An Empire of Vampires: Dracula’s Quest for Souls
A terrifying story of classic horror and blood-thirsty vampires, Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a classic novel that has been analyzed countless times over the course of many years ever since its composition in 1897 (Study World). Authors such as Richardson, Schaffer, and Doyle have reviewed Dracula and have come to the conclusion that behind these pages filled with fear and superstition lays a world of alternate meanings. I too, have reached this verdict after completing the book and conducting extensive research concerning the text and the historical context of Victorian-era England. Although Stoker has successfully built a world filled with vampires and bloodlust, I argue that through literary analysis Dracula is a metaphor for expansion, empire, and an ancient fear of being conquered represented by fantasy-like sexuality.
To start, one must understand the homeland the Count hails from in Transylvania, as it serves as a home base for his invasion plan and tells of his background. Early in the text, Dracula gives a racial speech to Jonathan Harker explaining the bloodied past of his place of origin. He talks of his ancestors and how they defended and defeated the Turks, the Bulgar, and several others in the land of his birthplace (36). His homeland’s soil is soaked in ancient blood from warfare and conquest. Dracula’s entire ancestry has had a long history of bloodlust and destruction, and that same blood courses through his veins, which hints at the conqueror inside of him. The land also has links to sexuality, as it has been ravaged by countless invaders and has been tainted. Such was the fear of sexuality in the Victorian-era: the fear of losing a woman to deviant sexuality (Richardson). The land represents the home, or ‘motherland’, while the invaders and defenders represent the warring factions that are fighting to protect, or forcefully enter the home. If one was to think on sexual terms, the land has been pillaged, plundered, and essentially ‘raped’ as all that remains of a once beautiful landscape is nothing but beaten houses and is left in ruins. Even Dracula’s castle has been affected by the constant warring, as it is described to be old, beaten, and overall eerie (20). The land plays two roles, that of sexuality and of empire. The land is torn by warfare, as it is still physically strained after the empire has finally been secured by the Count and his family, but has also been stripped of its longevity; it has been conquered and laid to waist.
Dracula’s lair continues to serve as a home base for operations, as he draws his plan to leave Transylvania and go to England and claim a new region as his own through conquest. This is hinted in the text when Jonathan Harker, an English solicitor, is sent to aid the Count in his move to the United Kingdom, and describes Dracula’s library in great detail. Harker states, “A table in the center was littered with English magazines and newspapers…The books were of the most varied kind – history, geography, politics, political economy, botany, geology, law – all retaining to England and English life and customs and manners” (26). The reader at first may suspect that Dracula’s stockpile of English literature is normal for one who is about to move from another country to the United Kingdom. One may say he has readings from history to law to better understand his new area of living. However, underneath the seemingly innocent books lays a deeper, darker intention. I analyzed this passage as Dracula’s main source of information for his plans of invasion. This is proved by Harker again, as he states, “There were even such books of reference as the London Directory, the ‘Red’ and ‘Blue’ books, Whitaker’s Almanac, the Army and Navy lists, and, it somehow gladdened my heart to see it – the Law list” (26). Not only does the Count have almost every single conceivable book on the English way of life, but he has it down to the very bone. Not
