Dracula is a Gothic horror novel written in 1897 by an Irishman named Bram Stoker. At the turn of the century, when Stoker wrote this novel, England and much of Europe had fought and overthrown the Feudal systems of Aristocracy and the middle class morality of the Victorian bourgeois was held as the epitome of proper living. England was emerging as a Capitalist power after squashing its foreign invaders. It was this environment that influenced Stoker to characterize his villain as a blood sucking, blue blooded aristocrat. Dracula, as the mouldering aristocrat, is the foreign parasite who, literally sucked the lifeblood of the peasants. By casting Dracula as a Gothic aristocratic villain, Stoker, dramatized for middle-class audiences the exaggerated …show more content…
Dracula’s disregard for the common people, whom he holds in contempt is evident from his words to Harker, “We Transylvanian nobles love not to think that our bones may lie amongst the common dead.” (Stoker, chapter 3, p 2). This is a remnant from the days of nobility ruling the society. Dracula sees democracy as an affront to his family’s lineage. “What good are peasants without a leader? Where ends the war without a brain and heart to conduct it? ...the Szekelys, and the Dracula as their heart's blood, their brains, and their swords, can boast a record that mushroom growths like the Hapsburgs and the Romanoffs can never reach.“ ( chapter 3, p 2). Dracula’s overweening pride about his Boyar blood and his palpable contempt of the gypsy Romanoffs and peasant Hapsburgs are all obvious examples of a proud, vain, and callous …show more content…
What we have here is a symbolism by Stoker of using the blood of the working class to sustain the nobility from being figurative to literal. Dracula demands unconditional obedience as his due right from his servants and people employed by him. This is evident when he imposes his will on Harker and tells him he needs to stay in the castle for a month to transact business satisfactorily. “When your master, employer, what you will, engaged that someone should come on his behalf, it was understood that my needs only were to be consulted.” ( chapter 3, p 4). For Dracula, the lower classes signify only two things: service and sustenance. After his arrival in England, Dracula hypnotises Renfield, a patient in a mental asylum, to act as a faithful servant to “lord and master” Dracula! The aristocrat mentality of master vs. slave is evident from the way Dracula deals with Harker and Renfield. Dracula is the ultimate authority figure, who apathetically uses anyone he deems is beneath