Alexander Diaz
Dracula
Final Revised
ERH-205WX-02
Help Received: Dracula / Dracula Annotated Version

The Humanity of A Beast

Love, it is the very basis of our humanity. Love unites us and lets us feel for more than just our own sakes. Without love, without sympathy, without the care for others, what are we but machines built into societies framework. It is our love, our passions, our emotions that keep us grounded, that keep us who we are when everything around us crumbles. In Stokers Dracula we see many examples of this humanity, this love, in various characters throughout the book, even the ones that we as readers think cannot possibly have the ability to love or to be humane. Dracula and the people he turns, his offspring, still possess this level of humanity within them, this certain kind of love hidden behind their vampire sides. We see it in characters like Dracula himself, Lucy, and even in Mina before she was fully turned. Their souls might be blackened by this curse that have befallen them but their hearts still fight for this love they still yearn for. Stoker allows us these hidden glimpses of humanity so that we, as readers, can ponder the significance of these moments and show us a connection between his world that he writes about and the real world that he lives in. Stoker writes this novel for a reason and through Dracula we see firsthand that this reason is to show that humanity still resides within someone even after they are turned because of the powerful love they still posses for something or someone and that this love translates into real life with immigrants coming and being thought evil when all they wanted was to express their love for another.
Dracula is described to us from the very beginning as this tall, dreadful man with pale white skin and lips as red as blood. His touch is as cold as ice and his eyes fill Harker with this overwhelming repulsive feeling that he could not really describe at first. Throughout the chapters, again and again, we see examples of Dracula’s inhumane nature. We have many instances where Stoker persuades us of the evils Dracula can commit. But right when we are on the edge of our seats we see a glimpse of Dracula’s humanity. When Harker listens in on the conversation between Dracula and the three maidens, the reader catches something not seen before. Dracula says to the three maiden after being accused of never loving “Yes, I too can love; you yourselves can tell it from the past. Is it not so?” (Stoker 41). This is the first and only time Dracula verbally reveals the love he once had in the past. It is astonishing to us as readers to see these words written out because before this Dracula seems like this heartless, maniacal, evil demon who has no trace of feeling. And then suddenly he expresses compassion? Forty pages before it was almost unthinkable to imagine this beast with any emotion other than anger because we have been told how evil this monster is and yet now we see the humanity that bangs on the bars of corruption begging to be realized. Then it hits us wholly, Dracula may be this beast with powers like none other but he still yearns to be loved like anyone else. We see this in the quote when he talks to the three maidens ending it with a question “Is it not so?”. Here we see that Dracula has indeed loved before and that he tries to prove he is not some emotionless being by asking this question to the three maidens. This basic human desire is what reveals a large part about Dracula, those unsaid words that can only be read between the lines. Dracula saying how he has loved in the past and that he too can love tells us that not only has he loved someone before but that he still has the ability to love again still even as a vampire. Seeing that he has loved before, imagining his pale face express sorrow as he explains his past love, tells us that Dracula is doing things for a reason. Why did he invite Harker to his castle? Why is he moving to England? Why Lucy as his first real offspring? Why let Harker live? The answer to each brings us closer to knowing that Dracula is trying to fill a void. This curse, forced upon him long ago, has made him secluded and alone. He cannot help what he is but he can also no longer live in the shadows alone in an empty castle. Like us all, the mighty Count Dracula, behind his black armor, just wants to be loved. This also ties into Stokers hidden agenda of showing how immigrants who were thought of as invaders and evil really had a heart too. The immigrants, like Dracula, were immediately seen as a threat and incapable of loving. But like anyone else, they too were capable of this basic human trait to love.
