So, I’ve just recently read Dracula and am a bit confused on what Stoker was trying to say. The main reason being I feel like whenever I came up with an interpretation, there’s something in the text that would contradict it (like saying Dracula was a representation of new ideas that the British detested at the time… except for the fact that Van Helsing and Co. also displayed traits of those those ideas as well). So, naturally, I just had to go on Reddit to post my interpretation and to obtain some other opinions:
I knew a big idea of the novel was good vs evil (even more specifically, purity vs. sin). However, I couldn’t exactly tell what he was saying was evil and what was good. At one point, like I said earlier, I felt Stoker was saying Dracula was a representation of the ideas that the British were rejecting at the time (sexuality, immigration, change in general), whilst also being a representation of the conservative British. I felt like he was basically saying the act of vampirism was a metaphor to what the conservative thought they’d “turn into” if they accepted these ideas (Lucy, containing a view of traditional marriage and home life, turns into a vampire (or gives into these new ideas) and dies. Then there’s Mina, who’s described as a “new woman”, also gets bitten, but survives). I thought the good guys going after Dracula was perhaps representation of trying to get rid of the stigma that these ideas were bad. However, when Mina got bit, she kept saying she was “unclean”. And when J. Harker and Van Helsing were being tempted by Dracula’s brides, they felt guilt / were disgusted when they snapped out of it (and the fact choice words by Stoker also constantly portrayed a repulsed feeling of the whole situation in general). That’s when I got confused. And if Dracula was supposed to represent those ideas, what were the good guys supposed to represent since, again, they already exhibited traits of rejecting the status quo (independence when it comes to Mina, and vulnerability with our male cast, not to mention the usage of modern tech)? The only difference is that these traits weren’t portrayed in a shameful or in a reprehensible light. So maybe they were also supposed to represent these new ideas, but in the view of the liberal British?
I really don’t know. At some point, I also thought it could be a satire of British society and how ridiculous it was (in Stoker’s view). Again, in this view, Dracula would be the representation of these new ideas, minus also being the representation of the conservative British. This could explain the repulsion when it came to being bitten, or of Dracula himself (or vampirism in general). Although, I don’t know how the good guys being “enlightened” would fit into this view. Perhaps irony?
Anyways, that’s kind of what I got from reading Dracula, though I’m not entirely sure how accurate it would be. That’s where the discussion part of this post would come in. What are y’all’s opinion on the novel and it’s theme(s)?
I’m pretry sure the Wikipedia states that he wrote it as pure entertainment with thrills to help it sell.
Yeah, so I’ve heard. Which honestly, love that. However, even if that were the case, I feel that one could still be influenced by their surroundings / environment whether consciously or unconsciously when writing a story. Also, I’m taking an AP-Lit class, and this was my choice novel (which was on my teacher’s shelf labeled literary fiction), so I kind of have to find some sort of meaning to it confused or not confused.
It is just a series of adventures written by a long dead man who was of his own time period. The book is great. I will read it again for the 8th or 9th time next year. I read it last year. This time I will be reading it in French for the first time.
Oooo, sounds fun. Probably me in the near future since this novel really was a joy to read! And, yeah, I’ve heard it was merely written as a fun, little book about vampires, which is great. However, being in an AP Lit class, with this novel being a choice that I picked, I kind of have to find some kind of meaning (it was on the lit fic shelf, so clearly someone thought it contained some sort of deeper meaning).
Why do you feel the need to reduce a big, complex novel into a single, tidy message?
I mean, I am aware there are multiple themes, but the one I’m trying to figure out is what the good and evil represent since that seems to be the big idea (and I’m kind of doing that by looking at those other themes). Also, AP Literature class ¯_(ツ)_/¯
The most important thing about the novel’s background is that Stoker wrote it as a revenge against a theater manager he hated while working in the theater himself. He looked for a relatively obscure figure in history he barely knew anything about and the vampire thing had been the YA dystopia of those days for decades.
The rest is tropes.
Oh, and titillation.
