Dracula Reflection

When you hear the word Dracula, what words do you associate with him? Dead, scary, vampire? For most, it would be all of the above. However, when speaking about Dracula, no one hardly utter the word man. Dracual depiction drew a fine line of him being both man and monster, but can we really say that he is of man when his able to turn into different creatures? Dracula's complex personality and human form will be discussed throughly in this essay, while also touching on the subject of his sexual needs and wants.

When Stoker's character, Dracula is first described in the novel he is described as having a very stong face, thin nose, lofty forehead, massive eyebrows and a rather cruel looking mouth and moustache (22). Reading a description as such does not make the reader 'fall' for Dracula. His description instantly puts fear into the character because his facial characteristics are described like no other, or at least nothing of the familiar. Despite his physical appearance Dracula seems like a very nice and welcoming being. He was nice enough to open his home to Jonathan Harker, he is providing him with a place to stay, and making sure he is fed, sounds like the perfect host, no? Well as Dracula's 'real ways' are revealed throughout the novel, he begins holding Harker hostage, although he could always leave, he just risked being eaten alive by Dracula's mystique power over the wolves. As we read the novel and see that Dracula has the ability to climb walls and spends his sunlight hours sleeping in bed, it definitely sets the readers' views differently and him being a man is questioned. When first reading this novel, I became instantly aware that Dracula was one that is dangerous, but to what extent remained a mystery in the beggining parts of the novel.

Once we gain understanding that Dracula is representing evil, the question becomes clear. Dracula can't represent a man if we read that he is able to transform himself into a dog and a bat. Real man was not created to transform into other beings. Transforming into other creatures is unnatural, it is of the evil or in this case the undead for Dracula.

The undead was quite prevalent in this novel because the blood sucking vampire, Dracula would feed on the living until he they finally became dead, then turing into a vampire themseleves. The fact that we have a man who seems normal on the surface is what makes the Dracual character so uncanning. He seems like an average person, despite the way he looks at first, but after understanding what he is capable of we almost feel taunted and confused because he is in fact a monster and had been the entire time. Uncanning means something that is familiar yet unfamiliar at the same time and is shown to of unnatural behavior or acts. Dracula's normal interaction with Jonathan Harker made us view him as a man, but once his revealed as sleeping in a box, climbing