The next instance we see of this hidden humanity is in Lucy during her final hours. Once Van Helsing has tracker Lucy down and has caught her in the act of kidnapping a child, Stoker gives us yet another glimpse into the heart of a vampire. He describes Lucy holding the child saying “With a careless motion she flung to the ground, callous as a devil, the child that up to now she had clutched strenuously to her breast” (190). It is right here when we see it, the real Lucy buried behind such a twisted version of herself. This act of affection and her choice in victims shows us that Lucy wanted kids and cared deeply for them. Yes in the same breath Lucy is also described as a devil carelessly throwing the child but this is not the side we are focusing on. What we are focusing on is the humanity that still lurks within and not the evil that has controlled her on the outside. The affection shown within those quick seconds reveals that yes Lucy still has her humanity somewhere inside her and that if not interrupted by the trespassers she would still be clutching the child to her breast like a mother does with her child. It shows us the deep maternal instinct, this natural love for kids, that still resides within Lucy. This is Lucy’s own type of love, it is the same as Dracula’s but affirmed through kids. We see that her humanity and her love cannot be hidden because there is no way for her to suppress such feelings. Her victims are kids because through her own demented eyes that is the only way she can show her love for them. This child that she “clutched strenuously to her breast” is the symbol of her love and whatever humanity remains. Her humanity may not always shine but at this very instance when she holds the child closely to her breast, for just a second, Lucy is human again. She is a woman, a mother, feeling the warm embrace of a child, a child she probably wished was her own, sorrowed over the monster she knew she had become. A vampire would not feel as such, they would not care for such weak fragile things. On page 194 we see further proof of this as Arthur drives in the stake into Lucy’s heart, ultimately killing the beast that resides within her along with Lucy herself. Stoker describes her saying “There in the coffin lay no longer the foul thing that we had so dreaded and grown to hate the work of her destruction, but Lucy as we had seen her in life, with her face of unequalled sweetness and purity”(194). It is almost as if Stoker is showing us that Lucy still had her humane side, it was just hidden behind the twisted corruption of that wicked curse. Stoker also shows in Lucy another problem that immigration caused. The women who did have relations with these evil immigrants might have also been seen as corrupted or slutty. In Lucy Stoker shows that a problem during his time was not only immigrants being thought of as evil but the women who had relations with them were also thought as corrupted and evil as well.
Finally we come to Dracula’s last victim, Mina. Although Mina never actually turned into a full vampire like Lucy or Dracula, we still saw a different perspective on these black hearted vampires we have come to know. Mina gives us this inside look from the other side of the fence that sees Dracula as the one that should be shown sorrow in this story instead of hating him for what he is. This is because Mina slowly being turned into one makes her realize that this curse is not something someone would want but something that is forced upon them. We can inference this because on page 269 Mina sympathizes with Dracula saying how he not only has this curse upon him but is hated for it by everyone even though it was not his choice. Usually Dracula is described as this hell spawn with fiery eyes and an ugly complexion only feeding on the innocent for his evil ways, but Mina is the first to finally see the truth. Stoker explains how Mina, after knowing what she is, sympathizes with Dracula instead of hating him for what he has done. She says “That poor soul who is wrought all this misery is the saddest case of all… You must be pitiful to him too.. Just think one day I too may need such pity.. and that some other like you may deny it to me” (269). Mina knows he is nothing more than a victim, like her, and that he does what he needs to do to survive. We know this because in the quote she says “Just think one day I too might need such pity and some other like you may deny it to me”. This tells us that Mina realizes that she is a victim of Dracula and that Dracula too might have been a victim of someone else but yet no one pity’s him because of his actions. Dracula is a victim of his own circumstance and somewhere deep inside Mina knows that Dracula was once too a human just like everyone else. She feels his humanity somewhere deep inside and connects with him on a spiritual level. Mina is our conduit into what it is like to be a creature of the night. We see, through her caring and her love, that humanity is not lost within the change into such a thing, it is just unseen by those who only see the blood sucking creatures they are. Stoker also, through Mina’s character, allows us to see what it was like to be sympathetic to immigrants during his time. In the story Mina is infected by Dracula and in turn she realizes that this evil isn’t the real him which could be Stoker’s way of saying that some people felt that immigrants weren’t evil and that they were people us like us. But this way of thinking was frowned upon and thought of as participating in the immigrants evil ways making people not like them such as how Mina might not be shown pity from someone else if she were to fully turn into a vampire.
The last question we must ask ourselves as readers is the what in this scenario. What is the reason Stoker had for writing his book and his characters in such a way? For me I think it was that during those times we saw an influx of immigrants into England. Obviously these immigrants came to prosper, expand, and make families of their own. I could easily see a problem with someone of a foreign nature falling in love or wanting to be with an English woman. This idea that these foreigners not only invaded their land but also took their woman could have influenced Stoker’s writings. Especially since it was looked down upon for having relations with these invaders. Dracula depicts the foreigner who continuously tries to steal peoples women but is only a victim of his own circumstance. He cannot help being a foreigner but he still searches for love. Lucy depicts a pure bread English woman who has fallen in love with a foreigner so now people view her as dirty or loose when all she really wants is love and her children. Mina represents a more progressive viewpoint on the matter giving a reflection on the people of England who thought it was not so bad for the two to mix. Stokers book, Dracula, has influenced society for decades. I’m sure that seeking the humanity in these vampires was only one way Stoker raised topics that occurred during his time. All in all, though, we can all agree that humanity, or more specifically the love we all share, will always outshine the evils of the world in the end.
Works Cited
Stoker, Bram, Nina Auerbach, and David J. Skal. Dracula: Authoritative Text, Contexts, Reviews and Reactions, Dramatic and Film Variations, Criticism. Print.