Gothic Tradition in Stoker’s Dracula In Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula, Stoker uses a setting of Count Dracula’s castle in Transylvania. The novel is set in England in the late 1800’s. The Victorian Age and the era and myths of vampires helped Stoker connect the events in his story to the place and age of the novel to make Dracula even better. Bram Stoker was actually inspired to write Dracula while he was on vacation in Whitby where he felt the mood to write. There in Whitby Stoker got his use of “Dracula” from the Holy Roman Emperor “Dracul” which means a method of torture. Stoker portrays all of the themes, ideas, and elements of a classic Gothic novel. Stoker’s use of characterization is interesting. He creates the character of Mina Harker…show more content… He uses the theme of Good v. Evil. The tone of evil is mostly represented through Count Dracula himself. Whenever he comes around there is an underlying tone of evil and uneasiness which affects the novel as a whole. As for Jonathan and Mina Harker, they are an innocent young couple who bring a sort of calmness to the story after the tone of The Count is already in play. Stoker also uses the comparison of the east and the west because he believes that the east is an evil place, which Harker thinks to himself, (“It was on the dark side of twilight when we got to Blitiriz, which is a very interesting old place… it has had a very stormy exsistence and it certainly shows marks of it. P.5) The west is supposed to represent and make it to be a more calm, happy, and peaceful place. The plot of Dracula is vampires. While sick inside of Count Dracula’s castle, Lucy Westerina is bitten by a vampire and after months of research and thinking is finally diagnosed with this. Count Dracula knew what he was doing the whole time and plotted the whole thing out so he could go in search of Mina Harker, Jonathan Harker’s loved one, to England and feed upon her. The use of vampirism was perfect for the time setting of the novel in the late 18th and 19th centuries because the myth was being spread and believed by so many
