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Imperialism In Dracula

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III. Fear of the Foreign
“Transylvania is not England. Our ways are not your ways, and there shall be to you many strange things.” (Stoker 23)

During Queen Victoria’s reign Great Britain became a powerful nation and a global empire. It was the centre of banking and the source of the capital for investment. Britain came in touch with a variety of cultures. By the end of the nineteenth century, one-quarter of the earth’s land was part of the British Empire. Britain’s successful expansion was the result of its civilizing mission. The civilizing mission was based upon their own national, racial, and moral ideals and beliefs. Late Victorian society believed that non-Europeans were less evolved and therefore were unable to properly to lead their …show more content…

Britain feared that the diversity of nations would weaken their imperialistic power since they had a strong national character. According to Arata, the fear of dissolving into vampires is the fear of ‘dissolving into Roumanians’ (cited in Gelder 12). Stoker’s vampirisation symbolises colonisation, or more likely reverse colonisation: “Stoker tackles the issue of colonization and the metaphoric revolt of the “inferior” East visible through Count Dracula’s desire to become a part of the English society.” (Lukić and Matek 6). Dracula returns colonisation to the main colonisers. Harker discovers Dracula’s enthusiasm about England, apart from significant business interests: “The books were of the most varied kind, history, geography, politics, political economy, botany, geology, law, all relating to England and English life and customs and manners.”(Stoker 22). He speaks German and “excellent English, but with a strange intonation.” (Stoker 17). Stoker conveys that foreigners seem as enthusiastic about England as England is about other countries. They feared that the colonised countries would use the gained knowledge against them. Eastern Europe is aware of multiple nations and is proud of it, as Dracula explains, he is a proud Szekely in whose “veins flows the blood of many brave races.” (Stoker 33). Since they do not have a national identity, they are willing to blend their Otherness with other nations. England cannot accept the idea of a foreigner invading their own concept of nationality, beliefs and values. Stoker expressed Britain’s worst nightmare through Jonathan Harker by

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