Dracula Essay, Research Paper
Bram Stoker’s Dracula
The setting of the story begins in 19th century Europe, in the eerie country of
Transylvania. A solicitor from England named Jonathan Harker is sent by a business
man to meet with an old Count named Dracula at his castle located far from civilization.
Residents of Transylvania who become aware of his destination begin crossing
themselves and giving him garlic and blessings. As a result of these gestures, Mr. Harker
soon develops an uneasy feeling about visiting the mysterious Count. He arrives at
Castle Dracula regardless, and meets with Dracula. He soon realizes that the count is no
normal human, but an evil, blood-sucking vampire, who can command animals and
elements with the wave of his hand. Harker escapes but the Count has devised an
intricate plan to move to London and exercise his evil forces on innocent people there.
However, a group of friends, including an open-minded but ingenious professor, a
psychologist, an American, a rich man, as well as Jon an Harker and his wife Mina, learn
of the Count’s sinister plan and pledge to destroy him before he can create an army of
un-dead vampires. They systematically destroy his coffins with holy wafers and chase
him out of England back to Castle Dracula. There they carry out an ultimate plan to
destroy Dracula.
The Author uses suspense as a storytelling device rather effectively throughout the
story. There are a fair number of parts in which the reader is left suspended on the edge
of seat, eager to find out what is to happen next. However, there were parts where
suspense could be used in a manner that would enhance the gravity of the plot.
Nonetheless, The movie is written in a unique way that allows suspense to be used easily
and effectively built up. Dracula is written in first person like many other novels but then
it differs slightly. The book starts off as a first person Journal of the first character
describing his experiences. But then it switches to someone else’s journal, and then to
letters between two characters, and later to a newspaper article. It follows this pattern
roughly throughout the book. At various points, the plot builds up with one character’s
journal and then it jumps to another character’s journal so that you must read a ways
through it before the exciting conclusion to that particular event is revealed. At other
times deductions must be made on what a character has written to ascertain what has
occurred. There is a good example of this when the first character, Jonathan Harker, is
imprisoned in the castle close to sunset and knows that the Count will attack him that
night. His journal ends as he describes what he might do to escape. But the success of
his escape is not evident until the first part of his fiancee’s journal is completed. This sort
of suspense can be quite frustrating and annoying at times. Thus it’s purpose is often
defeated and the plot suffers. But there is also the more prevalent type of suspense used
where the character is on the verge of an important discovery or he is in a dangerous
predicament but the author is slow to divulge what is to happen. When the suspense was
used properly, it proved to be both interesting and very dramatic.
In conclusion, Bram Stoker’s Dracula turned out to be a very exciting and fascinating
novel. The plot was well structured and was very suspenseful. The author used his
historical knowledge of Europe, particularly Hungary and Transylvania, very well in
conveying a certain idea in the book. For example, Count Dracula was described as a
noble of the Magyar peoples of eastern Europe who fought valiantly against invaders
during the 14th and 15th centuries. Full insight was given into the minds and
personalities of almost all of the well developed characters. Initially, the Count remained
somewhat mysterious for a specific reason. This allowed for the main characters to
slowly discover who the Count really was thus developing the character slowly for the
reader. The mistery built into his character intensified the mystery. Suspense was
used throughout the movie. The book probed deeply into peoples superstitions, fears,
and beliefs of the supernatural, and how others are skeptic of them are sometimes proved
wrong. In all, Dracula is a clever, exciting, and suspenseful movie, I hope you take the
time to watch it. I hear that the novel is also good.