Cruz-Ventura 1

Antonio Cruz-Ventura

Professor Batty

English 102

December 11, 2017

Monstrous Nightmare

Monsters scare us not only because they are scary looking, but also the way they can put fear

into people's minds. In the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker, the character Dracula is a monster that

puts fear in humans by manipulating their minds with of people that become scared of his

uncanny form. Bram Stoker's true masterpiece is a "carefully interlaced web of journals and

diary entries, letters, and newspaper reports," that follows the actions of a group of ordinary

people thrust into an extraordinary situation (Bibliographical note iii). Abraham (Bram) Stoker

(1847-1912) was born in Dublin, Ireland but lived most of his life in London, England; the main

setting of his most memorable novel Dracula (St. James Guide to Horror, Ghost & Gothic

Writers). The novel took several years for Stoker to finish and publish and Stoker's Dracula is

considered to be an "incarnation of pure evil." Dracula is one of the scariest monsters that the

mind is capable of conjuring up because of the fear he provokes through his appearance, actions

and the threat and trauma that comes with his presence.

At the beginning of the text, we can see what scares a rational human being. Dracula lives in

Transylvania, and he intends to buy houses in England that will allow him hideouts to infiltrate

the London crowd. But before we know this there's a character named Jonathan Harker who

travels long to meet the count and do necessary paperwork for the houses that Dracula is trying

to buy. On his journey to Transylvania, he encounters an old lady telling him that it's "St.

George's Day when all the evil things in the world will have full sway," (Stoker 4). She tells him
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to stay and not go, she elicits a warning to Jonathan but he says he must go and the lady presses a

crucifix on him. The old woman warning Jonathan is the first of a series of events that evoke

much fear in the man, and from the behavior of the townspeople, he meets it is clear that they

have come to fear Dracula a great deal. When Jonathan prepares to leave, the crowd "all made

the sign of the cross and pointed two fingers," a charm to guard him against the evil (Stoker 5).

in this two events, we can see the fear that normal humans. This fear will then help readers

understand the differences between something we fear and the horror that Dracula as monster

creates.

Draculas form of uncanny puts fears into people. At first, Dracula character is introduced as

count Dracula, someone that looks like a rational human being but in reality is a terrifying

monster that can transform into a blood-sucking bat. Dracula is so frightening to the human mind

because in initial appearance he is not strikingly scary. In fact, he is quite the opposite, and he

resembles a "tall old man, clean shaven save for a long white mustache," almost feeble in

appearance; gentle, and not at all of a frightening nature (Stoker 13). This can be terrifying to the

mind psychologically over time because the person is not who or what they appear. In Dracula's

first encounter with Jonathan Harker, "the Count's courteous welcome seemed to dissipate all

doubts and fears," but after supper, a cigar and a further examination of the Count's appearance

Harker remarks, "I am in a sea of wonders. I doubt; I fear; I think strange things, which I dare not

confess to my own soul," he is astonished and not sure what to make of this strange looking man

that has invited him to the dark of the black forest. In Jonathan's head, he feels as he is becoming

crazy do to the fake reality that the monster of Dracula is creating.

In this text, the reader can see how fear slowly becomes a nightmare with Dracula being

around people. As time passes in Transylvania, Jonathan becomes more fearful of the Count
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because of actions he makes. At first, he is made uneasy by the Count's never eating or drinking

and quick coming and going about the castle; being gone in the mornings, leaving abruptly at

dawn, and always being present in the night hours. However, it is not long before unease turns to

outright fear. Jonathan upon waking from a fairly sleepless night goes to shave when the count

places a sudden hand on his shoulder without making a noise while entering the room or casting

a reflection in the mirror. This startles Jonathan who cuts his neck and the mere sight of blood

causes the count's eyes to "blaze with a demoniac fury," and grabbing at Jonathan's neck catches

hold of the crucifix around it that "made an instant change in him," he calmed down and threw

the mirror out the window (Stoker 21). His rash action along with the lack of appearance in the

mirror cause immense fear to Mr. Harker, seeing the count be so demonic causes great distress in

him and makes him realize that he is a prisoner in the castle. Shortly after this incident, Jonathan

catches the count making his bed which confirms what he had thought all along; that there are no

servants in the house and he is truly alone and helpless. Harker says he feels like he is "being

deceived, like a baby, by my own fears," and later wonders if "any dream could be more terrible

than the unnatural, horrible net of gloom and mystery which seemed closing around," Jonathan

eventually escapes but is forever tortured by his experience with the count (Stoker 23). Dracula

is capable of provoking great fear by his appearance and his actions because he is shrouded in

this creepy mystery.

Fear of the unknown is heavily laden throughout the novel. Dracula is distinguished as a

genuinely terrifying being by what he is capable of and the utter unknown that surrounds him.

Jonathan shortly before he makes his escape witnesses the count climbing headfirst down the

side of the castle like a lizard. He is stricken by the sight and can not comprehend how a man is

capable of this and remarks to himself, "what manner of man is this, or what manner of creature
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is it in the semblance of man? I feel the dread of this horrible place overpowering me; I am in

fear-in awful fear- and there is no escape. I am encompassed by the fears that I dare not think

of," (Stoker 29). Harker is so shaken up and scared that he can not even think of the unknown

fears that lie ahead of him.

