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Adrianna Amelio

Miss Skirtich

English 12: British Literature

2 October 2018

The Inside on the World’s Oldest Monster

Are vampires truly a figment of people’s imaginations? Bram Stoker lived through the

nineteenth century. At a young age, he was plagued with a childhood ailment. The doctors used

leeches to cure him. Leeches, when adhered to the human body, they suck and purify blood. It is

speculated that this instance is what inspired Stoker to invent the hellish monster that is known as,

Dracula. Stoker vividly depicts gothic literature through his unsettling and gloomy scenes,

supernatural phenomenon, and feeble turned self-reliant woman.

Stoker delineates elements of gothic fiction in Dracula through unsettling and eerie scenes.

There is limited lighting throughout the story, taking place with a dark and eerie aura surrounding

it, “Each moment I expected to see the glare of the lamps through the blackness; but all was dark”

(Stoker 9). The darkness leaves an uneasy feeling in the pit of the stomach. Gothic fiction

capitalizes on the apprehensive feeling the reader gets through the suspense of what will occur in

the darkness. Another element where Stoker utilizes settling scenes is Castle Dacula itself, “The

castle is on the very edge of a terrible precipice. A stone falling from the window would fall a

thousand feet without touching anything!” (Stoker 26). Dracula lives in a secluded castle away

from the rest of society. His castle is in a remote location far away from the reach of unwanted

visitors. Dracula’s castle being so inaccessible also gives off the element of mystery, and questions

in the reader arise of what is the true reason he is so far off the beaten track. Stoker accentuates
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the eerie and gloomy feeling surrounding Dracula, this is a prime example of gothic literature,

along with the intertwining theme of supernatural beings.

Furthermore, Stoker embodies elements of gothic fiction in Dracula through the

supernatural phenomenon that is portrayed throughout the novel. The unholy and evil

manifestations have been revered and fears for centuries, “Never did I imagine such wrath and

fury, even to the demons of the pits of hell. His eyes were positively blazing. The red light in the

was lurid, as if the flames of hellfire burned behind them” (Stoker 39). Jonathan Harker is starting

to get a glimpse into the true life of this monster and he is fearful for his survival. He saw evil that

was only natural in the depths of hell. Stoker also portrays supernatural manifestations with Lucy,

“the sweetness was turned to adamantine, heartless cruelty, and the purity to voluptuous

wantonness” (Stoker 211). They believed that becoming undead tortured the soul. The sweet kind

Lucy that was known in the beginning of the book, turned into a cold uncaring calculated monster.

Stoker exemplifies the damage that vampires strike on society, as well as the fear they instill in

people’s hearts. Stoker pulls the elements of gothic literature through his novel with the

incorporation of supernatural manifestations along with the idea of the “new woman.”

Lastly, Stoker divulges into the transformation of the Victorian woman to the “new

woman”. Victorian women are very modest and conservative, while as the new woman is more

liberal, and conform less to the men’s ideologically of them. Stoker embodies the new woman

through the character Mina Murray, “oh, then you have good memory for facts, for details? It is

not always so with young ladies” (Stoker 183). Men in those times thought women were only good

for housekeeping and child raising. Men thought and looked down to women, they saw women as

inferior. Mina proves Van Helsing wrong when she told him to read her diary on the accounts of

the happenings on the nights of Lucy sleepwalking. Another element of the new woman that Stoker
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incorporates is their willingness to bend the rules of modesty, “she stopped and wanted to insist

upon taking my shoes; but I would not. However, when we got to the pathway outside the

churchyard, where there was a puddle of water, remaining from the storm, I daubed my feet with

mud, using each foot in turn on the other, so that as we went home, no one, in case we should meet

any one, should notice my bare feet” (Stoker 94). Victorian women are highly concerned with their

modesty. When Lucy wondered out to the cemetery in only her nightdress, Mina put her own

comfort and modest aside and helped her friend. Gothic fiction puts a focal point upon the modest

and chastity of women. Stoker rivals this by incorporating Dracula’s brides, “The fair girl

advanced and bent over me till I could feel the movement of her breath upon me. Sweet it was in

one sense, honey sweet, and sent the same tingling through the nerves as her voice” (Stoker 38).

A promiscuous woman to this degree was uncalled of in Victorian era. Stocker added these women

because they were so apropos to the normal woman.

Overall, Stoker portrays the heart of gothic fiction through the eerie settings, unnatural

beings, and the time changing women. All of the elements Stoker uses embody gothic fiction. Commented [ES1]: Add something that the reader learns
about gothic fiction and from Dracula
Readers throughout the centuries have feared the idea of Dracula, and that terror will live on for

centuries to come.