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Project Work PROJECT WORK Legacy of the Damned Late-Victorian Ideas of Religious and Racial Degeneration in Bram Stoker's Dracula Erik Fredriksson Bachelor of Arts English Luleå University of Technology Department of Arts, Communication and Education Table of Contents Introduction............................................................................................................................................. 1 Chapter one: Historical Background........................................................................................................ 3 Chapter two: Purity of Faith.................................................................................................................. 14 Chapter Three: Race.............................................................................................................................. 27 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................. 32 Works Cited ........................................................................................................................................... 34 1 Introduction Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a novel that brings up many issues that were relevant at the time of its writing. During the story of a group of friends who come into contact with a Transylvanian vampire, Stoker weaves in contemporary issues and developments in late-Victorian England. The book is a period piece in the horror genre. It deals with science, religion, feminism and technology and several related issues that caused anxiety in a number of people, notably in intellectual circles. This essay will argue that Dracula expresses a late-Victorian fear of impurity and degeneration and serves as a warning; and to a lesser extent that this warning has gone unheeded. The areas in which this warning, or warnings, are explored will here be those of faith and race. The first chapter provides historical background information which is of great use for a proper understanding of the issues in the novel. The chapter is divided into five sections. The first section will briefly present Stoker and Dracula. A plot overview will provide a rudimentary understanding of the events and characters. The second section of this chapter attempts an overview of th intellectual climax of the Victorian period, without going into much detail. It gives an idea of the atmosphere of change and progress in society, and its effect on faith. The third section provides information about the evolution of eugenic ideas in Britain, and how they caused some racist anxiety towards the end of the Victorian period. The fourth section outlines Edward Said’s theory of Orientalism because Dracula follows that discourse and it will be of consequence in this essay when racism is in focus. There is lastly a fifth section which deals with vampire lore. It will show much of what Stoker chose to include of the real historical beliefs about vampires, and also how he picks out the ideas and images he likes best and suit his motives. The second chapter deals with purity of faith, or how purity of faith is eroded in the Victorian era. It is divided into two sections, the first dealing with Christianity. Vampirism is examined as a debased version of Christianity which has reverted to a savage state of near paganism because, presumably, the religion has roots in ancient superstitions, and Methodism is pointed out as a subject of allegory, based on the work of Christopher Herbert. The apparently 2 contradictory Christian symbolism is also analyzed here. The second section deals with occultism and considers the possibility that both the vampires and the vampire hunters in the story represent occult secret societies that practice ritual magic, again with credit to Herbert. The third chapter deals with race. The fact that racism was commonplace in Victorian England is apparent in the Orientalism it produced. With eugenicist theories being fueled by the theory of evolution, racial purity became a matter of considerable importance. The fear was that racial impurity could make the civilized Englishmen devolve and become more degenerate and less human if primitive foreign races were allowed to spread their blood. Criminals were considered to be more primitive by nature. This chapter argues that Dracula expresses a fear of racial impurity, with the danger coming in the form of the foreign vampire. Furthermore, the ideas surrounding vampires in the book seem to echo disturbing genocidal and eugenicist ideas circulating Europe at the time. A race war can be inferred if we see the vampire hunters as fighting against vampirism as racial impurity, but which may also be interpreted to take a less violent form, by incorporating the classic interpretation that the novel deals with sexuality. These chapters are complemented with comparisons to society today and how the issues are viewed now, something which serves to gauge how the warnings on each front have been received, which is to say, how they have been ignored. Victorian society had a different mentality, and their anxieties are now obsolete. This shows that Stoker’s warnings, or shall we say “predictions”, were accurate, even if we would not share any anxiety the Victorians felt considering them. 3 Chapter one: Historical Background Stoker and Dracula According to the biographical introduction in the Penguin Popular Classics edition of Bram Stoker was born in 1847 in Dublin where at sixteen he attended Trinity College. It also states that he there studied pure mathematics and became the president of the Philosophical Society, and that he also developed an interest in the theatre which led him to write dramatic criticism and short stories. Furthermore, his admiration of the actor Henry Irving, whose performance sparked his interest in theatre in the first place, landed him a job as business manager at London’s Lyceum Theatre, the biography states. It, additionally, says that he traveled to the United States and Canada, and married Florence Balcombe in 1878, “winning her hand from her other suitor” Oscar Wilde. (Some may say by default) His most well known story is Dracula . Dracula draws upon previous vampire fiction for inspiration, but also folklore through the ages. At the same time, the book also stands as a platform for displaying philosophical, sociological, scientific and religious thought circulating in Britain and Europe in Stoker’s time, and is thus very modern. It is the most well known vampire story in the world today, and the character is a household name. The book has been made into film countless times starting with the unauthorized adaptation Nosferatu: eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922) in which the count, named Orlok in this version, was played by the aptly named Max Schreck. The story follows a group of middle class Victorians who save Britain and the world from the Transylvanian vampire Count Dracula. Solicitor Jonathan Harker travels to Romania, to finalize the sale of an estate in England to the Count, whom he discovers to be a monster, and in whose castle he is imprisoned by the same. While the vampire journeys to Britain, Harker escapes the castle but disappears. His fiancé miss Mina Murray waits for him at home, and expresses her worries to miss Lucy Westenra, who has three suitors, American Quincy Jones, Dr John Seward, the owner of an insane asylum, and Arthur Holmwood, son of Lord Godalming, the last of whom wins her hand. Miss Lucy becomes mysteriously ill, and Dr Seward enlists the help of his old mentor Professor Abraham Van Helsing from Holland who is learned in several sciences, including medicine. 4 Professor Van Helsing suspects that a vampire is afoot and slowly convinces the men of this. Harker is found with brain fever, and does not believe his nightmarish memories. Lucy dies and stalks the nights drinking the blood of children, and the men finally learn what she is and destroy her to save her soul. This work is done using Christian holy objects and knowledge about superstitions regarding vampires. Mina reads Jonathan’s diary, and all the diaries kept by the group members are examined by them all. They deduce that Dracula is the vampire that killed Lucy and proceed to hunt him. While they do Mina becomes his new victim and is cursed by him. The group also comes to know that the strange lunatic Renfield has a psychic connection with Dracula and regards him as a god. When the group has managed to cleanse the houses where Dracula stayed, by sanctifying the earth in which he must sleep but cannot if it is truly holy, the Count flees the country and the group of friends follows him back to his castle in Transylvania where they destroy him. The world is safe, and things go back to normal. Victorian England In order to understand Dracula it is helpful to consider the time period of its publication. The book was written in the 1890s (published in 1897), in the last part of the Victorian period, which ended in 1901. Victorian England was a time and place of great changes. The industrial revolution was ongoing, changing living conditions in the country. Many people were moving to cities while the total population was growing rapidly. The middle class was taking over positions of influence from the aristocracy, and among other things their industry brought pollution and squalor (Barnard 123). Ideally, a woman’s place was in the home creating a refuge for her husband, where she was separated from the public world of industry and commerce by marriage, and she was
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