Dracula :: essays research papers

OverviewDracula has appealed to readers for al virtually a century, at least in part because it deals with one of the great human conflicts the struggle between healthy and evil. firefighter acknowledges the complexity of this conflict by showing good characters attracted to evil. For example, Jonathan Harker, the attorney who travels to Transylvania, is almost attacked at Draculas castle by three young female person vampires. In fact, he seems to be actually welcoming the attack to begin with it is interrupted by the count. In this scene, as well as others, Stoker suggests that evil, represented by the vampires, is an almost irresistible force which requires great apparitional strength to overcome. It eventually takes the combined forces of a band of men, representing different countries, to bolt down the vampiric count. Stokers novel is a symbolic exploration of a conflict which has pertinacious troubled humankind.Dracula also has considerable cultural importance. Stoker w as non the first writer to make use of the vampire legend. Throughout the nineteenth century vampires appeared in a number of works, including Sheridan LeFanus Carmilla (1872), which Stoker read as a young man. But it is Stokers version of the vampire legend that has had the most enduring popular appeal and the greatest influence on innovational writers and filmmakers. In his book Vampires Unearthed, Martin Riccardo tells the story of a survey taken by Madame Tussauds Wax Museum to determine the worlds "most hated person." Dracula ranked fifth. Clearly, Stokers foot continues to capture readers imaginations.SETTING Stoker uses a circular structure for his novel, incorporating cardinal settings. Transylvania is the setting for the beginning and end of the novel, and, since he had never been there, Stoker had to imprecate on research for his description of the country and its people. The rest of the novel takes bespeak in England, a setting familiar to Stoker and his aud ience.The novel begins with Jonathan Harkers journey to Transylvania on May 3 of an unspecified year. Harker later states that seven historic period elapse between the events themselves and his compilation of them, so we may assume that the military action of the novel takes place from May to November in 1890. Harkers initial enjoyment of a country filled with wonderful new sights, people, and food contrasts sharply with his sagacity as he approaches the counts castle and his terror when he finally realizes he is Draculas prisoner. This section, the first four chapters of the novel, has been highly praised for its accurate descriptions of the region and its use of those descriptions to bring into being suspense and terror.