something something Jonathan having the affections of Dracula and the wives pushed upon him and they also come at a prize and them being controlling something something Lucy’s suitors all treating her with respect even the ones she refuses both promises to be there for her something something
One of the best parts of Dracula is how unbelievably tight Arthur, Quincy and John are with each other, they get wrapped up in this funny little love quadrangle with Lucy and when she rejects Quincy and John for Arthur they basically high five him like “nice bro I’m so glad she ended up with one of us.”
And if you think they’re tight now just WAIT until they get put in a Traumatic Situation™
VI. Her white nightdress was smeared with blood, and a thin stream trickled down the man’s bare breast which was shown by his torn-open dress. The attitude of the two had a terrible resemblance to a child forcing a kitten’s nose into a saucer of milk to compel it to drink. As we burst into the room, the Count turned his face, and the hellish look that I had heard described seemed to leap into it.
So, my Inktober theme for this year shall be Dracula (because I’ve been re-reading the book lately, hehehe) I. Dracula II. I had for breakfast more paprika, and a sort of porridge of maize flour which they said was “mamaliga,” and eggplant stuffed with forcemeat, a very excellent dish, which they call “impletata.” III. She then rose and dried her eyes, and taking a crucifix from her neck offered it to me…She saw, I suppose, the doubt in my face, for she put the rosary round my neck, and said, “For your mother’s sake,” and went out of the room. IV. Strange to say, there were hairs in the centre of the palm. The nails were long and fine, and cut to a sharp point. V. His face was a strong—a very strong—aquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils; with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples but profusely elsewhere. His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth; these protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years. For the rest, his ears were pale, and at the tops extremely pointed; the chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm though thin.
It’s worth noting that while Stoker definitely drew upon sources purporting to describe vampire folklore in establishing rules for his own vampires, some of the vampire “lore” you see in play in Dracula is original to him. The mirror thing doesn’t seem to have been around before Stoker. While there are regional superstitions one can track down about needing to cover mirrors in the home of the recently dead to prevent their corpse from turning vampiric, the idea that vampires cast no reflection appears to really have had its start with this novel. What’s more, it was only part of what was planned in Stoker’s notes on vampiric irreproducibility. While it never made it into the final text, Stoker wrote down vampires also wouldn’t show up in photographs (which is might be related to Jonathan conveniently mentioning his kodak camera) and that even attempting to paint a vampire would fail. Apparently painting a vampire was just supposed to end up looking like somebody else. Photographs would either come out black or show a skeleton or corpse.
it may be near the beginning but the may 16th journal entry of ‘dracula’ is the beating heart of the whole novel – it’s the inception point around which the entire story is built
in every draft and outline, in all the 7 years that bram stoker was writing it, the narrative climax when, after long paragraphs charged with palpable lust and dread, the count thrusts back the weird sisters and claims jonathan harker as his own is the single point of consistency
in support of the above claim:
(sir christopher frayling, preface to the revised penguin edition of 'dracula,’ 2003 / david j. skal, 'something in the blood,’ 2016)
Stoker wrote Dracula as a direct reactionto the Wilde trials
Many of Dracula’s characteristics actually echo Wilde as described to the trials, and Dracula’s lifestyle resembles an exaggerated version of precautions to hide homosexuality
Stoker is basically the pro-closeted 1890s alternative to Wilde’s flamboyancy, and that comes out in how he portrays Dracula and Jonathan Harker
Like if you look deeper into Stoker’s letters to Whitman, he’s practically obsessed with feeling “naturally secretive” and “reticent”
(Also he and Wilde had some weird personal rivalry going on, since Stoker married Wilde’s definitely-not-straight ex-fiancee, though later they were friendly…there’s a lot to unpack here)
So, arguably, Dracula was Stoker’s way of apologizing for his silence during Wilde’s trials.
Some highlights:
Wilde’s trial had such a profound effect on Stoker precisely because it fed Stoker’s pre-existing obsession with secrecy, making Stoker retrospectively exaggerate the secrecy in his own writings on male love.
It is difficult, Stoker admits, to speak openly about “so private a matter” as desire. In carefully calibrated language, Stoker asks forgiveness from those who might see that his silence is a sin-to those few nameless souls who know his secret affinity with Wilde.
