Immortal Count, the Modern Anti-Hero and Fallen Angel of Romantic Dreams

Dracula, written by Bram (Abraham) Stoker in 1897, and was originally published by Archibald Constable and Company. The modern version is Published by Penguin Classics, London. Dracula is set in 1893, 4 years prior to the books published date of 1897, Bram Stoker takes the reader from the journey of a young Solicitor named Jonathon Harker through to a series of individual accounts that give the reader the understanding of how Victorian life and how classes were supposed to act.

Stoker has used a mix of narratives using the past tense in the form of Journals, diaries, personal letters and recordings collectively assembled by one of the characters during the book.

Apart from the main character of the book that is Dracula, who is actually absent from the novel for nearly three quarters of the narratives, there are several other key figures these are a mix of people from the middle to higher classes of Victorian society; these are Jonathon Harker, Sir Arthur Holmwood (later Lord Godalming) Dr. John (Jack) Seward. Quincey P. Morris; Professor Abraham Van Helsing. Lucy Westernra, and Wilhemina (Mina) Murray (Harker). Other figures that represent a minor but important role within the book are Renfield and the three voluptuous creatures called women that Harker is exposed to upon his visit to Castle Dracula.

The Book Dracula has created many arguments of blood, power, sexual symbolism, political and even magical discussions. The main question that needs to be asked concerning the book and even the author is what Stoker had in mind when he created this masterpiece. After all the book itself is Stokers' Frankenstein monster, he has taken from nearly every aspect of his life that has been influential to him in some way. From the holidays in Cruden Bay and Whitby to the people in his life who became the characters of his book.

So Ok you have read the Book, seen the numerous movies and read countless (no pun intended) comics on the Lord of the Undead. Hey if you are sad enough you probably have a plethora of vamp films and books all with something to do with big D. himself but not actually starring him.

The book opens with the travels of a young Solicitor by the name of Jonathon Harker.

Seen through his Journal, to administer and serve from a legal perspective, the desires of an old man, Dracula, who has sought the services of Harker's firm of Solicitors based in Exeter, England to purchase property in London.

Even before Harker reaches the desolate home of his client he comes face-to-face with the superstition of the region of Transylvania. As the people of the region he is travelling through learn of his travels to Castle Dracula, in the Borgo Pass, their fears and worries for him increase.

Through out Harker's stay at Dracula's castle he becomes witness to the strange and macabre world of his host. However, once Harker discovers the true nature of his strange host and those who reside within the ancient castle he becomes fearful of his life. Especially as the Count has promised his guest to the three voluptuous young ladies as a token of his love for them.

Once the devilish Count has left his domain, the story then turns to the gay life of two young women, Wilhemina Murray, betrothed of Jonathon Harker and schoolteacher, and Miss Lucy Westernra. Here the story begins to unfold as the two young ladies of Victorian society, one of means (Westernra) are involved oin the daily life of society. Their letters say nothing of any concerns for the world or life outside their own small world. Westernra is concerned that her friend Murray has not written to her and about the three men who have each proposed marriage to her.

Murray on the other hand is more concerned about her Jonathon and life of a schoolmistress.

Once the two are happily ensconced together in the fishing town of Whitby, the tale begins to change to one where death and pain become part of the young ladies and that of the men in their lives, world.

Whilst at Whitby they are witnesses to an unnatural storm that forces a schooner on to the bay, here there nightmare begins. Lucy becomes a victim of the sleepwalking curse, it is here she begins to meet her destroyer, and within the churchyard of the ladies favorite spot, Mina sees for the fist time the Man who is to haunt her.

Dracula, does not really make an entrance into book for several chapters after he leaves Harker in Transylvania. The reader is given peripheral insights into what deeds Dracula has committed, the proverbial rape of Lucy Westernra, the distant seduction of Wilhemina (Mina) Murray and the death of his servant Renfield.

Dracula's nemesis is man of learning, Professor Abraham Van Helsing. Helsing takes on the role of a father to all concerned as he instructs the company on how to dispatch Vampires.

The book continues with a battle of minds, it can be likened in some ways to human chess, except Dracula as the Black King, has one piece, the King, where as Van Helsing has several pieces in play.

Eventually the Black King is trapped by the White pieces and a desparate fight for survival comes to a bittersweet ending.

There are several themes within the book of Dracula, religion, sexual symbolism, paternal and maternal attitudes, love, and clearly distinguished is the matter of life and death.

The main issue to understand that does encompass many of the taboos of Victorian life is Life and Death, many Victorians viewed death as a subject to be kept locked away from society until the event actually happened, for instance, looking at the attitude of Queen Victoria before and after the death of her husband Prince Albert, prior to his death she was a gay happy woman and this gaiety was reflected from her onto society.

However, when her husband died she went into a period of mourning that was to last for the rest of her days, this mourning was again reflected from her into societal ways and attitudes.

Looking at Dracula it is clearly illustrated that death is a main issue, from the beginning Stoker illustrates the issue by the fear of the peasants in the region. He even goes so far as to use and take a similar line from Burger's Lenore (1773). The line in this German poem reads several times "the dead ride fast," Stoker has translated the line to read "Denn die Todten reiten Schnell " or " For the dead travel fast." (1993,19).

Death is an irresistible force, it is always the victor, it has that one factor that can never be out run, death comes to us all. Death is also no regarder of race, color, creed, age or wealth.

The Victorian although viewing death as a taboo and not to be spoken about in society circles also had a strange attitude regarding homes for the dead and cemeteries. The Victorian's built lavish new cemeteries on the outskirts of cities, and took strolls through them as a Sunday outing for the family. The Victorian Cemetery was to them and possibly to those of today a suitable understanding of how they felt in a collective attitude towards death.

