Bram Stoker’s Dracula: Anti-Christian Essay, Research Paper

Bram Stoker’s Dracula: Anti-Christian

1.)

There are many ways that Bram Stoker’s Dracula can be considered Anti-

Christian by showing of Anti-Christian values and perversions of the Christian

religion. In chapter one as Jonathan Harker is traveling to Castle Dracula he

is met by several people. When he meets these people and tells them where he is

going they cross themselves along with doing several other superstiscious

actions. One of the women he meets gives him a crucifix to protect him on his

journey. This crucifix protects him when Jonathan cuts himself shaving and

Dracula lunges for his throat he stops when he sees the crucifix around Jon’s

neck. Later in the book it discusses how you can defend yourself from Dracula

and other vampires by the possession of a crucifix or practically any

consecrated item from the Christian religion can be used to save you from the

attack or presence of a vampire. For example, in the latter of the book Van

Helsing uses a Host to prevent Dracula to enter his coffin. Another time,

during the night Van Helsing and Lucy stay out near the courtyard of Castle

Dracula, Van Helsing makes a (Holy circle) with the Host to keep vampires out

and to keep Mina safe in the (Holy circle). Another time when the Host is used

as a deterrence of vampires is at the time Van Helsing and the other men are

going to leave Mina alone in the house. Van Helsing touches a Host to Mina’s

forehead and it burns into her head since she, herself, was unclean. Another

abstruction of the Christian religion would be the fact that Dracula sleeps in

a coffin and especially because the dirt in his coffin is consecrated and

Dracula, being evil, uses this ground to rest in. Dracula has several of the

powers that Christians believe no one but God could control. For instance,

Dracula can control the weather, wild or unclean animals and, he can change

form and disappear into the air. Christians believe that consuming God’s body

and blood will give them everlasting life with God in heaven. Dracula getting

life after death or living an afterlife on earth by consuming the blood of the

living to survive, build his strength, and create more followers of him in his

evil ways. By this, Dracula is relying on humans to renew his life after death

and thus not concentrating on God as the source of life. As Dracula feeds on

the blood of the living he creates followers as Jesus had disciples. Dracula

has evil ways and spreads his evil not by sexual reproduction as God meant it

to be but he takes the living and makes their lives evil destroying their souls.

As it can be said that you must let God into your heart Dracula may only enter

someone’s home unless they let him in. Throughout the book, several times,

normally while Renfield is speaking whenever he refers to God he capitalizes his

pronouns as Christians would do when referring to God. When Lucy is brought in

to the Un-Dead she rises from the dead three days after she dies as Jesus rose

from the dead on Easter Sunday. God has no beginning and no one can explain how

he came about ; there is the same idea with Dracula that he (has been) and no

one knows his beginning. God is looked at and referred to in the Bible as being

the light which symbolizes happiness or life. Dracula’s powers are limited in

the daytime, during the light, and his powers are stronger in the night, during

darkness, which symbolizes evil. In the book, Dracula moves to an old abandoned

Church not used anymore which can show that God is no longer present which

would fulfill Dracula’s purpose of spreading evil. For those reasons I think

that the book Dracula is itself Anti-Christian and that the person Dracula could

be easily considered the Anti-Christ.

2.)

The novel Dracula by Bram Stoker uses sexuality as an important part of

vampirism. The first major encounter of this is when Jonathan Harker sees the

three vampire ladies at Castle Dracula. As they walk about the room Jonathan

notices one of them and spots her lips as being ?voluptuous?, a word that can

be used to mean something that is desired. Jonathan desires these vampire women

and as she bends down to kiss him he does not suppress her from what she wants

to do, as though he is longing for her kiss. Another time in which similar to

this is during the end of the book when Van Helsing encounters the three

vampire ladies. The ladies appear the nigh Mina and Van Helsing are staying

the night outside of Castle Dracula. As they appear Van Helsing matches them

to Jonathan’s description of them, noticing their face, lips, and hair. The

next day when Van Helsing goes into the castle he is reluctant to carry out his

plans of getting rid of the vampire ladies. He is restrained from his

terrifying task by the beauty of the women, though he knows they are a curse on

the world. Another seen which depicts the sexual desires of vampirism is when

Lucy is Un-Dead. While Van Helsing, Arthur, and Dr. Seward are spending a

vigil outside Lucy’s tomb she appears and while standing there in amazement she

tries to lure Arthur to her. Vampires reproduce through the biting and sucking

of blood from someone’s neck. This is an abstruction of how reproduction of

humans is ment to come forth from sexual reproduction. Throughout the book the

Un-Dead attack the opposite of their sex. This somewhat proves that vampires

can be sexually aroused constantly which allows them to attract their victims.

These events and aspects of vampirism, therefore prove how sexuality is

important to vampirism. Part of the sexuality comes from sybolism, the laguage

(words) the book uses, and the mind of the reader or how you read the book. So,

though the book, through vampirism, can revolve around sexuality, I wouldn’t

consider it ?smutty? or ?dirty?. But, if you were reading the book to find all

the presence of sexuality in it you could possibly consider differently.

A.)

In the book Dracula by Bram Stoker, Stoker chose a person who really existed

to base his character Dracula on. This person Vlad the Impaler ( also known

as: Vlad Tepes and Dracula) gave Stoker many of the ideas on which to base

his character, Dracula. Vlad Tepes grew up in a time of war and corruption.

Vlad Tepes like his father developed a ferocious and merciless warlike

personality. The resemblence of Vlad Tepes personality to that of Dracula’s

is very much similar. Dracula has an evil personality like that which Vlad

Tepes grew into.Vlad Tepes began to rule Transylvania through a time of bloody

massacreing and war. He started to torture people in his ruthless ways. Vlad

Tepes once impaled his own army on stakes. This shows the true evil and

ruthlessness Vlad Tepes practiced. It was said that he would drink blood

while watching people which he impaled on stakes die. Vlad Tepes began to be

known for this impaling and he performed it more often with enemies and thieves.

This brings another similarity of Vlad Tepes and Dracula. Dracula tortures

people when he sucks thier blood thus destroying their soul and taking it over

with evil spirits. Dracula also drinks the blood of people with a bite of the

neck like Vlad Tepes did. The monks of that time thought that Vlad Tepes was

performing God’s will in his massacres. Vlad Tepes had built several

monestsries for the Orthodox religion throughout hid life. Later though, to

marry the women he loved, he had to convert to the Catholic religion. When he

did, the people he ruled concidered him an Anti-Christ because he deserted them

as though he didn’t care of his religiln. Dracula, having so many Anti-

Christian qualities could also be considered an Anti-Christ like Vlad Tepes was

to his people. Stoker got the idea for Dracula’s death, where he disappears

into dust, directly from the mysterious death of Vlad Tepes. Vlad Tepes was

buried in a monestary near the front of the altar. About 450 years later people

were curious if his tomb had been raided by theives so when the people checked

his tomb there were no remains of him left. Later, they found an unidentified

skeleton burried near the entrance of the monestary. The skeleton was then sent

to a museum where it vanished misteryously. Those are the reasons why I think

Stoker decided to chose Vlad the Impaler for his character Dracula. I, myself,

think Stoker chose a good person (not litterally, for his uses in the book) to

base the book Dracula for several reasons. First of all, they both were called

by the same name Dracula which means ?devil?. Also, they both have had some of

the same life expirences, such as, drinking blood, their deaths, and especially

their attitudes are almost identical.