The character of Dracula has seen more appearances on the silver screen, in comics or even on high-sugar cereal boxes than perhaps any other fictional character. He's a figure instantly recognizable, an integrated part of Anglo-American culture. This is perhaps why, lying bedridden with the flu in 2007, I felt compelled to read the original novel. Since then I have read the novel twice more, in English and Norwegian, and, having already considered picking it up again when our teacher instructed us to find a book to read this spring, I reread it for the third time.
"Dracula" belongs to the now more or less extinct genre of the epistolary gothic romance. That is to say, it is a dark, romantic narrative structured as a series of notes, journal entries, newspaper articles and correspondences. This was common in much of English gothic fiction, notably including Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein", and served as a tool to make the unlikely plot seem more realistic.
The basic story follows young Johnathan Harker, sent by his employer to negotiate the estate purchases of Romanian nobleman Count Dracula. Harker gradually realizes that he is to be kept prisoner and later murdered by the Count, who only needs him to formalize the contracts and teach him aspects of life in London. He escapes, and is taken to a nunnery where he is cared for, having contracted brain fever.
Meanwhile, Harker's fiance, Mina Murray is staying with her friend Lucy Westenra in Whitby. Coincidentally this is where Dracula's ship is scheduled to dock. However, to remove all witnesses and slake his blood-thirst, he murders the entire crew.
Dracula takes a liking to Lucy, and attacks and infects her with the curse of vampirism. This brings Lucy's former suitors and fiance to Whitby; nobleman Arthur Holmwood, Texan adventurer Quincey P. Morris and Dr. Jack Seward, who, again coincidentally, runs an asylum that neighbors Dracula's estate in London, Carfax Abbey. Seward, unable to explain the symptoms of blood-loss, contacts his Dutch mentor, Abraham van Helsing. Van Helsing determines that Lucy is dying from vampirism, and that after her death she must be purified by removing her head and staking her heart. Lucy dies, and soon after her funeral the local newspaper reports that several children have been kidnapped and attacked by a "bloofer lady". The four men carry out the exorcism, and Lucy is given peace. But van Helsing warns that they must still find the source - the Count, hiding somewhere in London.
Harker returns home and he and Mina marry. The team compare and assemble their notes and journals, and conceive a plan to hunt down the vampire. However, Dracula escapes to Romania, after having infected Mina. And so the stakes have been raised - by destroying Dracula, they will not only rid the world of great evil and avenge Lucy's death; it is also the only way to save Lucy from damnation.
"Dracula" has been seen as an exploration of the Victorian era's fear of female sexuality, a demonstration of the xenophobic "invasion literature" genre, and even as a commentary on the divide between rational science and superstition. Personally, I can agree to some extent with all these interpretations. For one, there is certainly something sexual in the behavior of Dracula his three "brides" and Lucy when she rises from the grave. Feminists like to interpret this as Stoker's warning against female insubordination - when a woman becomes too sexually unrestrained, she must be "staked".
As to the "invasion literature" interpretation, which, like the feminist approach, is tinged with modern, politically correct distaste for the novel, the point often made is Jonathan Harker's comments on the strangeness of the Romanian countryside and Dracula's gypsy mercenaries and dreams of conquering England.
The advance of science idea sees the victory of modern men over an age-old monster as the primary theme, and, differing from other interpretations, applauds it. The vampire hunters employ typewriters, short-hand, blood-transfusions, telegraphs, psychiatry, and are overall modern and progressive. This is contrasted by Dracula, who looks back on the glory days of his ancestor Attila the Hun.
Not to criticize these critics, but they all seem to base their indignation, distaste or even respect on late 20th century ideals and morality. First of all, if female sexuality is the premise of the conflict, why is Dracula, both a polygamist, rapist and the main villain, a male? If the novel is xenophobic or racist, why is it van Helsing and not Dracula who speaks broken English? If the happy ending indicates that technology and science prevails, why does the wise van Helsing warn that "It is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all; and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain"?
I'm not saying the novel isn't racist, sexist or enthusiastic about the future. But this novel was published in 1897, before universal suffrage had arrived, before the colonies were liberated, before the World Wars and the hippies and legalization of homosexuality. To criticize a novel is to examine its merits and defects, not to pull it out of its time and place and then wag your finger at the author for what he has "revealed" about himself. To analyze a novel is to examine what has been deliberately inserted to underline a theme, not to pick apart contemporary norms and moralize.
"Dracula" is an entertaining, melodramatic story about courage, purity and the bonds of love. It is based on a highly original idea, and has a twisting, suspenseful plot. The mood, from the creeping revelation of unnatural horror in its first act, to the mystery of the hunt, is engaging and constantly dark.
"Dracula" endures because it gives us hope as much as it scares us. It is light, entertainment literature, that much to the chagrin of the snobs and politically correct has been elevated, more or less thanks to Hollywood, to the status of literary classic. And it is worth the read in these days of castrated, glitzy high-school or stripper blood-suckers; Dracula still reigns supreme among the undead.
You have my word.
