Even the name of the title character is an allusion to a historical event. Count Dracula is named after Vlad III (Vlad the Impaler), whose father was knighted 'Dracul' (dragon) by the King of Hungary. Because of his father's name and position, Vlad III was called 'Draculea' (son of Dracul).
In Dracula, wild animals, such as bats and wolves, are used to symbolize insatiable appetites for evil. The bat seeps into the subconscious, while the more blatant wolf inspires instant terror, but both are destructive.
Of the plethora of fictional monsters, it is Dracula who most concisely presents to us a metaphor of hu- man evil distilled to its most insidiously perfect form. Dracula can help us understand the monsters we meet in every- day life disguised as everyday people.
Joking aside, while Dracula is a fictional character from a Bram Stoker novel, the widely popular character is inspired by a real-life Walachian Prince. His name is Vlad Tepes, Vlad the Impaler or Vlad Dracul the III, and his own life is in part the stuff of legends.
This imagery includes references to and descriptions of the crucifix, blood, sacred wafer, and holy circle that are used to eventually kill vampires. Because Dracula is a story of good and evil with religious undertones, Bram Stoker uses imagery to help the reader feel more connected to the story and the characters.
How did Dracula become the world's most famous vampire? - Stanley Stepanic
What is the allusion of Dracula?
Even the name of the title character is an allusion to a historical event. Count Dracula is named after Vlad III (Vlad the Impaler), whose father was knighted 'Dracul' (dragon) by the King of Hungary. Because of his father's name and position, Vlad III was called 'Draculea' (son of Dracul).
Dracula is in large part a Christian allegory, a narrative in which symbols are used to communicate a theme or message. It presents a dramatic conflict between good and evil. The demonic Dracula has the power of shapeshifting, extreme strength, immortality, and the ability to damn souls by turning people into vampires.
Dracula poses the threat of literally contaminating local bloodlines with a foreign influence, and this threat reveals a deep-seated fear of outsiders gaining power and using it for evil means.
The name Dracula means “son of Dracul.” In the Romanian language today, dracul means “the devil”—drac is “devil,” ul is “the”—but it is derived from the Latin dracō, “dragon.” (Dragons have been historically associated with Satan, hence the evolution.)
However the fictional character, created by author Bram Stoker, was in fact based on a real historical figure called Vlad the Impaler. Vlad the Impaler, also known as Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, was a 15th-century warlord, in what today is Romania, in south-eastern Europe.
Count Dracula is depicted as the "King Vampire", and can control other vampires. To punish Mina and the party for their efforts against him, Dracula bites her on at least three occasions.
Blood in Bram Stoker's Dracula symbolizes at least three different concepts: an essential life force for humans and vampires, the antithesis of the blood of Christ (a Christian religious symbol), and sexual desire, intercourse, and reproduction.
Stoker's Dracula is not a direct illustration of the exploitative relationship between capital and labour. Rather it represents the class struggle between the capitalist bourgeois and the character of Dracula as a monopolist who controls a large portion of the market.
Bram Stoker's 'Dracula' can be interpreted as a text that explores the social anxieties of Victorian society. The future of Britain was uncertain as the social hierarchy became challenged as women's rights changed, mass education was introduced, science developed and Britain faced issues with its empires.
Perhaps the most central theme in "Dracula" is the battle between good and evil. Count Dracula represents pure evil, while characters like Van Helsing and Jonathan Harker embody goodness and virtue. The novel pits these forces against each other in a struggle for dominance.
Count Dracula is the antagonist of Dracula. He is motivated by the need to feed on the blood of others, especially young women. He desires to spread his power beyond his Transylvanian castle by invading England and creating more vampires.
Van Helsing describes him as '… strong in person as twenty men, he is of cunning more than mortal…he is brute, and more than brute, he is devil in callous, and the heart of him is not,…' Dracula's brutal strength, callous lack of care for others, and heartlessness are what make him so evil.
His name had its origin in the sobriquet of his father, Vlad Dracul ("Vlad the Dragon" in medieval Romanian), who received it after he became a member of the Order of the Dragon. Dracula is the Slavonic genitive form of Dracul, meaning "[the son] of Dracul (or the Dragon)".
In the worldwide masterpiece Dracula, Stoker uses religious, mythical, and archetypical allusions to depict Dracula as a peculiar and distinct creature as well as providing social commentary for current problems during the late Victorian era. Dracula is seen as the evil mastermind and the villain in archetypal terms.
Dracula has been interpreted as an expression of anxiety about eastern Europeans invading western Europe, as represented by a Transylvanian who arrives in London and terrorizes its residents.
Early editions of Dracula have dramatic yellow covers and blood-red text. For 19th-century readers, Dracula's yellow cover signaled something about it's contents. Yellow was associated with novels featuring racy and controversial content.
Count Dracula is the first character to come to mind when people discuss vampires. Dracula succeeded by drawing together folklore, legend, vampire fiction and the conventions of the Gothic novel. Wendy Doniger described the novel as vampire literature's "centrepiece, rendering all other vampires BS or AS".
