When compared to how influential it was during the Victorian era, Dracula has become increasingly significant over the past decades. This is attributed to the fact that, in actuality, the story only acquired its legendary classic status in the 20th century, when the cinematic versions appeared. In order to write the masterpiece described by many as “the sensation of the season” and “the blood-curdling novel of the century”, Bram Stoker had to engage in extensive research of vampirism; as a matter of fact, a Romanian prince named Vlad was Stoker’s inspiration for the main character of Dracula. Thus, the story of the mysterious aristocrat who lives in a castle in the remote region of Transylvania, Romania, became play and film. In the three years it took to write his gothic romance, Stoker researched a lot about vampirism. He read countless books on the subject, those included: The Vampire by John Polidori; Carmilla, Sheridan Le Fanu, and Varney the Vampire, James Malcolm Rymer. In addition, Stoker also dissected the life of …show more content…
Therefore, Vlad II was called Dracul (dragon), and, consequently, his son came to be called Draculea (son of the dragon). The word “dracul”, however, had a second meaning (“devil”) that was applied to members of the family Draculea by their enemies and possibly also by superstitious peasants. Vlad III was known for his cruelty and wickedness. He was happy to eat in front of his victims bodies that were impaled while hearing their screams of agony. Legends say that a day Vlad saw a villager with all dirty shirt and asked him if his wife was healthy. The villager said yes and his wife had both hands cut off. Vlad then proceeded to arrange another wife for the villager, and showed what had happened to the old wife as example and a warning for the