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32. Bram Stoker, Dracula (1897)

  • Susanne Scholz
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Handbook of the English Novel, 1830–1900
This chapter is in the book Handbook of the English Novel, 1830–1900

Abstract

This chapter discusses Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) as a symptomatic narrative articulating the cultural anxieties and political fears of late Victorian Britain. Read against the backdrop of the Eastern question on the one hand and mass culture and urbanisation on the other, the figure of the Transylvanian vampire count serves as a projection screen for fears of reverse colonisation, invasion, contagion, and miscegenation. The heroes who fight against this menace enrol all available technologies of modernity, science, media, communication, and transport, in order to protect the ‘racial’ and sexual purity of the inhabitants of the motherland against this corrupting invader from the East. The article traces the cultural discourses feeding into the novel, such as evolution theory, degeneration, urbanisation, hygiene, gender anxiety, and also looks at the various genres and aesthetic strategies such as travel journal, romance, melodrama, fantastic tale, detective story, and medical case narrative, which are woven into this complex multiperspectival narrative. Since Dracula is an extremely successful Gothic figure with a long afterlife both in critical appreciation and as a cultural icon, the article follows the main strands of its critical reception in the light of psychoanalysis, gender studies, media studies, and historical discourse analysis; it also briefly touches upon the serial figure of the vampire count in the actualisations and media adaptations of the 20th and 21st century.

Abstract

This chapter discusses Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) as a symptomatic narrative articulating the cultural anxieties and political fears of late Victorian Britain. Read against the backdrop of the Eastern question on the one hand and mass culture and urbanisation on the other, the figure of the Transylvanian vampire count serves as a projection screen for fears of reverse colonisation, invasion, contagion, and miscegenation. The heroes who fight against this menace enrol all available technologies of modernity, science, media, communication, and transport, in order to protect the ‘racial’ and sexual purity of the inhabitants of the motherland against this corrupting invader from the East. The article traces the cultural discourses feeding into the novel, such as evolution theory, degeneration, urbanisation, hygiene, gender anxiety, and also looks at the various genres and aesthetic strategies such as travel journal, romance, melodrama, fantastic tale, detective story, and medical case narrative, which are woven into this complex multiperspectival narrative. Since Dracula is an extremely successful Gothic figure with a long afterlife both in critical appreciation and as a cultural icon, the article follows the main strands of its critical reception in the light of psychoanalysis, gender studies, media studies, and historical discourse analysis; it also briefly touches upon the serial figure of the vampire count in the actualisations and media adaptations of the 20th and 21st century.

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Editors’ Preface V
  3. Contents VII
  4. 0. Metamorphoses in English Culture and the Novel, 1830–1900: An Introduction 1
  5. Part I: Systematic Questions
  6. 1. Science and the Victorian Novel 23
  7. 2. Remediating Nineteenth-Century Narrative 51
  8. 3. God on the Wane? The Victorian Novel and Religion 71
  9. 4. Genres and Poetology: The Novel and the Way towards Aesthetic Self-Consciousness 87
  10. 5. The Art of Novel Writing: Victorian Theories 107
  11. 6. Victorian Gender Relations and the Novel 121
  12. 7. Empire – Economy – Materiality 149
  13. Part II: Close Readings
  14. 8. Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus (1833–1834) 173
  15. 9. Benjamin Disraeli, Sybil, or The Two Nations (1845) 189
  16. 10. Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (1847) 205
  17. 11. Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights (1847) 221
  18. 12. Anne Brontë, Agnes Grey (1847) 237
  19. 13. William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair (1847–1848) 253
  20. 14. Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, Mary Barton (1848) 273
  21. 15. Charles Kingsley, Yeast: A Problem (1851) 289
  22. 16. Charles Dickens, Bleak House (1853) 305
  23. 17. Anthony Trollope, Doctor Thorne (1858) 321
  24. 18. Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Lady Audley’s Secret (1862) 337
  25. 19. Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) 351
  26. 20. Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone (1868) 367
  27. 21. Edward Bulwer-Lytton, The Coming Race (1871) 381
  28. 22. George Eliot, Middlemarch (1871–1872; 1874) 397
  29. 23. George Meredith, The Egoist (1879) 415
  30. 24. Walter Pater, Marius the Epicurean (1885) 431
  31. 25. Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) 445
  32. 26. Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) 461
  33. 27. Sarah Grand, The Heavenly Twins (1893) 479
  34. 28. George Moore, Esther Waters (1894) 495
  35. 29. Mona Caird, The Daughters of Danaus (1894) 511
  36. 30. Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure (1895) 529
  37. 31. H. G. Wells, The Time Machine (1895) 547
  38. 32. Bram Stoker, Dracula (1897) 565
  39. 33. Henry James, What Maisie Knew (1897) 581
  40. 34. Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim (1900) 597
  41. 35. Rudyard Kipling, Kim (1900–1901) 613
  42. 36. Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh (1903) 629
  43. Index of Subjects 645
  44. Index of Names 659
  45. List of Contributors 675
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110376715-033

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Editors’ Preface V
  3. Contents VII
  4. 0. Metamorphoses in English Culture and the Novel, 1830–1900: An Introduction 1
  5. Part I: Systematic Questions
  6. 1. Science and the Victorian Novel 23
  7. 2. Remediating Nineteenth-Century Narrative 51
  8. 3. God on the Wane? The Victorian Novel and Religion 71
  9. 4. Genres and Poetology: The Novel and the Way towards Aesthetic Self-Consciousness 87
  10. 5. The Art of Novel Writing: Victorian Theories 107
  11. 6. Victorian Gender Relations and the Novel 121
  12. 7. Empire – Economy – Materiality 149
  13. Part II: Close Readings
  14. 8. Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus (1833–1834) 173
  15. 9. Benjamin Disraeli, Sybil, or The Two Nations (1845) 189
  16. 10. Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (1847) 205
  17. 11. Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights (1847) 221
  18. 12. Anne Brontë, Agnes Grey (1847) 237
  19. 13. William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair (1847–1848) 253
  20. 14. Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, Mary Barton (1848) 273
  21. 15. Charles Kingsley, Yeast: A Problem (1851) 289
  22. 16. Charles Dickens, Bleak House (1853) 305
  23. 17. Anthony Trollope, Doctor Thorne (1858) 321
  24. 18. Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Lady Audley’s Secret (1862) 337
  25. 19. Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) 351
  26. 20. Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone (1868) 367
  27. 21. Edward Bulwer-Lytton, The Coming Race (1871) 381
  28. 22. George Eliot, Middlemarch (1871–1872; 1874) 397
  29. 23. George Meredith, The Egoist (1879) 415
  30. 24. Walter Pater, Marius the Epicurean (1885) 431
  31. 25. Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) 445
  32. 26. Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) 461
  33. 27. Sarah Grand, The Heavenly Twins (1893) 479
  34. 28. George Moore, Esther Waters (1894) 495
  35. 29. Mona Caird, The Daughters of Danaus (1894) 511
  36. 30. Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure (1895) 529
  37. 31. H. G. Wells, The Time Machine (1895) 547
  38. 32. Bram Stoker, Dracula (1897) 565
  39. 33. Henry James, What Maisie Knew (1897) 581
  40. 34. Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim (1900) 597
  41. 35. Rudyard Kipling, Kim (1900–1901) 613
  42. 36. Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh (1903) 629
  43. Index of Subjects 645
  44. Index of Names 659
  45. List of Contributors 675
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