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.