The Similarities Between Blood And Humanity In Bram Stoker's Dracula

Blood is a vampire's every meal. It’s breakfast, lunch, dinner, and even a midnight snack. All animals need food to survive and vampires are no exception. There’s a couple of similarities between vampires and humans when it comes to finding that food source actually. Vampires hunt humans for blood like humans hunt animals for meat. In both cases it’s done for survival and sustenance. Dracula himself says "I must go where I can find my own kind, where I can feast on the blood of the living" (Chapter 2). Another similarity is seen in how both species catch their prey. Just as humans have created tools and techniques to make hunting easier like traps and weapons, vampires have done the same. For example, Dracula can transform himself into a bat,

Blood is sexual desire, intimacy and lust. Vampires as whole, actually, represent almost everything that's dark and taboo in society at the time the novel was written, the Victorian era. Sexuality and forbidden desires are large parts of those taboos and blood is one of the tools that Stoker used to highlight the dark side of intimacy. The way that vampires feed on their victims is one way that we see this clearly. For example, when Dracula feeds on Lucy, it’s described as "delicious ecstasy" (chapter 12), with Lucy becoming "intensely conscious of the proximity of the being she loved" (chapter 12). This description illustrates the sexual undertones of the

The way vampires create more of their species is an example of this. In the novel, Dracula has the power to turn humans into vampires through the exchange of blood which is an example of this.

We especially see this symbolism with female vampires. When Lucy becomes a vampire, she takes life from children instead of giving it to them.“With a careless motion, she flung to the ground, callous as a devil, the child that up to now she had clutched strenuously to her breast, growling over it as a dog growls over a bone. The child gave a sharp cry, and lay there moaning.” (chapter 16) Traditionally, babies nurse on women, but when women become vampires the roles reverse.

Along with reproduction comes legacy and bloodline which we see a few examples of. When Dracula speaks to Jonathan about his own long life, he refers to his ancestors and their ancient bloodline and throughout the novel, there are references to the vampire's past like their battles with Van Helsing. The history and legacy of vampires is a result of blood being used to expand the vampire