Joselline Plascencia
English 1302.011
Dr. Veronica Pantoja
2/22/2016
Count Dracula Count Dracula is practically the protagonist and antagonist of this book. The book is literally named after him. Bram Stoker, the author, describes the count as “a tall old man, clean shaven save for a long white mustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of colour about him anywhere…[h]is face was strong- a very strong- aquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils…[a] lofty domed forehead and hair growing scantly round temples, but profusely elsewhere…eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth […] was fixed and rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp teeth; these protruded over the lips. […] His ears were pale and at the top extremely pointed. The chin was broad and strong and the cheeks firm through thin.” In addition, he had sharp nails and very bad breath. What many don’t know, is that Stoker made a very distinct allusion to a real Dracula; Vlad Dracul III. The count has many similarities to Vlad Dracul but still differentiates to the extent of making Stoker’s Dracula a very popular icon. The book mentions three women living in his castle with him and even argues about how he doesn’t love in page 43 chapter 3. In response, Dracula states that they know how he has been able to love and they should know from the past. According to the book Dracula, some writers in the twentieth century assume that vampires could have erotic encounters with only humans and not each other. Even though the women live in his castle, the book does not specify the count’s marital status. Bram Stoker wrote the book Dracula and published it in 1897. In 1462, a Vlad Dracul III lived. He had the surname of “viovode” which according to the book and Will Romano’s article means “ruler”. The book describes Dracula as a count which means Prince. Count Dracula does not like being called Count in evidence to page 22 where the count specifies his name is Dracula to response to Jonathan Harker referring to him as “Count” Dracula. The most likely reason for his reaction was the allusive historical figure that Bram Stoker’s Dracula was molded upon. Vlad Dracul III was once a prince, but his father gave his brother Radu and him to the Turkish King as human tributes. Dracula must have hatred towards his father for that reason. Stoker’s chapter III, page 33, when Dracula explains “the past of his people,” Harker mentions how “whenever he spoke of his house, he always said “we” and spoke almost as the plural like a king speaking.” Well the reason for that is because at one point Dracul was a king. After leaving to seek revenge, he became a viovode and fought in similar wars as Stoker’s Dracula. The book proceeds to speak about Radu, which historically, was “the handsome” of the two. They both went different paths later on and became rulers of different troops and empires. According to Will Romano, the author of Vlad Dracula’s War on the Turks, Radu was a compromiser that practically sold out his people while Dracul was the defiant one. In page 35 of the book, Dracula says, “This was a Dracula indeed! Woe was it that his own unworthy brother. When he had fallen, sold his people to the Turk and brought the shame of slavery on them. Was is not this Dracula, indeed, that inspired that other of his race who in a later age again and again brought his forces over the great river into Turkeyland; who, when he was beaten back, came again, and again, and again, though he had to come alone from the bloody filed where his troops were being slaughtered, since he knew that he alone could ultimately triumph? They said that he only thought of himself. Bah! What good are peasants without a leader? […] The warlike days are over. Blood is too precious a thing in these days of dishonourable peace; and the glories of the great races are as a tale that is told.” Dracula speaks as if he was present in the war. He is also very descriptive of the bloody field where the troops were being brutally killed. The Count even ridicules the peasants that called this “Dracula” of his heritage selfish. Dracula seems to be very passionate about his topic as if he has been waiting for a very long time to speak about it (which he has…for about hundreds of years). Another thing that connects Dracul and Dracula is the common wars they fought. In Harker’s journal is page 34, Dracula mentions “the flags of Wallach and Magyar [going] down beneath the Crecent, [and] who was it not one of [his] own race who as voivode crossed the Danube and beat the Turk on his own ground?” According to Romano, Dracula retreated from an attack on the Turks in Danube River and throughout history; he kept going back until he defeated them (59). Now, why exactly did Stoker use the Allusion of Vlad Dracul III to his Dracula? Will Romano says that Dracula was feared and despised in his own time which laid the groundwork for the vampire myth towards Dracul. After being given away by his father, the Turks referred to him as Dracula with an a. The very name, Dracul, meant dragon and was stowed upon him by the Order of the Dragon when he bowed to protect the Holy Roman Empire. Dracula means “son of the dragon” (Romano 59). Romano’s Dracul is depicted as a horrible, cruel, and blood-thirsty man. This Dracula was so cruel that he enjoyed dining while watching mass executions, usually buy the slow death of impalement, although he was not averse to watching people skinned or boiled alive; by the time he was deposed, he had killed between 40,000 and 100,000 people (Romano 59). Dracula even sent two bags of chopped up ears, noses and heads (including the head of Hanza Bay) to Convinus as proof of his victory. Other Turkish prisoners were impaled on long stakes with rounded ends to prolong the agony of dying and left to rot in the hills surrounding Tirgovicte. Dracula also burned villages and crops, killed his own people, slaughtered cattle and poisoned wells as he made his way back to Wallachia (Romano 63). When fighting, Dracula used to reward men who had been wounded in the front of their bodies, but told any who had been wounded in the back, “You’re not a man but a woman,” and had them impaled (64). When the Turks went looking for Dracula to the capital, they found remains of Turkish prisoners, including Hanza Pasha [without a head], were rotting away in stakes. The troops found themselves in