Oh, how intriguing! I definitely didn’t know the revenge part of the background; however, I was kind of aware he may have been influenced by other vampiric works. And yeah, the titillation, on point.
I read Dracula as quite a conservative text that, as you say, has a lot of fears of ‘the Orient’ and what it might do to a ‘civilized’ Victorian society (corrupt our women, enfeeble our men, etc). I don’t think the fact Mins has training or education undermines that effect - nor does the portrayal of the male characters.
The discourses we have about values in our society are imperfect and fragile: ideas about gender, for example. We can all reel off the tropes of what men and women should be like. And we all know that in practice, no individual meets that standard of behaviour/character/presentation. But we have a rigid set of idealised tropes that are, by definition, impossible for us to ever fully actualise. This is like Derrida’s practice of deconstruction & double reading - any discourse always already contains the seeds of it’s undoing within itself.
So, while Mina might be educated (which fits with progressive middle class aspirations of white, Victorian womanhood at the time) and the men can and do emote (Jonathan in particular is at risk of falling under Dracula’s ‘spell’, too, in the early novel) at the end of the day, it’s the good old heterosexual, middle class, monogamous family that is ‘saved’ from these threatening, vampiric others.
I’m aware that men at the time do emote, and that there was a progressive part of Victorian society (especially with the women). Though, what I meant with vulnerability was sadness in particular. Again, aware it’s totally an emotion Victorian men at the time felt, I just thought displaying it during that time (in public) was kind of frowned upon. I mean, at one point of the novel, Arthur is crying in Mina’s arms and the book takes note about how he doesn’t apologize, like it was surprised he didn’t. And though some women had progressive ideas (and even managed to achieve them in the form of education) they were still expected to take up a traditional home life of marriage and motherhood. Knowing that combined with the fact the novel seems to be commentary on the conservative part of Victorian society is why I guess I got kind of confused on what the good guys may represent. But, I can also see why you may be right in that it shouldn’t really matter / alter the conservative part of the message ‘cause, though Victorian society at the time was kind of based on conservative / traditional ideals, people still have desires / traits that may not live up to those ideals and that, in the end, the novel appeared to still get its message across either way.
Yeah! I think there’s something really there in what you say about Jonathan as you say - he goes on this quite interesting journey towards being a bit more of a masculine hero. He starts the book in this kind of feminised role (he’s weakened by Dracula, he’s clueless, he’s kind of fascinated by him and seduced by vampirism) & it’s the desire to protect Mina that transforms him later in the novel to this swashbuckling hero who’s decapitating people on wagons. Lots of gothic romanticism in Mina’s sort of ‘pure’ femininity and how that inspired all the men to Fight the Other. There’s so much about gender going on this book! 🫠
Sorry TL:DR,
But bottom line for interpreting a novel is that the author is trying to say, “please buy my novel so I can eat”
Lol, I knew there was going to be at least one person to not actually read it, and that’s fine! And I have come across many people saying Stoker wrote it for entertainment (his and others), or in this case, an easy out for money. I was just looking beyond a superficial meaning / trying to get a coherent meaning because I kind of have to (AP Lit class).
If someone ever asks me for an argument against teaching English literature in high schools, I’m just going to show them this post.
It’s a horror story about a monster who eats people. What it is trying to say is: ‘I’m exciting, buy me!’
Okay, so it’s not entirely devoid of subtext. Stoker wrote at a time when Britain was receiving what was, for the time, a large number of immigrants from Eastern Europe. You can, if you want to be simplistic, reduce the core of the novel down to: Eastern Europe immigrant comes to London, sexually assaults pure English girl.
But there isn’t a political message; Stoker wasn’t trying to make a comment on the political problems of the day, he was just trying to riff on themes that would resonate with his audience.
And if your interpretation is an illustration of the dangers of exposing the unprepared brain to too many English literature classes, it’s also an example of why we need more, and better, history teaching. Because you don’t seem to understand the Victorian mindset at all.