Stoker's novel is also full of another fear brought on by Dracula and that fear is xenophobia.

As defined by Merriam-Websters Dictionary and Thesaurus xenophobia is fear and hatred of

strangers or foreigners or of what is strange or foreign (Merriam-Webster 1252). Xenophobia is

ridden through the novel as fear of Dracula comes not just from who he is but where he comes

from. As Christina Metzdorf says in Bram Stoker's Dracula - A Foreign Threat to the British

Empire, "corruption of society and the individual is personified by Dracula; he embodies

Victorian anxieties of a collapse of the Empire," in the time of publication of Dracula, England

was in a state of terror about possible social and cultural decline (Metzdorf 4). This made

Dracula the novel not only frightening to the characters in the novel but to the readers as well.

Through the course of the novel, trauma is a great result of the fear caused by Dracula.

Jonathan Harker remarks at the end of the novel as Jamil Khader points out in Un/speakability

and Radical otherness: The Ethics of Trauma in Bram Stoker's Dracula that castle Dracula is the

"old ground which was, and is, to us full of vivid and terrible memories,' This passage shows

that the traumatic core of the vampiric attack lines the novel entirely, and provides a rethinking

of the significance of trauma and its effect on memory in the novel (Khader 2). Khader also

makes a claim that by shifting focus while evaluating the novel in a psychoanalytic light to the

effects of trauma "allows us to consider the representation of the vampire as a radically inhuman

Other, whose motives and desires cannot be accounted for within the limits of human discourse

and thought."(Khader 4). While dealing with the trauma the characters have undergone it is near
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impossible to grasp the whole of the situation as the narrative is fragmented. Even if it were not

something as simple as Jonathan viewing Dracula descending headlong down the castle wall

cannot have its full trauma realized because it is being recorded so nearly after happening and

Harker even remarks about terrors he dares not think of (Stoker 29). Terror and trauma underline

the novel and showcase the horror that Dracula places the characters and especially Jonathan.

Jonathan becomes traumatized because he thinks that he is crazy because he can't believe that

this is real and he thinks that he is stuck in a nightmare.

The novel does, however, present quite a paradox when dealing with Count Dracula and

Jonathan. The conundrum comes from the actual origin of the novel itself and is one of the most

trauma causing experiences Jonathan must endure. According to St. James Guide to Horror,

Ghost & Gothic Writers biography on Bram Stoker, Bram Stoker first dreamt the story and "In

the dream which provided the seed from which the story grew the "king-vampire" appeared only

at the end, interrupting the female vampires who posed a more immediate threat to the dreamer--

as they do, in the text, to Jonathan Harker," through Jonathan's nightmare the count not only

saves Jonathan Harker but also reveals that he is capable of love. Jonathan is attacked in a

sensual dream like molestation by three beautiful vampire women and only kept alive by the

returning count who casts the women away but not before saying "yes, I too can love; you

yourselves know it from the past," proving that there is warmth to his cold being. The paradox is

made because Jonathan owes his life to the count and has now witnessed the soft side of him yet

will return to hunt and kill Dracula. The argument could very well be made that Dracula is not

"an incarnation of pure evil." but someone who has the capacity to love and be loved. However,

when looking at the novel in a holistic sense, the argument is simply invalid. So the love here

turns to ownership which creates that fear of being own by and no being able to escape.
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Dracula not only causes all this torment to Jonathan but also causes the deaths of Lucy

Westerna, Renfield and Quincey Morris. He torments Mina Harker and leaves her emotionally

scarred for the rest of her life, and the trauma he causes Jonathan will never be forgotten and no

soul will ever believe the tale. As Van Helsing puts it "We want no proofs, we ask none to

believe us," for if they did ask they would have no authentic documents to prove it (Stoker .

Count Dracula is a being that is a true incarnation of pure evil and one of the scariest monsters a

mind can conjure up in a nightmare and it is apparent through the fear he manifests from his

deceiving appearance, his uncanny actions, and the trauma caused in the wake of his presence.
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Works Cited

"Bibliographical Note". Dracula. Dover Thrift Editions, 2000.Accessed 16 Nov. 2017.

"Bram Stoker." St. James Guide to Horror, Ghost & Gothic Writers, Gale, 1998. Biography in

Context,link.galegroup.com, Accessed 16 Nov. 2017.

Khader, Jamil. "Un/Speakability and Radical Otherness: The Ethics of Trauma in Bram Stoker's

"Dracula.." College Literature, vol. 39, no. 2, Spring2012, p. 73. EBSCOhost,

library.lavc.edu. Accessed 16 Nov. 2017.

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary & Thesaurus. Merriam- Webster, Inc., 2003. Accessed

16 Nov. 2017.

Metzdorf, Christina Sissy. "Bram Stoker's Dracula - A Foreign Threat to the British Empire."

Master of Education, Prof. Sibylle Baumbach, 30 Aug. 2012. Accessed 16 Nov. 2017.

Stoker, Bram. Dracula. Dover Publications, 2000.