an impenetrable forest of the impaled (Romano 64). Stoker’s Dracula was most likely feared and despised for the same reason. In page 12, chapter 1, the old woman confronts Jonathan Harker hysterically when he is about to leave for Transylvania. She proceeds to ask him if he knew what day it was. Apparently he was supposed to leave for Transylvania in the eve of St. George’s Day. Superstitious people from the east believed that that night at midnight, all the evil things of the world would have sway (stoker 12). After crying and begging Harker to stay without success, she gifts him a crucifix and he takes it just to not be rude. Later, that same crucifix saves Harker from being killed by Dracula and he starts to have more faith in religious items. The Lady that gifted Harker the crucifix seemed to be very afraid of what could happen to Harker if he were to leave that night to his destination. It was most likely a given that Dracula had a very bad reputation and maybe people already knew what Dracula was. For Example, In chapter 3, a woman comes looking for her baby and automatically knows the disappearance of her child has been a doing of the “monster” of Dracula. Later, that woman gets eaten by wolves and it gives a good reason of why people would be afraid of Dracula and despise him just like Dracul III. Think about it. Stoker’s Dracula is practically immortal and has lived in Transylvania for an excessive amount of time. Dracula is the one that gave the East the reputation of superstitions and supernatural findings. Throughout his trip, Harker receives a series of bizarre gifts to protect him from evil such as the crucifix, garlic and a wild rose. Later in the book, Van Helsing uses religious methods to stop Lucy and Dracula (which pose vampiristic threats). The one thing Van Helsing uses the most to try and keep Dracula away is Garlic. The article The Glory That Was Garlic by Patrick Ryan written on 1975 explains that garlic has been regarded as a capital folk medicine. It used to be fed in quantity to early Egyptians laborers to strengthen while building the pyramids. The Romans fed powerful bulbs to their soldiers to increase their courage and one result of such diet could have been the first invention of gas warfare. The centurion would then order his troops to form square and exhale into the enemy’s faces by numbers. Also popular belief held that cloves of allium sativium must be spread pungently around the cradle of children to protect its bawling occupant from infestation by evil spirits during the most vulnerable period between birth and baptism (Ryan 8). In a report in New Scientist, it is explained that, “ It is now certain that garlic possesses antibacterial, anthelminthic, and antiprozoal properties…acts as a carminative agent… and shows a broad spectrum of activity.” Stoker most likely used this in his book because it was practically an antibacterial. Today, if a severely ill person has contact with someone else, that person will become ill as well. Possibly, the same thing was going on in Van Helsing’s mind. The count kept having contact with the women and both were at risk of becoming vampires as well. Van Helsing explains the strengths and weaknesses of Dracula in chapter 18 starting in page 210.The count possesses many supernatural abilities. Dracula has superhuman strenghth which, according to Van Helsing, is equal to 20 strong men. He does not cast a shadow on mirrors or a shadow. He also speaks about how Dracula is immune to conventional attacks such that time a sailor tried stabbing him from the back and just goes through him like a ghost. Dracula can also defy gravity to a certain extent and possesses superhuman agility. He can climb vertical surfaces like walls “in a reptilian manner” like Harker says. He has powerful hypnotic, telepathic and illusionary abilities. He can also vanish and reappear whenever he pleases. He is very smart because though centuries, he has been alive and is unable to die by mere passing of time alone. Dracula can also command animals like owls, moths, foxes, rats, and wolves. However, his control is limited like that one time the crew first enters the house in London. Even though Dracula summoned a lot of rats into the room, Seward summons a pack of dogs to devour the rats. The rats get scared and flee and any control Dracula had over them, is gone.He can also manipulate the weather and even direct the elements like storms fog and mist. One of Dracula’s most mysterious powers is being able to turn others into vampires when he bites them. Van Helsing says, “When they become such, there comes with the change the curse of immortality; they cannot die, but must go on age after age adding new victims and multiplying the evils of the world. For all that die from the preying of the Un-dead become themselves Un-dead, and prey on their kind. And so the circle goes on ever widening, like as the ripples from a stone thrown in the water. Friend Arthur, if you had met that kiss which you know of before poor Lucy die, or again, last night when you open your arms to her, you would in time, when you had died, have become nosferatu, as they call it in Eastern europe, and would for all time make more of those Un-Deads that so have filled us with horror.” So practically the ampire bite does not cause death. It’s just a method vampires use to take the blood and make their victim weaker so it’s easier to control them. Van Helsing describes it by saying, “Nosferatu do not like the bees when they sting once. He is only stronger, and being stronger, have yet more power to work evil” (Stoker 209). Some of the people that Dracula bites do not die but become their servants instead. Dracula’s weaknesses are not many really is mostly that he is much less powerful in daylight and is only able to shift his form at dawn, noon and dusk. The sun is not fatal to him, though, as sunlight does not burn and destroy him upon contact like other books and movies have made it seem, most of his abilities stop. Placing a branch of a wild rose upon the top of his coffin will render him unable to escape it; a sacred bullet fired into his coffin could kill him so he remains True-Undead. Also Mountain Ash is described as a form of protection from a vampire (like I said before) but the book does not specify the effects. It was believed to be used as protection against evil spirits and witches during the Victorian era.
