Blog #1
19th Century Vampire Folklore
How the 19th Century impacted Stoker's Dracula
Abraham Stoker, otherwise known as "Bram", was an Irish author in the late nineteenth-early twentieth century, best known for his gothic horror novel, Dracula. Although Dracula is a one of a kind work, vampires are actually not a one of a kind idea. Cultures all over the world have versions of dark and scary, blood-sucking creatures, which are all partially responsible for Bram's beloved Count Dracula, along with life in the nineteenth century itself.
Stoker was no stranger to the irishman in the nineteenth century. In fact, nineteenth century Ireland was a lot like the seventeenth century. According to Davis, the Penal Laws were enacted in Ireland after William III's victories, and lead to mass suppression among the Catholic tenants of Ireland (1). This resulted in savage violence, loss of land, persecution, and sever economic loss among the Catholics. Anglo-Irish writers began writing Agrarian novels, which all used similar plots of overcoming hatred and patriotism for their country, but over time they became a reflection of the violence taking place (1). There's no doubt Stoker would've known about the ancestral works before his own, such as Uncle Silas , Carmilla , Melmoth the Wanderer, and Memoirs of Captain Rock (1).
In a sense, Dracula has done the same as the tenants of Ireland, in which he literally commits acts of extreme violence, and bleeds his tenants and lands dry.
Dracula is also said to be a mix of agrarian, gothic, and sensation novels, in which involve unjust imprisonment, sealed rooms, secrete passages, abductions, murders, the supernatural, and a host of an evil character. Sensation novels "...set out to shock their predominantly middle-class and female readers" (1). This is all very similar to Dracula in Jonathan Harker's journal, and his experience being basically imprisoned at Castle Dracula (4). In fact, Dracula is even closer to a sensation novel because typically the horrors occur in British homes, meanwhile Dracula travels from Transylvania to attack in British homes (1).
Perhaps the closest comparison to Dracula is Le Fanu's novels of The House by the Churchyard, Uncle Silas, and Carmilla. Uncle Silas and Dracula both clearly share many details; female protagonists with differing roles then norm for women, associations with wolves and weather, characters who sense death and write letter which fail to send (1). Le Fanu's The House by the Churchyard also had very close similarities to Dracula, in which case Paul Dangerfield is described not only as a werewolf, but is also described as "...being a vampire, half-alive and half-dead." (1). This is very close to when Dracula when he jumps off the Demeter as a wolf and escapes, as well as the obviousness of Dracula being a vampire (4). Furthermore, there's actually a chapter, rather a short story, removed from Dracula because the chapter was "too close" to Le Fanu's Carmilla (1).
In a sense, Dracula has done the same as the tenants of Ireland, in which he literally commits acts of extreme violence, and bleeds his tenants and lands dry.
Dracula is also said to be a mix of agrarian, gothic, and sensation novels, in which involve unjust imprisonment, sealed rooms, secrete passages, abductions, murders, the supernatural, and a host of an evil character. Sensation novels "...set out to shock their predominantly middle-class and female readers" (1). This is all very similar to Dracula in Jonathan Harker's journal, and his experience being basically imprisoned at Castle Dracula (4). In fact, Dracula is even closer to a sensation novel because typically the horrors occur in British homes, meanwhile Dracula travels from Transylvania to attack in British homes (1).
Perhaps the closest comparison to Dracula is Le Fanu's novels of The House by the Churchyard, Uncle Silas, and Carmilla. Uncle Silas and Dracula both clearly share many details; female protagonists with differing roles then norm for women, associations with wolves and weather, characters who sense death and write letter which fail to send (1). Le Fanu's The House by the Churchyard also had very close similarities to Dracula, in which case Paul Dangerfield is described not only as a werewolf, but is also described as "...being a vampire, half-alive and half-dead." (1). This is very close to when Dracula when he jumps off the Demeter as a wolf and escapes, as well as the obviousness of Dracula being a vampire (4). Furthermore, there's actually a chapter, rather a short story, removed from Dracula because the chapter was "too close" to Le Fanu's Carmilla (1).
(2)
Disease and death also relates Dracula to other works such as F. W. Murnaw's Nosferatu, "...the vampire is accompanied to the city of Bremen by a ship full of rats that also bring the plague to the city" (3). Dracula also releases a swarm of rats against Van Helsing and Renfield has visions of rats (4). A closer look shows that rabies can be spread by both wolves and rats, and is spread through saliva. Therefore the vampire's "kiss", or bite, passes the disease along which can cause "...a bloody frothing at the mouth and bared teeth.,..a disruption of the sleep cycle leading to nocturnal habits, and heightening of the sex drive" (3). All of these can be described in Dracula, including 'nocturnal habits' by Lucy Westernra's sleep walking (4).
