and Religion
Stoker’s Dracula contains a lot of religious elements. Some that are controversial and others that show how God is more powerful than evil vampires. Palifi’s article From Demon to God: The Evolution of the Vampire in Literature explores religion in Dracula. Christians helped to bring about the myth of vampirism since the Christian religion was ready to protect people against vampires. Palifi quotes Stoker when describing Dracula himself, “with a red light of triumph in his eyes, and with a smile that Judas in hell might be proud of” (Palifi 11). In this quote there is reference of one of the disciples, Judas who betrayed Jesus and who he would be proud and approve of the sinister and sly smile of Dracula. This basically indicates that Dracula is comparable to the devil and since Judas betrayed Jesus he is condemned to hell where the vampires belong. Dracula is an immortal and godless creature whose life is prolonged every time he drinks human blood. A comparison can be made here with the fact that Christians eat the body of Christ (bread) and drink the blood of Christ (wine) to sustain eternal life in the Lord’s kingdom. So when Dracula feeds off of humans he gains eternal life as being a vampire.
Dracula's sly grin and stare.
Dracula is represented as a God-like figure in Stoker’s book. The character Renfield “believes the Count, whom he calls master, to be some kind of deity promising immortality and salvation” (Palifi 13-14). Renfield looks up to Dracula as being the almighty one and his saviour. Palifi makes an intersting point in finding a comparison of Dracula in Stoker’s book to that of the devil. Dracula says, “all these lives will I give you, ay, and many more and greater, through countless ages, if you will fall down and worship me!” (Palifi 14). Dracula believes that he himself is high and mighty and should be worshipped by those around him. In Chapter Four of Saint Matthew’s gospel, Satan tried to tempt Christ with things from the material world by saying, “All these things I will give thee if thou will fall down and worship me” (Palifi 14). So here Dracula is compared to being like Satan, showing how any vampire for that matter possess the qualities of the Devil, the utmost evil creature. Another example how Dracula is compared to Christ is that he is seen a being the “resurrected Christ”. In Christian beliefs, Jesus was resurrected on the third day. In Stoker’s book the character Lucy, her human death and her resurrection and transition into a vampire took approximately three days (Palifi 15). This similarity would be controversial among Christian’s because the resurrection of vampires should not be so similar to that of Jesus’. Although Dracula is compared to God, ultimately he is evil. Dracula has unnatural animalistic characteristics like, "overly hairy, a cruel looking mouth, sharp white teeth , is predatory and has a heightened sense of smell" (palifi 16).. All these traits are animal-like, not to mention that vampires can transform themselves into bats. The devil is also animalistic since he can take the form of a snake and a hoofed creature.
Here is a clip of Renfield referring to Dracula as "master".
God’s power conquers all evil. Stoker illustrates in his novel how the power and goodness of Christianity and its artifacts destroys vampires. For example, the crucifix is a powerful artifact against vampires because it contains God’s power. And so this power can destroy the vampiric demon and "return the body/soul to a godly realm" (Palifi 19). The crucifix is a symbol of comfort, hope and safety (Palifi 20) so as long as it is near a vampire it will keep them away. Also in other versions of Dracula, the use of the wafer is used to ward off vampires. Van Helsing uses the wafer as another sacred tool to aid in stopping another attack on Mina, he places it on her forehead and says, “On your forehead I touch this piece of Sacred Wafer in the name of the Father, the Son…” (Herbert 109).
Here is video of Dracula shying away when Van Helsing takes out the crucifix.
Robert Latham’s article “Consuming Youth: Vampires, Cyborgs, and the Culture of Consumption” looks at how vampires can be categorized as being gay, lesbian or bisexual. For example in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the sexuality of the vampire is compared to be that of masculine and feminine characteristics, saying that the "penetrative teeth represents the masculine quality and the enveloping lips represents the feminine quality" (Latham 97). Thus creating an “erotic ambivalence” (Latham 97) which makes confusion with regards to gender roles. Also the consumption of drinking blood and biting shows examples of orality expressed in an erotic way, since Dracula consumes blood from both males and females this can be shown as being bisexual.
Here is just a clip to show how Dracula becomes lustful for blood even when it is from a man. When watching this clip, there is a sense that Dracula is almost seducing the young man, they are in a bedroom and he is giving him wine to drink as if he is trying to get him intoxicated so he can indulge in the young man's blood.