Dracula Essay

1. Dracula Essay Step 1: Choose a topic

2. Dracula Essay Step 1: Choose a topic • Role of fathers and mothers

3. Dracula Essay Step 1: Choose a topic • Role of fathers and mothers • Mina as a “new woman”

4. Dracula Essay Step 1: Choose a topic • Role of fathers and mothers • Mina as a “new woman” • Gender roles

5. Dracula Essay Step 1: Choose a topic • Role of fathers and mothers • Mina as a “new woman” • Gender roles • Fear of the foreigner (xenophobia)

6. Dracula Essay Step 1: Choose a topic • Role of fathers and mothers • Mina as a “new woman” • Gender roles • Fear of the foreigner (xenophobia) • Corruption

7. Dracula Essay Step 1: Choose a topic • Role of fathers and mothers • Mina as a “new woman” • Gender roles • Fear of the foreigner (xenophobia) • Corruption • Technology vs. superstition

8. Dracula Essay • Dracula team vs. Van Helsing team

9. Dracula Essay • Dracula team vs. Van Helsing team • East vs. West

10. Dracula Essay • Dracula team vs. Van Helsing team • East vs. West • Dracula as sympathetic character

11. Dracula Essay • Dracula team vs. Van Helsing team • East vs. West • Dracula as sympathetic character • Class issues

12. Dracula Essay • Dracula team vs. Van Helsing team • East vs. West • Dracula as sympathetic character • Class issues • Character study of Van Helsing

13. Dracula Essay • Dracula team vs. Van Helsing team • East vs. West • Dracula as sympathetic character • Class issues • Character study of Van Helsing • Narrative structure- epistolary novel

14. Dracula Essay • Dracula team vs. Van Helsing team • East vs. West • Dracula as sympathetic character • Class issues • Character study of Van Helsing • Narrative structure- epistolary novel

15. Dracula Essay • Dracula team vs. Van Helsing team • East vs. West • Dracula as sympathetic character • Class issues • Character study of Van Helsing • Narrative structure- epistolary novel • Vampirism & sexuality

16. Dracula Essay • Renfield

17. Dracula Essay • Renfield • Religion- Catholicism & Protestantism

18. Dracula Essay • Renfield • Religion- Catholicism & Protestantism • Multiple marriage- Dracula & 3 brides, Lucy & 3 suitors, Mina & brave band of men

19. Dracula Essay Step 2: Formulate thesis

20. Dracula Essay Step 2: Formulate thesis An underlying subversive current in Bram Stoker’s Dracula is the desire for multiple marriage partners. Though Mina and Lucy must only long for such an ideal, Dracula achieves the goal over the course of centuries.

21. Dracula Essay Colleen Happ Ms. Happ-Mendel Literature & Composition III 5 November 2003 Did You Write All of This, Mrs. Harker? The narrative structure of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, consisting of letters, newspaper clippings, journal entries, and the log book of a doomed vessel, appears to create a picture of Dracula from a variety of different viewpoints, until it is considered that at least the first half of the primary source materials exist only in typewritten facsimile produced by Mina Harker. Thus, Dracula becomes knowable to the reader only third-hand, through Mina’s version of the writings of the “little band of men” (Stoker 400) and the later journals of Mina and Van Helsing. This distance from the source material, the lack of any means of self-expression for Dracula, and the absence of a neutral narrator external to the plot casts doubt upon a text that seems at first glance to be based upon documentary evidence produced by the most modern methods of the day: shorthand, typewriter, and phonograph. The characters are allowed to create Dracula through their writings, and he becomes a reflection of their fears, prejudices, and desires.

22. Dracula Essay Jonathan’s description in his journal of his inability to see Dracula reflected in his shaving mirror, “the whole room behind me was displayed; but there was no sign of a man in it, except myself” (Stoker 26), encapsulates the function of the narrative structure within itself. Dracula becomes a reflection of Jonathan’s self-image, presented to the reader through the filter of Jonathan’s words transcribed from shorthand to typewritten copy by his wife, Mina. The circuitous route by which the reader receives the story allows for the introduction of any number of “spins” upon the information, with each successive interpreter using the facts to suit the tale he or she wishes to tell.

23. Dracula Essay Body Paragraph 2: Mina’s control of the text Body Paragraph 3: “Outside”, neutral sources Body Paragraph 4: Dracula never allowed to speak for himself Body Paragraph 5: Dracula as the powerful, threatening foreigner Despite all of their attempts to be rational, modern, and scientific, the characters who create Dracula through their writings undermine the authenticity of their story by allowing the reader to learn that their documentary evidence upon which the “facts” are based is far removed from the source. Mina’s helpful work on the typewriter, intended to lend an air of professionalism and modernity to their undertaking, serves to introduce doubt about the text’s veracity, and the ease with which Dracula is able to destroy the original documents and wax cylinders reminds the audience of how transitory the facts can be. The use of diaries, journals, letters, newspaper clippings and recordings to produce a plot allows for a picture of Dracula to form from the perceptions of those he encounters, but also introduces room for doubts to enter. For the characters, however, this is not a concern, for in Van Helsing’s words, “we want no proofs; we ask none to believe us!”(400).