Since Dracula is a dreamlike projection of Wilde’s traumatic trial, Stoker elaborated and distorted the evidence that the prosecutor used to convict Wilde. In particular, the conditions of secrecy necessary for nineteenth-century homosexual life–nocturnal visits, shrouded windows, no servants–become ominous emblems of Count Dracula’s evil.
Dracula…represents not so much Oscar Wilde as the complex of fears, desires, secrecies, repressions, and punishments that Wilde’s name evoked in 1895. Dracula is Wilde-as-threat, a complex cultural construction not to be confused with the historical individual Oscar Wilde.
tl;dr:
Stoker is actually too repressed to function
Oscar Wilde (especially his trials) absolutely influenced Stoker
Dracula gay
If anyone wants to read a very well-written and surprisingly entertaining account on pretty much everything and everyone Stoker was influenced by, ESPECIALLY his connection with Wilde and Whitman, do yourself a favour and read “Something in the Blood” by David J. Skal. It’s the most thorough recent account on everything that made Dracula and the onlly one that doesn’t shy away from all the points in the above post (Also, it won the Stoker award, which is basically the Pulitzer for horror(-related) literature - There’s a joke in there somewhere, but my brain’s too tired to craft it rn
It’s worth noting that while Stoker definitely drew upon sources purporting to describe vampire folklore in establishing rules for his own vampires, some of the vampire “lore” you see in play in Dracula is original to him. The mirror thing doesn’t seem to have been around before Stoker. While there are regional superstitions one can track down about needing to cover mirrors in the home of the recently dead to prevent their corpse from turning vampiric, the idea that vampires cast no reflection appears to really have had its start with this novel. What’s more, it was only part of what was planned in Stoker’s notes on vampiric irreproducibility. While it never made it into the final text, Stoker wrote down vampires also wouldn’t show up in photographs (which is might be related to Jonathan conveniently mentioning his kodak camera) and that even attempting to paint a vampire would fail. Apparently painting a vampire was just supposed to end up looking like somebody else. Photographs would either come out black or show a skeleton or corpse.
If you think about it, this leads to a really interesting idea about how the mirror thing works:
Vampire bodies are illusory.
I always felt I needed some extra suspension of disbelief for the mirror thing, but it makes sense if vampires are giving the illusion they are alive and all these things are in place.
They won’t appear in the mirror because your brain won’t produce the illusion in a mirror.
You can’t paint them, because you actually aren’t seeing enough detail to accurately paint.
And the most terrifying… The photograph of a corpse is showing the true form of the vampire.
Sorry vampire fuckers. This may give you one of two very strong reactions
Look. I think we can all understand that wanton, voluptuous vampire ladies eating a baby undoubtedly says something about Stoker and women, but let me just submit that Bram “I worked in theaters all my life” Stoker might also have a few things against babies.
Like, one of his short stories (“The Dualitists”) is about using babies as dualing weapons and then lethally shooting them out of a canon.
Another one of his short stories (”A Baby Passenger”), drops the following lines:
“All babies are malignant; the natural wickedness of man, as elaborated at the primeval curse, seems to find an unadulterated effect in their expressions of feeling. The baby was a peculiarly fine specimen of its class. It seemed to have no compunction whatever, no parental respect, no natural affection, no mitigation in the natural virulence of its rancor.”
Bram Stoker’s son, Irving Stoker (1879-1961), reading these passages like
Imagine if you will a complete inversion of a boorish American on St. Patrick’s Day. Imagine an Irishman who aggressively celebrates the Fourth of July with unabashed gusto, who desperately tries to claim the significance of some alleged 1/32 American heritage, who wears a shirt with an eagle turning into an American flag and who drinks a specialty red, white, and blue novelty beverage until he collapses in a pool of tricolor vomit. Imagine some guy so invested in a superficial, touristy version of Americaness that he will nervously call the side with his $20 “authentic” hamburger “freedom fries” out of fear of offending. Imagine a guy who upon meeting any American will try to strike up a friendly conversation by asking them what their favorite gun is and talking about how personally inspiring he finds Abraham Lincoln.
You must understand, as you prepare to read the May 24th entry of this novel, that this Irishman is Bram Stoker.
