Dracula

One of Jonathan’s first impressions of Castle Dracula is how old it is. The “old centuries” unsettle him. He describes the castle as having power that cannot be killed by the onset of the modern era. The Victorian era was upended in the late 1800s. England had been a society based on agriculture. The Industrial Revolution threatened farmers, expanded the possibilities of agricultural commerce, and wrought changes in the farmers’ lives. In addition, the theories of Charles Darwin and other scientific thinkers threatened the dogmas of Christianity, whose tenets informed most aspects of English life.

Stoker presents the old world as primitive and aggressive. Dracula represents this old world of aggression and hostility. He delivers his monologue about his warlike ancestors with pride and nostalgia. However, the decrepitude of Castle Dracula contrasts starkly with the glamor, polish, and technological sophistication of modern London. When Jonathan sees Dracula in the street, he is young again; even he has been given an upgrade by moving into the modern age.

Van Helsing serves as a bridge between the two ages. He is able to fight Dracula because he embraces all useful knowledge. He studies both eastern and western philosophies and medicine. Like a scientist, he is primarily interested in results—in what works and solves problems. But like a folklorist, anthropologist, and metaphysician, he does not discount the value of anecdotal evidence, ritual, and so-called superstition.

Women who are sexually aggressive or who give in to seduction are punished and destroyed in Dracula. The theme first arises during Jonathan’s encounter with the three vampire women in the castle. When they caress and kiss him, they represent pure, unfettered lust. Jonathan describes them as “Devils of the pit!” (55), unlike the pure Mina in every way.

If the battle between Dracula and the men can be framed as a battle between good and evil, it is played on the field of women’s sexuality. Lucy and Mina are underdeveloped characters, as was common in Victorian era literature. A sexually free, promiscuous woman would be a disgraced pariah in Victorian society, worthy of shunning. Victorian norms required that a woman be a wife or a virgin. There were no gray areas.

At the beginning of the novel, Lucy and Mina are both young, innocent women, although Lucy’s letters betray a more flirtatious temperament than Mina’s. Lucy is beset with suitors. She accepts Arthur’s marriage proposal, but it is Dracula who seduces and possesses her, a temporary triumph of the old, heathen world over sexuality of a young Christian woman. As soon as she is in Dracula’s thrall, Stoker begins describing Lucy’s beauty as voluptuous, and any woman described as voluptuous in the novel dies by the end, destroyed by Christian hands. When Dracula gains influence over Mina, the men are threatened, not only for her life and her soul, but also by the fear that she will become promiscuous.

Many of the characters in Dracula confront events that are literally unbelievable in the moment. They find refuge in attributing their experiences to dreams or insanity. Harker finds himself unable to rely even on his memories. Late in the novel, Seward suspects that they have all gone mad and will wake in straitjackets. Lucy, Mina, Van Helsing, and Harker all experience uncanny events that they believe to be dreams, rather than to accept the unnatural as real.

The characters’ rationality—and the misdirection they give themselves by insisting that they are dreaming—works to Dracula’s advantage. Every moment they spend wondering if they are dreaming, or mad, is a moment that they are not focusing on the real threat.

Renfield is the novel’s most overt symbol of insanity. He is locked in a lunatic asylum, he eats insects, and his babbling rarely seems coherent. Renfield is not as insane as he seems, however. Much of his muttering is actual communication with Dracula, who is using him to achieve his own ends.