Dracula could have not achieved everything he made the characters of this book go through without anybody’s help. It is understandable that he has nobody working as a servant for him in his castle; he is hundreds of years old and everybody is either scared of him or dead. At the beginning of the book, in Jonathan Harker’s journal, Harker describes the population of Transylvania. He names the “four distinct nationalities”- “Saxons in the south, and mixed with them the Wallachs, who are descendants of the Dacians; Magyars in the west, and Szekelys in the east and north” omitting the Slovaks and Gypsies. Dracula commands the loyalty of gypsies and a band of Slovaks who transport his boxes on their way to London and to serve as an armed convoy bringing his coffin back to his castle. The Slovaks and gypsies appear to know who he is because they laugh at Harker’s attempt when he tries to communicate his plight in a letter and betray him by giving it to Dracula. Jonathan describes these groups as barbaric and according to Stoyan Tchaprazov’s paper, “Jonathathan’s description expresses only implicitly his sense of superiority over the “wild” -looking Slovaks on “primitive” rafts; Harker’s reads like a manual for nineteenth -century British imperialist biases about the native people of the colonies.” He also calls them Oriental which according to Tchaprazov, meant backward, incapable of self-rule, cruel, blood thirsty, and many other unsavory adjectives. They would be practically perfect for Dracula to take over. They were strong enough to protect him and mentally weak making it easy for Dracula to control and manipulate (Tchaprazov 526). Dracula seems to be able to hold influence over people with mental disorders, such as Renfield, who was really never bitten but still worships Dracula like a god. He refers to him as “Master” and “Lord” in many occasions. Dracula also makes Lucy sleep walk by putting her in a trance-like state that allows him to make her look for him and satisfy his need to feed.
Now what exactly is Dracula’s reason for doing what he has done; trying to convert two women into vampires, moving to a whole new place where nobody knows who he is, going through the whole trouble of sending boxes of dirt overseas and studying English endlessly. Though many theories of why Dracula is doing what he does exist, the book does not specify. Maybe he was just lonely. Maybe old Vlad from 1462 wanted revenge so bad that he made a pact with the devil and in change he had to make other’s vampires and take over the human race. In fact, there is many speculations of how old Vlad died (Romano 65).
Throughout the book, Dracula changes his way of acting. At the beginning when Harker meets the count, Dracula seems to be very courteous and harmless. As the story unfolds, Dracula becomes more and more scary in a way. Everything he does is supernatural and so uncommon, that the crew of light questions their own sanity. In the end, without a fight, Dracula gets killed (finally) by Jonathan and Arthur.
Stoker was very descriptive of his characters especially the count. In the end, Dracula and Dracul, were too much alike to be bypassed as different people. Obviously Stoker could not just write a fictional book of a person without exaggerating a little bit. The point is that the base for the wonderful character of Dracula was the myth of Dracul being a vampire. In the Victorian era, these types of barbaric and bloody scenes that Dracul made possible were extremely graphic. Dracula just added to the horrific myth of Dracul being a vampire. Vampires were already around such as the silent film Nosferatu that came out in 1922 by the time Stoker wrote his book. Stoker’s Dracula was a very mysterious man with unknown causes for his behavior. Unfortunately, that is one of the many things the public will never know the answer to. Blah blah blah.

Works Cited
Bowles, Noelle. "Crucifix, Communion, And Convent: The Real Presence of Anglican Ritualism in Bram Stoker's Dracula. Christianity & Literature 62.2 (2013): 243-258. Academic Search Complete. Web. 29 Feb. 2016
Romano, Will. "Vlad Dracula's War on the Turks." Military History 20.4 (2003): 58-65. Hobbies & Crafts Reference Center. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.
Ryan, Patrick. "The Glory That Was Garlic." Saturday Evening Post 247.4 (1975): 8. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.
Stoker, Bram. Dracula. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1897. Print.
Tchaprazov, Stoyan. "The Slovaks and Gypsies of Bram Stoker's Dracula: Vampires in Human Flesh." English Literature in Transition. 1880-1920 58.4 (2015): 523-535. Academic Search Complete. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.

Writer’s memo

This paper took me way too long to complete. I doubt I have ever done as much research in my life. I wrote four 13page and one 7 page drafts (all different) but this one is the one I liked the best. My problem while completing this paper was trying to narrow it down to the point that I didn’t write a book instead of three pages . Unfortunately, I still wrote more than I should have. Also, I don’t drive and have been going to the library almost every day. I have to get a ride there all the time. One time, I was coming back from Mexico with the laptop on my lap typing away and then the night caught up to me and I had to turn on the light inside the truck and it was still difficult to see ha-ha.