ABRAHAM STOKER

• An Irish novelist and an amazing short story writer. He attended Trinity College, he also studied mathematics and when he was a business manager for the world – famous Lyceum Theatre in London, he started to write a lot of sensational novels and stories, which later were published in magazines.He married the twenty-year-old Florence Balcombe, winning her hand from her other suitor, a young Irish playwright called Oscar Wilde.He travelled a lot in America and Canada.Reading Romanian history, he was influenced a lot by the personality of “Vlad the Impaler”andalso by Transylvanian superstitions and folklore, which made him to write the “Dracula” legend, published in May,1897. He died in April 1912 in London, survived by his wife and only one child, Noel.

The title

“Dracula” is a metaphorical title,

which means the son of the dragon,

has a strong connection with the

story, because the story is about

Count Dracula, the most cruel

vampire of all the times from

Tansylvania.

Plot Structure

This story is told through diaries entries, newspaper articles and personal letters.

• SETTING comprises a brief description of the courtyard of the Count’s castle:” May 5th In the gloom the courtyard looked of considerable size, and as several dark ways led from it under great round arches it perhaps seemed bigger than it really is.”

“I stood close to a great door, old and studded with large iron nails, and set in a projecting doorway of massive stone.”

Rising action

The author describes Johnathan uneasy feelings, caused by that strange place, who was a young solicitor on the way to Transylvania to give information to the Count Dracula about his new estate in London.

The door was opened by a tall old man, with a white moustache, and all dressed in black.The author introduces Dracula’s character as an wonderful host, who even carried Johnathan’s

luggage and comfort the guest. He spoke an excellent English, but he never smoke or dined with Johnathan, just chatted till the morning, before the crow of the cock.

There is also the physical description of the Count Dracula:”His face was a strong – a very strong – aquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly

arched nostrils; with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples, but profusely elsewhere. His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth; these protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years. For the rest, his ears were pale and at the tops extremely pointed; the chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm though thin. ”

“His hands had seemed rather white and fine, but seeing now them close to me, I could not but notice that they were rather coarse – broad, with squat fingers.Strange to say , there were hairs in the centre of the palm. ”

“It may have been that his breath was rank, but a horrible feeling of nausea came over me, which, do what I do, I could not conceal.”

Johnathan Harker

There is given the description of Johnathan from the letter of agent Peter Hawkins: “ a young man, full of energy, talent in his own way, discreet, silent.”

He spent all the time in Dracula’s library, he couldn’t walk through the castle, because all the doors were locked and, many times he was stopped by the appearance of Count

Dracula in a not appropriate moment.Theyspoke a lot about the new house of Dracula in London, which looked more than an old

chapel from the medieval times.

CLIMAX

The climax is when Johnathan was shaving in front of his shaving-glass and heard Count’s voice:”Good Morning” behind him, but there was no reflection of Count Dracula in the mirror, except Johnathan’s.

The evil qualities are brought upin the following situation:”When Count saw my face…”, because Johnathan’s blood was trickling over his chin, “his eyes blazed with a sort of demoniac fury, and he suddenly made a grab at my throat.”

FALLING ACTION

But his fury passed when his hand touched the Johnathan’s crucifix. Then, the Count Dracula, with his terrible hands openned the heavy window and threw out the shave-glass, which was a wretched thing for him.there were no mirrors in his castle.

Denouement

The story ends, how Johnathan had his breakfast again alone and he came to the conclusion that he was a prisoner: “The castle is a veritable prison and I am a prisoner!”

There were no chance of escape, because all the doors were locked and the castle was built on the corner of great rock.

The main idea is do not judge by appearance.

• The themes:

Emigration, because Count Dracula was looking for more human bodies in another place.

Obsession, his obsession for sucking the blood of living people.

• The message is to avoid peculiar people and to survive in this world full of unexpected events and unpredictable moments of our life.

Conflicts

• EXTERNAL

The conflict between Count Dracula and Johnathan, who was feeling as a toy in the hands of Dracula.

• INTERNAL

The conflict inside of Count Dracula, who was fighting with his obsession for blood and desire for having a house in London.

STYLISTIC DEVICESMETONYMY:”wolves – children of the night”;

ENUMERATION:”to share its life, its change, its death and all that makes it what it is”;

DIRECT METAPHOR:” The castle is a veritable prison…”

METAPHOR:”bright voluptuousness of much sunshine”;

EPITHETS:”sparklings waters;””preternatural shrilness”;”prodigious help”.

DETACHMENTS:”Presently, with an excuse, he left me…”;”Moreover, the walls of my castle are broken…”;”It is not, however, visible from the grounds…”

REPETITION:”We are in Transylvania; and Transylvania is not England; our ways are not your ways…”;”But I am not in heart to describe beauty, for when I had seen the view I explored further; doors,doors,doors everywhere, and all locked and bolted.”

INTERJECTIONS:” But,alas!”;”Aha!”

POLYSYDENTON:”When I came in, he cleared the books and papers from the table; and with him I went into plans and deeds and figures of all sorts.”

CONCLUSION

The legendary horror novel DRACULA never will be forgotten

and will remain the subject of many movies, because a masterpiece

never disappears.