Britain at the end of the 19th century was the richest, most technologically advanced nation on the planet, and perhaps with the exception of the United States it was one of the most socially progressive, too. For a 19th century understanding of the term ‘social progress’, that is. You’re trying to project a modern understanding of the word ‘conservative’ back onto a time when it doesn’t really fit.
Dracula represents the old world. The superstitious, feudal, Medieval societies still widespread across Europe in Stoker’s day. Jonathan Harker and his friends are very deliberately presented as middle class: a growing part of English society but still very much not the norm elsewhere. A lot of Europe was still divided between peasants and landed gentry, especially the further east you went. It was one of the big complaints by the British against immigrants that they were ignorant and superstitious.
Dracula is served by gypsies who were bound to him by custom and religious fear. But Harker is neither a grovelling serf nor a (literally) bloodsucking aristocrat. The upper classes had always looked down on anyone who actually worked for a living, but Harker has a respectable career (as does Mina); he doesn’t draw his income from the toil of others, but nor is he anyone’s servant. The theme is modern, progressive Victorian Britain vs. dark, regressive feudalism.
Trying to project our modern dichotomy between ‘liberal = pro sexual freedom’ and ‘conservative = anti sex’ doesn’t really work for this time period. Sexual continence was a middle class virtue; having babies out of wedlock was what poor people did, and being sexually promiscuous was what decadent aristocrats did (see: Lord Byron). Lucy becomes sexually promiscuous when she becomes a vampire because she has lost her moral sense.
But again, I cannot emphasize enough how Stoker was not trying to make any kind of political commentary. These are all things that would have been implicitly understood by his audience and were used by Stoker to add depth to what is at heart a traditional monster tale, rather than the story serving merely as framework for a metaphor (like Frankenstein, for example).
To be honest with you, when I was using the terms conservative and liberal, I wasn’t exactly using them in a political way, at least that’s not what I had in mind. I was using them to portray a group that was more open minded / progressive vs a group that wasn’t as open minded / wanted to stick to traditional ideas in terms of the Victorian view. Though, I suppose that’s my own fault for not elaborating more? And yes, I’m aware that Stoker may have only written it for his own and others entertainment. But like you said, the environment / surroundings of his time could still influence the themes he wrote about (which I mentioned in a comment to another).
I know Victorian society at the time had progressive groups / circles, though, I believe, traditional ideas when it came to gender roles still existed / were the norm (men being part of the working class / inherently masculine, and women sticking to the domestic life / motherhood). Although, I am aware some women at this time (especially of those progressive (mid class) circles) were able to obtain education, and men were obviously able to grieve (though, because of gender roles, kind of looked down upon to do so in public / when not appropriate).
And what I mean with modern tech is stuff like the blood transfusions or the phonograph. Blood transfusions weren’t exactly new, but they weren’t that researched into, and the first transfusion on a human wasn’t somewhere until around the early 1800s. And the phonograph wasn’t exactly used until the late 1800s. But you are right, Britain was quite technologically advanced by the time the early 1900s hit. The mid-late 1800s kind of made a little pathway with these inventions for Britain to be that way. I just felt, at the time Stoker had written Dracula, these inventions were somewhat new for Victorian society at the time.
And in terms of sexuality, I feel like the ideals of Victorian society at the time was all about morals. So, I thought (putting on these ideas together), perhaps Stoker was trying to say something about the group of Victorians who adhered to these ideals / morals that were promoted at the time and maybe what they viewed about those more progressive ideas (Dracula) vs the group of Victorians who weren’t so caught up / engaged with these ideals and favored change a lot more (Van Helsing and Co.). Or maybe even Victorian ideals / expectations vs. the reality of the time.
In terms of the regression you mentioned, yeah, Eastern Europe wasn’t as developed compared to the west, but I also feel that idea could maybe apply to my interpretation since, wasn’t there a fear of regression within certain parts of Victorian society?
But yeah, progressive Victorian society vs regressive feudalism does make sense, and does make the contradictions I was having problems with easier to understand.
