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Mortality – The Fear Of Count Dracula
Throughout the gothic horror novel Dracula, the author Bram Stoker uses Count Dracula to signify that weaknesses and struggles are often shown in the face of your own mortality. As shown by Stoker, the diaries and journals written by the main characters, such as Jonathan Harker, John Seward, and Van Helsing, displays their emotions, thoughts, and experiences which showcases Dracula’s dread of his demise. John Seward finds Mina sucking the blood of Count and mentions in his diary the longing of Dracula, “the hellish look… with devilish passion”. The readers see in the novel that Dracula’s ambition and his seek for blood prevents himself from mortality. For him to exist with the lifestyle he chooses to, he must eat or have blood at all times because the more blood he drinks, the younger and closer in age he appears, causing him to believe he lives on forever. Jonathan discovers Dracula’s route out of the castle after waiting and expecting for him to leave and says, “he had on the suit of clothes which I had worn”. Jonathan’s journal passage reveals that he takes and wears Jonathan’s clothes to disguise himself when walking through town without getting recognized as Dracula to get blood. He desperately needs blood to even have to impersonate Jonathan to escape from what he fears, passing.
At the point when Jonathan Harker and his companions approach, search, and discover the boxes of Earth in the chapel, Harker states, “all the ills of mortality… pungent, acrid smell of blood”. From Jonathan Harker’s journal entry, one notices that the smell coming from Dracula, the monster, tends to attach to the place he ends up in, making his cravings worse. The cravings he builds up guides him discover his vulnerability of dying because he smells it wherever he goes, the scent gets carried with others including Dracula himself. While Jonathan Harker discovers that he remains captive in the castle of Dracula, he says, “Count whilst I am so absolutely in his power”. Reading his journal, one can tell that Dracula intends to expand the undead curse all across London. He starts by intending to conquer one, Jonathan Harker, then all over the globe, while trying to maintain the authority in his hands at all costs so that no one overpowers him and ends up dying.
Van Helsing informs John Seward that Dracula seems to be immortal when he claims, “They can not die… adding fresh victims and multiplying the evils of the globe”. He starts controlling an individual and gradually with others until he overtakes all of England because he always demands power and authority over anything. From Van Helsing’s announcement towards Dr. Seward, one indicates that Dracula understands that people may fear the invasion of England, the people’s worry of other values making his voyage into world domination so he does not face death. Dracula becomes frightened, experiences his suffering, and fears he will eventually face death. He acknowledges that he requires blood to be capable and strong enough to overcome anything and intends to remain young, live much longer and not own his fear of death. The letters, journals, and diaries from the main characters of Dracula demonstrate that Dracula fears to die and not having power over the world. His character tends to be put off to the side so one does not see much of his thoughts and experiences, but when you see his actions from other perspectives, like Jonathan, he’s doing things to escape mortality.
Works Cited
- Stoker, Bram. “Dracula.” Dracula, Planetebook. www.planetebook.com/free-ebooks/dracula.pdf. Web. 17 Sep. 2019
- Wikipedia contributors. ‘Dracula.’ Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 21 Sep. 2019. Web. 18 Sep. 2019
