The Ambiguous Nature Of The Truth In Dracula By Bram Stoker

Dracula, by Bram Stoker, is told by way of letters, ships logs, and other media accounts that offer insight into the events surrounding Count Dracula. Dracula makes use of its framing to inevitably force the reader to question the integrity of their own modern scientific perspective. This framing which abstains from having a primary narrator or third person narrator to provide insight to the reader as to how to perceive each of the events recorded, leads to an uncertainty about each event, in addition to a necessity for the reader to make the ultimate decision about what the truth is. This uncertainty and stress created by Stokers framing in Dracula concerning the logs and ambiguous nature of the truth leads the readers to first become uncertain

The group first get involved when they recount seeing a newspaper clipping about a strange dog running from an unmanned ship full of dirt from Dracula’s manor on the coast of England. Shortly after this report Mina, Harker’s Fiancee, follows a friend of hers named Lucy into a cemetery. Mina writes that she sees eyes over Lucy in the cemetery, and Lucy falls sick the next day in addition to having strange marks on her neck. Dr. Seward see’s Lucy but is unable to come to a diagnosis so he calls for his old mentor, Van Helsing. The reader is now seeing certain events from multiple narrators point of view, which begins to regain faith in the motives of Harker and friends. Van Helsing begins to treat lucy without much explanation for the other narrators. He wants them to come to the same conclusion he has come to without bias. This is a very interesting point if the reader were to think back to Stoker’s preface. Stoker states that the truth of the book will become clear at the end of the book. He does not want to bias your interaction with the truth just like Van Helsing wants the group to come to the conclusion on their own. The group eventually see Lucy praying on a child and believe Van Helsing’s theory. The group than want to collect evidence that points back to the Count, and begin looking in all of their personal accounts. After investigations through the use of their previous accounts the group decide that he is undoubtedly a vampire and they create a book of documents. The group has to forgo their new age understandings of the world to incorporate vampires into their reality. The reader by now is nearly convinced that Dracula is a vampire, wavering only because of if this is the truth of the book, than it is not truthful in their own life. The group makes efforts to track down Dracula however they begin using more ritualistic measures. Their big success is when