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Renfield In Bram Stoker's Dracula

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Renfield in Dracula
Renfield is a common character of interest in Dracula as he has a creepy yet fascinating personality. Renfield is viewed as a madman or insane for having a strange obsession with becoming immortal and vampirism. Although we may view Reinfield as “evil” we don’t have a whole lot of information to back this statement as we only really see him through Dr. Seward's journal entries.
Renfield believed that consuming living things such as spiders, birds, and rats, would grant him everlasting life by “absorbing its power”. Because of this, he is viewed as mentally ill or insane, not knowing why he has become like this. We find out later in the book that Renfield is one of Dracula’s victims. Although, Dracula didn’t treat him the same as his past victims, instead was punished much harsher. Renfield wanted nothing more than to become a vampire but Dracula refused to grant him this, and instead would promise him eternal life and use him as his servant to complete any tasks he needed done. …show more content…

Although Renfield is viewed as evil and an extremely creepy character I feel as though we can’t entirely blame him. Dracula had him under some kind of control and kept empty promises to him and abused this power and used Renfield for his doings. Imagine being stuck under this kind of control doing awful tasks all because you had been promised eternal life, it would begin to drive you mad. He was so caught up in wanting to live forever he was willing to do whatever it took until he finally broke and sacrificed himself for Mina and himself. So is Renfield really

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“When Mrs. Harker came in to see me this afternoon she wasn’t the same; it was like tea after the teapot had been watered.” With his final breath, Renfield decided to help Mina and the team against Count Dracula who he had been serving the whole story. However, in the film, a house agent named Knock is brainwashed by the Count, he is placed in a mental asylum and spends most of the film there, praising the Count and serving as his minion. The noticeable character development for Renfield in the book makes the character in the film feel a little more one-dimensional and is not as striking

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