I don’t know how fast a reader you are but it really might be worth comparing it to The Beetle, the other big horror novel published the same year that actually sold more copies and was more critically acclaimed then Dracula. It’s also got an innovative structure— not epistolary but with each section from the pov of a different character— and it’s also got this eastern thing going on, in The Beetle an Egyptian cult, and it’s also got sexual danger for the independent female character. So then instead of looking deep inside Dracula and trying to find something that was never meant to be there, you can actually talk about the book as the money maker it was meant to be but – and this is still true – of course any book like that is going to draw on things that people find exotic, interesting, or frightening. So it says something about the reading public at the time. Add in what it inadvertently reveals about ideas of consent, orientalism etc. and you’re probably covered.
Huh, weird how this novel isn’t talked about as much as Dracula is today in that case. You’d think with similar plot / ideas and the popularity it obtained at the time it’d still hold up today. If I can find it in my local library, I’ll definitely give it a read, though not sure if I can finish it in time.
Er… you’ll know why when you read it. Not only did it not give rise to an entire branch of the horror industry, but it lacks a specific villain and the misogyny’s a bit more on its sleeve. Much more a book of its time.
I haven’t read Dracula, but I’ve seen from your comments that you need to figure out a meaning for school.
The cool thing is, there is no wrong answer.
Your idea of it being about purity / sin / change etc. - you said you got confused using this metaphor because when you categorised people as ‘good’ and ‘bad’, they still ended up facing the same fate. That could be a metaphor all on it’s own.
You could write about how Stoker was trying to say that change happens in life wether you’re ready to embrace it or not and no matter how good and pure, or bad and impure someone is, everyone faces the same fate (death). Dracula represents change and he comes for everyone and people react differently but their outcomes are seemingly unrelated to their reactions - just like life. So ultimately, you might as well strap in and embrace change because being happy in the moment is all that you can control.
I dunno. Like I said, I haven’t read the book, I’m giving that analysis just based on your post, but it seems vague enough that you could probably justify it without being contradicted?
Huh, I suppose you could use that as a theme. I do feel as if change may be an important idea when it comes to the theme. Applying what you just said to the novel actually does make sense in a way.
I think it’s notable Bram Stoker started writing Dracula during the trial of Oscar Wilde, who was convicted of having sexual encounters with other men. The writers had known each other a long time, even fighting over the same woman in their youth, despite both being interested in men, and possibly both being gay. It’s harder to say with Bram Stoker, but he wrote quite an incriminating letter to Walt Whittman, who himself wrote very suggestive poetry about men and had relationships with them. Bram Stoker also tried to remove all references to Oscar Wilde from his own writing and correspondence following the trial. Keep in mind Oscar Wilde’s own book (The Picture of Dorean Grey) was used as evidence against him. Knowing that is going to potentially impact how other LGBTQ+ writers wrote, especially those who could be associated with him, like Stoker.
So, this book was likely written by a closeted writer, who feared imprisonment or worse, if he ever acted on his desires. It very notably and repeatedly promotes heteronormative structures as ideal in way that is unusual even for the period. Heteronotitivity is something the character of Dracula directly threatens. The first part of the book Bram Stoker wrote was Dracula defending Harker from the female vampires. This is the part where Dracula says he loves Harker and ‘this man is mine.’ This is potentially quite telling. You could easily read the book as a story about internalised homophobia, where Dracula represents (unwanted) male same sex attraction. Dracula has some potential similarities to Oscar Wilde, in fact, and it does involve a fight over women between Dracula and the male heroes.
The close male relationships themselves are interesting in terms of this interpretation. They could be read as an attempt to show close male bonds which are most definitely not sexual, because all the heroic thing the men do are very definitely for women, not for each other. While there is an element of being able to break social norms of traditional masculinity or femininity, it is only up to a point. This something LBGTQ+ people in particular would acutely aware of.
In terms of ‘social fear,’ the fear of unacceptable sexual desire as rooted in the period, and notable from the trial of Oscar Wilde, could be a consideration, but it also possibly the book speaks to the very specific fears and turmoil’s of an LGBTQ+ writer during a period of persecution.