Literature In Dracula

Throughout history authors have used many different techniques to convey their message to readers. These techniques compliment Stoker’s work and help bring their story to life. Bram Stoker’s classic gothic romance novel Dracula, illustrates horrific actions of a count, and disturbing events that occur in Transylvania. Many literary techniques are used to emphasize Stoker’s works. Literary devices such as sensual imagery, gothic setting, and tone add to the decadent ghastliness in his novel.

Sensual imagery describes enhanced, grotesque effects within the novel. Jonathan’s encounter with the three beautiful seductive vampires threatens his well-being and sanity.

The fair girl went on her knees and bent over [him], fairly gloating. There was a deliberate voluptuousness, which was both thrilling and repulsive, and as she arched her neck she actually licked her lips like an animal… [He] could feel the soft, shivering touch of the lips on the supersensitive skin of [his] throat, and the hard dents of two sharp teeth, just touching and pausing there” (42).

Stoker describes the vampires as beautiful, seductive, and pale, which helps in visualization of the character. Jonathan enjoyed the female companionship and found it “both thrilling and repulsive,” causing anxiety levels to rise. Jonathan lets his guard down and becomes a puppet to the seductresses, and later susceptible to any assault. Sexual suggestion is also shown with the “Hard dents of two sharp teeth, just touching and pausing there” creating a sense of allurement set by the vampires. The corporeal imagery continues when Mina sees Lucy in the courtyard; “[T]here, on our favorite seat, the silver light of the moon struck a half-reclining figure, snowy white… [S]omething dark stood behind the seat where the white figure shone, and bent over it. What it was, whether man or beast, I could not tell” (100). Lucy is portrayed as virginal and angelic, while Dracula, dark and evil. “The white figure shone” illustrates the language used to aid insight toward women that are beautiful and saintly, while the expression, “man or beast” can be envisioned as a gloomy, pale, and even Frankenstein-like creature. Sensuality used in the novel is done so in an unnatural manner, adding to the feeling of pure malevolence, not only in the characters, but in readers as well.

The use of dark imagery, macabre language, and theme of fear adds a horrifying effect to the gothic scenery. The gruesome expression throughout the novel is used to a striking effect of suspense, and sin. The entire novel is characterized by eerie, desolate and mysterious settings that are the trademark of many gothic literatures. The setting surrounding Dracula’s castle is bleak and unforgiving. The castle is an ancient battlefield sparsely covered with trees and snow. The area is always unsettled and countless wolves inhabit the eerie forests. This uninviting setting is like a mirror into the barren soul of the demon that lives inside it. The castle however is not the only place where these unnatural proceedings occur.

All was dark and silent, the black shadows thrown by the moonlight seeming full of a silent mystery of their own. Not a thing seemed to be stirring, but all to be grim and fixed as death or fate, so that a thin streak of white mist, that crept with almost imperceptible slowness across the grass towards the house, seemed to have a sentience and a vitality of its own (179).

The “dark and silent” shadows filled with “mystery” show the unknown gloom hanging over the Transylvanian town. Terms like “grim”, “fate” and “death” is used to establish fear, and to create anxiety to the identity to the “white mist” surrounding the house. “Suddenly, I became conscious of the fact that the driver was in the act of pulling up the horses in the courtyard of a vast ruined castle, from whose tall black windows came no ray of light, and whose broken battlements showed a jagged line against the sky” (23). The ” broken battlements [that] showed a jagged line against the sky” captures the very essence of the ‘jagged’ theme of brooding evil throughout the document. The “ruined castle” represents the already deteriorated town, which had already turned to superstition to turn away the wickedness of the land. “From whose tall black windows came no ray of light” portrays the lack of hope felt by the townspeople of Transylvania. By utilizing the necessary components of a gothic novel, Stoker creates an appropriate setting to compliment not only sensual imagery, but malicious tone as well.

From the beginning of the novel, the tone has been imperative to the setting the stage for a sickening, perverse narrative. Jonathon’s travel to the counts castle is met with odd happenings.

All at once the wolves began to howl as though the moonlight had had some peculiar effect on them. The horses jumped about and reared, and looked helplessly round with eyes that rolled in a way painful to see. But the living ring of terror encompassed them on every side, and they had perforce to remain within it (23).

The horses were”[E]ncompassed on every side” symbolizing the peasants, whereas the wolves symbolize the soul of Dracula. Overall tone describes the nature of being trapped, trying to escape. “[t]he living ring of terror” shows the fear surrounding the villagers, but had the “perforce to remain within it”, continuing with their daily lives. This embodies not only the tone of that passage, but furthermore the tone set by the entire novel. The morose tone continues: The funeral was arranged for the next succeeding day, so that Lucy and her mother might be buried together. I attended to all the ghastly formalities, and the urbane undertaker proved that his staff was afflicted, or blessed, with something of his own obsequious suavity. Even the woman who performed the last offices for the dead remarked to me, in a confidential, brother-professional way, when she had come out from the death chamber (170).

This shows the constant theme and tone presenting death and grief surrounding the main characters. Terminology such as “ghastly formalities”, or “the death chamber” forces a distressed tone. This way of presenting tone not only affects the characters in the novel, but also leaves a grief-stricken tone on the reader while experiencing the events of the story.

Dracula stresses the necessity of impressions in literary to create a great gothic romanticism. Bram Stoker’s use of sensual imagery, gothic setting, and tone in his novel Dracula, adds to the overall repulsiveness of Dracula. These techniques praise the writer’s work and help bring his story to become a grisly reality. The use of language can be accounted for the effectiveness of a novel, and can equip it with the chance of catching the reader’s mind and heart.