It is the women of this classic novel that we shall discuss with especial reference to the film version of Bram Stokers' Dracula produced by Francis Ford Coppola.

Before actually discussing the female roles within the book and film it is advisable to have an understanding of how the role and view of women during the Victorian era were thought upon and also how it was expected of them to act within the confines of societal rules.

Women have always been viewed with some superstition and fear, this can be seen in the comments of the Malleus Maleficarum where it states "There is no head above the head of a serpent: and there is no wrath above that of a woman...women are naturally more impressionable and are more ready to receive the influence of a disembodied spirit...they have slippery tongue... since they are feebler both in mind and body it is not surprising they should come more and more under the spell of witchcraft" (Malleus Maleficarum Part one Question 6).

With this comment in mind from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and with little change in view until the actual twentieth century itself we can form a vague opinion of how women must have been viewed. Therefore, there status stood in one of two camps, either they were harlots and women of the devil or as that of a saint, there could be no middle ground.

With the onset of the nineteenth century we see a new attitude to sexual liaisons, that of embarrassment rather than disgust, even more so discussing or writing about any form of sexual topic becomes almost impossible, yet many authors discover unique ways to overcome the bonds of societal views.

For instance to illustrate the disdain for women of a volatile sexual nature let us look at one passage from Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre as she describes the attitude of Bertha Rochester, who has a sexual appetite that all but defies the humanity within her (Leatherdale 134).

Bronte writes; "I never saw a face like it! It was a discolored face- it was a savage face. I wish I could forget the roll of the red eyes and the fearful blackened inflation of the lineaments!...shall I tell you what it reminded me?...of that foul German spectre- the Vampyre" (Bronte, PG).

Therefore, by looking at this example we can understand as to what Stoker might have been thinking for on one hand we have the pure Wilhemina (Mina) Murray (Harker) who is virtuous and saint like yet still has the adulterous affair with Dracula through the union of his blood sharing, and those of the sultry Vampiresses we see in Castle Dracula during Jonathon Harker's stay, Stoker describes them thus: "Two were dark, and had high aquiline noses,...and great dark, piercing eyes, that seemed to be almost red when contrasted with the pale yellow moon. The other was fair, as fair as can be, with great masses of golden hair and eyes like pale sapphires...All three had brilliant white teeth that shone like pearls against the ruby of their voluptuous lips. There was something about them that made me uneasy, some longing and at the same time some deadly fear" (Stoker 53). And that of Lucy Westernra before and after she has had union with the Count, for she is devoid of any admirable qualities, is pampered, an upper middle class child that still has the silver spoon showing, she has been described as a 'silly, transparent, gushy, giggly, beautiful and good girl, and also as a fragile, simple minded porcelain like creature' (Leatherdale 135).

Moreover, Lucy Westernra before becoming a vampire, is selfish, sexually aware of her own pleasures and seeks only to have a man for his power, she has no care for her friend Mina, whose has had little contact with her husband to be (Harker) for weeks. Lucy illustrates all the charms and gullibilites of being a "phallic" teaser as she is ever so happy to collect the marriage proposlas of three men "Three proposals in one day! Isn't it awful! I feel sorry, really and truly sorry, for two of the poor fellows" (Stoker 77) Lucy also has an understanding of how women and wives are expected to be within society and by their husbands and also how wives and women actually are; "Men like women, certainly their wives, to be quite as fair as they are. And women, I am afraid, are not always quite as fair as they should be" (Stoker 77).

If we compare the old Lucy who also had an innocence to her nature to the Lucy of the undead we see a vast contrast "She was, if possible, more radiantly beautiful than ever, and I could not believe that she was dead. The lips were red, nay redder than before, and on the cheeks was a delicate bloom" (Stoker 257), further more when she comes back with her prey "When Lucy, I call the thing that was before us Lucy because it bore her shape, saw us she drew back with an angry snarl, such as a cat gives when taken unawares, then her eyes ranged over us. 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... As she looked, her eyes blazed with unholy light, and the face became wreathed with a voluptuous smile" (Stoker 271), as we can see Stoker has given us the two forms of woman that have been classified above by man and the church, the saint like woman of Mina and the harlots and concubines of the devil in the three women in the castle and Lucy.

However, we must ask ourselves what is Stokers intention in having both forms of women in his story of a vampire Count? And what roles are they intended to play for sure they are not merely there to illustrate a point that the church has been right and that women are only viable for two things.

Stoker has used the roles of women to in a way illustrate the sexual desires of man for as Lucy rightly stated "Men like women, certainly their wives, to be quite as fair as they are. And women, I am afraid, are not always quite as fair as they should be" (Stoker 77).

Stoker sees the virtuous Mina as a symbol of the Virgin Mary, a woman of high esteem and one who is in may ways incorruptible, yet even she eventually succumbs to the love and to those god fearing Victorians the Sin of the Devil in the substitute of his vicar on earth, the Count, for even she states when she sees the blood she has succoured from the Count "Unclean, unclean! I must touch him or kiss him no more. Oh, that it should be that it is I who am now his worst enemy, and whom he may have most cause to fear"(Stoker 366) yet he illustrates the likes of Lucy as a harlot who still seeks a union with her human husband to be after a union with her undead husband: "Come to me, Arthur. Leave these others and come to me. My arms are hungry for you. Come, and we can rest together. Come, my husband, come!" (Stoker 272) and yet when true death becomes her release she is envisage as "the foul Thing that we had so dreaded and grown to hate that the work of her destruction was yielded as a privilege to the one best entitled to it, but Lucy as we had seen her in life, with her face of unequalled sweetness and purity. True that there were there, as we had seen them in life, the traces of care and pain and waste. But these were all dear to us, for they marked her truth to what we knew" (Stoker 278).