Essay
‘The novel Dracula reflects the uncertainties and anxieties of a society in transition’ – Discuss
A Colour-coded discussion about whether Dracula reflects uncertainties and anxieties of a society in transition.
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H/W 1st December 2017‘The novel Dracula reflects the uncertainties and anxieties of a society in transition’ –
Discuss
It could be read that ‘Dracula’ reflects the transitional period the Victorians experienced, one
where technology was advancing at a quick rate, women were changing the perspective society had
of them, and science and religion contradicted each other when it never had before; the novel
mirrors the anxieties of the contemporary audience through the characters as well as phrases in
their dialogue, which help to give evidence of these uncertainties and anxieties of a transitioning
society.
One way in which the novel indicates Victorian uncertainty and anxiety is through the fear of the
foreign; ‘Dracula’ was written in 1897, which was four years prior to the end of the Victorian era, in
which society had already seen vast change, including the globalisation of Britain, creating colonies
in areas such as Africa, Asia and Australasia. However, this white domination slowly dissipated
towards the end of Victoria’s reign, and so this has led to the motif that Dracula as a character
represents the foreigners taking back their lands, also known as reverse colonisation. This can be
seen by how Dracula is from the furthest part of Eastern Europe, which was a mystery to Stoker’s
contemporary audience, and the representation of Transylvania in the first chapter of the novel
gives evidence to that. For example, the first thing Harker writes in his diary is how ‘the train was an
hour late,’ giving an indication that Eastern Europe was not like London in the sense of punctuality
within the first sentence, and as a result suggests that the Victorian audience would have thought
that no punctuality is an uncivilised mannerism. This suggests that not only Dracula but also the
Eastern Europeans acted in ways unknown to the Western society, whilst possibly indicating that
they don’t understand British culture or etiquette, resulting in being seen as uncivilised to Western
society. The ‘uncivilised’ Count Dracula in the novel chooses to move to England in order to
transform more people into vampires, and if reading into the interpretation that Dracula represents
the anxieties of society in relation to foreign matters, this move could be a suggestion that the
foreigners who were dominated by the white were possibly fighting back, implied by how Harker
notes how many books the Count has on Western society and how Dracula had ‘a red light of
triumph in his eyes, and with a smile that Judas in hell might be proud of’ – these factors give
evidence that Dracula is indeed trying to dominate England by the way of a disease or poison: he is
unseen and clever; the fact that his smile was compared to Judas’ smile ‘in hell’ furthering implying
that Dracula being a foreigner is related to him being evil. This interpretation of poison and disease
can then be read as Dracula’s vampiric blood poisoning the British characters, such as Mina and
Lucy, much like how the contemporary audience saw these foreigners poisoning themselves with the
corruption of their lands. A modern audience can infer the sense of anxiety of the poison from when
‘[Van Helsing] placed the Wafer on Mina’s forehead’ and how it ‘had burned into the flesh as though
it had been a piece of white hot metal’ suggesting that Mina has been corrupted by the foreigner
Dracula and his poison, and how her body then rejected the Holy Wafer much like how the
contemporary audience thought an uncivilised colonial population would react, further implying the
anxieties the Victorian era had over societal change. The use of the determiner ‘the’ in relation to
Mina’s forehead further suggests how this poison and foreign substance changes a white British
citizen from superior to inferior and uncivilised.
This ‘poisoned’ blood of Dracula’s is further seen as a threat by how Dracula comments that ‘in
[his] veins flows the blood of many brave races who fought as the lion fights,’ indicating how strong
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