But there was also a great fear in the nineteenth century of the dead, in the sense of the dead attacking in New England, as well as not being dead at all. In New England in this time period, so many believed that their "...dead family members were climbing out of their graves to kill relatives that the issue was addressed by incredulous academic and reporters in journals and newspaper articles (5). In fact there were twelve documented accounts of "vampiric attacks" which spread consumption, or in other words tuberculosis (5). But int he same sense there were others afraid of being not dead. The composer Chopin had his heart cut out just as a precaution that he wouldn't be buried alive, and the Duke of Wellington remained unhurried for two months just to be on the safe side (3). Bodies were even being buried in shallow graves to ensure that if they were alive they could claw out from the earth and return from the "dead" (3).
Of course there is not a complete answer on how Stoker came up with the beloved Count Dracula, but there is suspicion on the idea of the character and the novel as a whole. Stoker was a knowledgable man, so it is possible he read and took pieces of other's nineteenth-century vampiric horrors for his own. Nevertheless, Dracula remains a classic favorite gothic horror novel, and Count Dracula remains as a favorite antagonist.
But there was also a great fear in the nineteenth century of the dead, in the sense of the dead attacking in New England, as well as not being dead at all. In New England in this time period, so many believed that their "...dead family members were climbing out of their graves to kill relatives that the issue was addressed by incredulous academic and reporters in journals and newspaper articles (5). In fact there were twelve documented accounts of "vampiric attacks" which spread consumption, or in other words tuberculosis (5). But int he same sense there were others afraid of being not dead. The composer Chopin had his heart cut out just as a precaution that he wouldn't be buried alive, and the Duke of Wellington remained unhurried for two months just to be on the safe side (3). Bodies were even being buried in shallow graves to ensure that if they were alive they could claw out from the earth and return from the "dead" (3).
Of course there is not a complete answer on how Stoker came up with the beloved Count Dracula, but there is suspicion on the idea of the character and the novel as a whole. Stoker was a knowledgable man, so it is possible he read and took pieces of other's nineteenth-century vampiric horrors for his own. Nevertheless, Dracula remains a classic favorite gothic horror novel, and Count Dracula remains as a favorite antagonist.
Work Cited
(1) Brodman, Barbara L.C., and James E. Doan. The Universal Vampire Origins and Evolution of a
Legend. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. Press, 2015.
(2) Giphy. "Dracula GIF - Find & Share on GIPHY." GIPHY, GIPHY, 22 Mar. 2018,
giphy.com/gifs/lol-scary-crazy-wprKqC8oF195u.
(3) Meehan, Paul. There Vampire in Science Fiction Film and Literature. McFarland & Company,
Inc. Publishers., 2014.
(4) Stoker, Bram, and Leslie S. Klinger. The New Annotated Dracula. W.W. Norton, 2009.
(5) Strangeremains. "The Vampire Slayings of 19th Century New England." Strange Remains, 23
Dec. 2019, strangeremains.com/2015/11/01/the-vampire-slayings-in-19th-century-new-
england/.
"Real" accounts of vampires are very interesting to me. As far as Dracula goes, much of Stoker's inspiration behind the story can be found from his notes on writing, and from whatever other sound conclusions can be drawn from it. I got into some of this in my own post, but Slavic vampires had a lot of the same calling cards as the tuberculosis "vampires" that you mentioned, except that they were reported first. In 1732, a doctor in Serbia published an account of a vampire outbreak in Medvegia, which quickly made its way around Europe in all sorts of translations, and to the hands of Stoker much later on. Slavic vampire stories, when the beasts weren't already dead, had all the calling cards of a rabies victim, as you said, which could have been very common in those societies plagued by wolves who might bite a villager or a cow, and thus infect the whole beast. Many doctors in those regions, believing in rabies AND vamprism, noted the odd connection.
ReplyDeleteWhen Britain hired German mercenaries to help fight in the Revolutionary War, they brought with them their doctors, and some of those doctors stuck around after the fighting. That was significant because German doctors had a habit of digging up people who had died of disease if it caught on in a population. Their recommendation was to burn the heart (and possibly the head or body as well) and throw the ashes into a river. So, after the war, they inevitably spread their cultural-medical knowledge to the American population. But if rabies wasn't as common in the "New World" as it was in Europe, tuberculosis was, and so they exhumed tuberculosis victims more often than rabies. Those stories persisted well into the 1800s, near the turn of the century, and there is at least 1 newspaper article pinned to Stoker's Dracula notes that dives into the details on exactly the phenomenon you are talking about.
I really like the context you bring to this subject, especially with your information on Ireland and its politics. It's clear you really researched this stuff, and you present it very well. Thank you!
I find it super interesting how Dracula relates to so many other novels, and events that were relevant in that time period. I thought the correlation of Dracula and Nosferatu with the rats was a great comparison. It was very interesting to see how then rabies and the vampires "kiss" then came into play in that correlation. I also found the "vampire attacks" to be very interesting, and I think it is quite crazy that people thought their families members were rising from the dead to attack other relatives. This blog was put together very nicely, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
ReplyDelete