Bram Stoker's Adaptation Of Clinical Vampirism

Abstract:

Dracula is a Gothic horror novel by the Irish author Bram stoker. There have been so many permutations of the Dracula and vampire theme in modern culture in print, television and film that it is easy to forget how it all started; with the publication of the Dracula novel in 1897. In fact, Bram Stoker did not invented the idea and the legend of Dracula or vampire, but his fictional story brought all the myths and legends together on one table that were already in existence into a cohesive whole. Stoker 's tale of the Count Dracula caught the imagination of the Victorian audience and continues to appeal to readers to this day. The adaptation of this legend and myth to different other stories and movies is a mile stone in English literature.

Vanden Bergh and John F. Kelley in 1964. The psychoanalytical interpretation points out brief reports on blood-drinking behaviors which are directly associated with sexual pleasures. Many medical publications concerning clinical vampirism can be found in psychiatric literature. The usual behavior resulted in extraordinary violent crimes. The behavior has never gained official recognition by the psychiatric profession and is not found in any edition of the International Classification of Diseases or the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Clinical vampirism also known as the Renfield syndrome involves delusions of being a vampire and feeling the need for blood, not specifically human blood. The word vampire has been used to coat a variety of phenomenon in the psychiatric literature: Unusual and disturbing behaviors like eating the flesh tissue of human deceased, masochist sexual pleasures, bond with corpse or abuse of corpse, cannibalism and other lust-murders have been incorporated under the level of vampirism after 19th century by introduction of disturbing traits of the character R.M. Renfield in the novel

He ends up in a lunatic asylum overseen by Dr. John Seward. The description of this character in the novel is tormenting and entertaining at the same time for the reader. In modern psychology some of the traits adopted by this character hints as being highly schizophrenic, and the severe delusions forces him to eat flies; feed flies to spiders, eat spiders, feed spiders to birds; then begs Dr. John to give him a cat for the test he is going to perform in his cell. His basic agenda was to feed birds to the cats but after the refusal of getting a cat he starts eating birds. R.M. Renfield is observed by Dr. John and he diagnose him of being a "zoophagous maniac" (a carnivorous madman). During the course of the novel this character is revealed to be under the influence of the Count Dracula who is an immortal being surviving on human blood or the vampire. His abilities include control over animals such as rats, spiders, and bats. He offers Renfield to worship him and he will make him immortal by providing endless sources of insects which further influenced Renfield 's distorted cognation; compelling him to believe that blood is the only source of life. Not only R.M Renfield forces psychiatric research in this domain but Lucy Westenra, another character in the novel derives realistic yet