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Research Paper On Dracula

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Bram Stokers classic novel, "Dracula" (published in 1897). Within the novel of "Dracula" characters are seen struggling involving repressed emotions and yearnings. To explore into the characters, motivations and overarching themes in "Dracula", this essay reaches into these conflicts within the initial four chapters. This piece delves into the correlation, between Sigmund Freuds theories and principles, with the unconscious minds of the characters, which includes Dracula and Johnathan Harking. Through Freud’s theories, it seeks to uncover how Freudian concepts focus on how hidden desires and fear manifest within the characters. In this work, I aim to demonstrate how these internal conflicts impact character actions. Sigmund Freud created the …show more content…

Despite the fact that Count Dracula displays unusual behaviours and disturbing incidents, Harker remains unable to acknowledge his fear or uneasiness. He chooses to minimise his thoughts by dismissing them as exhaustion or different cultures instead of confronting them directly. His inability to admit his actual feelings suggests that he may be trying subtly to suppress them in order to feel more in control of this unfamiliar and maybe dangerous situation. For example, Jonathan Harker encounters a strange situation at Dracula's Castle when he is attempting to shave in front of a mirror. Harker realises that Count Dracula, who is standing behind him, isn't visible in the mirror, even though he can see his own image. Harker starts questioning his senses after making this unusual discovery and wonders whether it was the lights or his thoughts are misleading him. Nonetheless, this interaction represents Harker's developing anxiety about Dracula and his subconscious awareness of Dracula's supernatural power. Despite his growing uneasiness and worry, Harker tries to dismiss the absence of Dracula's reflection by sticking to his logical justifications. (Stoker, 1897). Jonathan Harker occasionally displays weakness or has unpleasant experiences which go against the norm of what one considers to be a man. When Harker meets the three alluring vampire women at Dracula's castle, this is a good example of this. Initially, Harker's attraction to the ladies could represent repressed urges or desires that he must resist because of morality or social standards. Harker is first drawn to the ladies, but as their sexual attempts get more intense, he starts to feel intimidated and overwhelmed. In society, masculinity is often linked to traits such as strength, leadership, and independence. However, Harker's request for help

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Dracula is dead, yet despite this, he declares victory. The fact that Dracula declared triumph suggests that the anxieties and worries that he represents proceed even after his demise. Dracula’s influence continues to live throughout the lives of those he has encountered. The actions and occurrences that have taken place throughout the narrative reveal the Westerners' true character, but they choose to disregard it due to their sense of superiority. Carol Senf argues, “The narrators insist that they are agents of God and are able to ignore their similarity to the vampire because their

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This can even allow the reader to possibly ‘fill in the blanks’ about the unknown character with her own fears, adding to the horror of the novel. Count Dracula’s first appearance takes place in his castle in the Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania when Jonathan Harker arrives to discuss a real estate transaction. When Harker arrives at the castle, he first hears Dracula approaching in an ominous manner before he actually sees the Count. “I heard a heavy step approaching behind the great door, and saw through the chinks the gleam of a coming light,” Stoker writes, “then there was the sound of rattling chains and the clanking of massive bolts drawn back. A key was turned with the loud grating noise of long disuse, and the great door swung back”.

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In the novel Dracula, author Bram Stoker creates a peculiar situation that pushes the main characters to decipher the supernatural from reality. Originally thought of as a myth, Dracula quickly becomes something more than the supernatural. By slowly building the conflict of Dracula himself, Stoker depicts all stages of the change from believing that Dracula is a fictitious character to being face to face with Dracula himself. As he terrorizes the lives of the characters in the novel, they soon come to the realization that Dracula is more than what they formerly believed, and in actuality he is their harsh reality.

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Dating back all the way to the late eighteen hundreds, fear itself and fear of the unknown has been a major concept in a person’s life. In the novel Dracula, written by Bram Stoker, Stoker introduces the first idea of fear of the unknown through an encounter with a mysterious being. Throughout his novel, Stoker explores fear within an individual through the genre of horror fiction. Furthermore, revealing fear of the unknown by virtue of the novel’s characters, such as, Jonathan Harker, Lucy Westenra, and Dracula. The welcoming of the unknown is often accepted, producing individuals to experience fear in different ways.

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Harker is a guest in Dracula 's castle and when he cannot sleep anymore he gets up to shave, hanging his mirror up on the wall of the bathroom. In that moment Dracula places his hand on hand on his back and Harker hears Dracula’s voice say to him “Good morning” (Stoker, 31), mimicking a very intimate moment that couples often experience together when they wake up. Then Harker continues on to say, “I started, for it amazed me that I had not seen him, since the reflection of the glass covered the whole room behind me” (31.) The fact that Dracula cannot be seen in a mirror, particularly Harker’s mirror, is not shocking due to Van Helsing’s rules (309) that a vampire has no reflection, yet Stoker seems to be suggesting through this simple “rule,” that Dracula’s true identity is erased or invisible. Dracula cannot be seen in a mirror, and just as Dracula is invisible those who are not conventional in their sexuality, especially those who identify closely with bisexuality are often silenced, forgotten, and identities labeled

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Sexual Tendencies : Sex in “Dracula” Sometimes you can be sexually attracted to someone for their appearance or just by the way they make you feel at that moment . When sex is present in literature , nothing can separate reality from the spicy imagination that makes you keep reading and interested . As for Bram Stoker’s chapter book , “Dracula”, the three main characters Jonathan Harker , his fiance Mina Harker and her best friend Lucy Westerna , have life incidents that fall into the category of sex .

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