Throughout the novel, Dracula is described through biblical terms. An example is when Dracula is crawling up the wall Jon asks “What manner of man is this?” and this is the same scenario and question from the disciples when Jesus calms the seas in Matthew 8. Another biblical example is when Mina describes Dracula as a “pillar of cloud” when she sees him in her bedroom, this is the form God took when guiding Israelis into the wilderness. Mina is picturing Dracula as a godly figure which pushes the evil representation of Dracula back causing the reader to not see him so fiercely as the anti-god. Beal suggests Dracula is “a dangerous admixture good and evil, divine and demonic, holy and accursed.” (Beal, 2002). The novel is an example of the feelings towards unfamiliar religions.
Transilvania is both otherness and sameness, the Christian religion is present but is non-western and non-English. The location is rather odd as it is a mountainous region which would have been seen as a foreign
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Podonsky said, “Bram Stoker’s now-legendary novel, Dracula, is not just any piece of cult-spawning fiction, but rather a time capsule containing the popular thoughts, ideas, and beliefs of the Victorian era that paints an elaborate picture of what society was like for Bram Stoker’s generation” (Podonsky, 2010). The conservative views of the late 19th, early 20th century are reflected in Dracula through lust, sex, and evil. Controversial topics of the time included homosexuality and sex, people were cautious when discussing these matters and were keen on keeping up a modest lifestyle. This does not mean there were not temptations because that is the premise of this book. Stoker glorifies the temptation of female sexuality, this was not acceptable and actually seen as animalistic for women to seduce a man. Connecting back to religion, this novel is about the temptation of the forbidden fruit (Podonsky,