7 important parts of Dracula that are often forgotten, but they are all the salt

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Thanks to the classic film adaptations, the plot of the Gothic novel "Dracula" is remembered even by those who did not know (that is, did not read the book). But many of the details are in fact mercifully out of the mind of the reader. At the same time, it was they who, perhaps, made the book so bright.

Such a novel is called "epistolary"

Remember, the heroines of Pushkin, as the teachers of literature always explained, read epistolary novels? They were a popular form in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries because they made it easier for the author to decide on the composition of the book. Epistolary means in letters or other types of notes. Not everyone remembers, but the action in "Dracula" is described mainly in the letters of the participants and excerpts from the diary.

This, by the way, makes it inconvenient for modern readers, since the letters do not imply the transmission of the dynamics of action. The novel seems too "calm" to our contemporary. But in the nineteenth century, people corresponded often, the epistolary form of the novel for them looked like an imitation of recording from an amateur camera for us, giving a sense of authenticity, and the rhythm of the narrative was familiar.

Dracula's death looks like a boon

Before his body crumbled to dust, the vampire's face finally became calm. According to English and not only legends, the dead, in the form of ghosts lingering on the ground, not only bring torment to others, but also endure torment themselves. If a vampire is also a dead man lingering on earth, why shouldn't he also rejoice at liberation from the fact that he was stuck in the world of the living when he should have been beyond the bounds for a long time? In general, killing Dracula looks like the salvation of not only humanity, but also himself. Perhaps also, Stoker, describing his death in this way, simply did not want the murderer to begin to sympathize with the tragic ending, as sometimes happened with other novels.

Violation of class boundaries

The fact that in fact in Dracula's castle he secretly worked for the coachman, for the cook, and for the maid, for a man of our time, is just a fact that emphasizes that there are no people in this castle. For example, because they are being killed or because the castle has a sinister reputation. But for a nineteenth-century reader, the scenes in which Harker realizes that the Count is serving his guest with his own hands have additional meaning. At that time a gentleman, especially with a title, could not stoop to such a thing.

As a last resort, he would hire the most bad and sluggish servant, for example, a very elderly and with health problems, ready to work for food, but he would not stoop to serving dinner every evening and taking out a night vase from under a guest's bed every morning (this detail is omitted in the novel, but anyone familiar with the realities of the time realizes that it was most likely a part of Harker's life in the castle). The count, who acts in this way according to the plot, clearly breaks the "natural boundaries" of the estate society, which means that he does not recognize them at all. Alarm bell!

Dracula is vicious, but not too attractive as a man

Of course, there is also a woman who will be seduced by a hairy palm - this is exactly how she is described by the count, which already in our time gives rise to obscene jokes. But from Dracula, which the author constantly emphasizes, smells like earth, a cellar … This is an unpleasant, at the same time damp and musty, heavy castle. He is able to dispel any charm from appearance and manners.

But the scene in which Harker's young wife Meena drinks blood from a cut in the vampire's hairy (again emphasized) chest is definitely obscene and pure. It's not just about touching someone else's skin with lips. Male hair on the chest and neck in the nineteenth century was considered so obscene and reminiscent of bed pleasures that men did not dare to appear in public with a naked neck that was not covered by a tight collar or an extensive kerchief: what if a hair peeped through? And even if he does not overlook, everyone is already accustomed to the fact that a man's chest and neck are obscene.

Dracula is not so omnipotent

For example, the graph is not very free to move. During the day, he must sleep on Transylvanian soil. He has to take her aboard a ship bound for Britain and return to the crates of earth before every dawn. In addition, his plan almost fell through, because the ship's crew was barely enough for him to feed on the way: the ship approached the shore without a single living soul on board. He also cannot enter his victim's house. For this he needs an invitation. Such restrictions are very important: evil cannot be omnipotent so as not to be like God. Many modern thrillers in the nineteenth century are therefore unimaginable.

But in the novel, Dracula knows how to turn into fog and a wolf, and not just a bat. In general, in Eastern European folklore, which Stoker was inspired by when communicating with a familiar Hungarian historian, vampires and werewolves are really weakly separable, they are often the same character.

Mina miraculously did not become a vampire after Lucy

In fact, to go through the transformation to the end, the heroine only needs to die. When the consecrated wafer was pressed to her forehead, a burn remained on the skin. But the death of Dracula was able to save her - Mina remained human. And all because the blood of his heart she drank bound them in a mystical way, including telepathy. During the hypnosis sessions, Mina told where Dracula is now, what is happening around him, and this allowed the hunters to waste no time following the vampire.

The novel is overflowing with trendy and ultra-modern features

What for us is a cute picture of antiquity, for contemporaries looked like a thriller with the most relevant gadgets and techniques. So, hypnosis was in great fashion, great hopes were pinned on it in terms of treating the sick and correcting criminals in the future - and in the novel they resort to it. Dracula's victim is being treated with blood transfusions, an advanced medical technology that has not yet even become widespread.

As for gadgets, the heroes use a typewriter - and Harker's fiancée is fluent in it, as well as a phonograph, an apparatus that records sound. Both could be found not in every middle-income family. Apart from this, Harker and Mina also possess shorthand, which allows them to exchange practically encrypted messages. By the way, Mina's skills show her as a person of modern, progressive and, it seems, emancipated. For the nineteenth century, she was the girl of the future, penetrating into the present - as if in a modern novel about Russia we saw a hacker girl with a bunch of gadgets in every pocket. In general, the heroes of the Dracula novel are damn cool and modern … for their time.

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