Where Did Dracula Come From?

Lucy Westenra is a vampire of Dracula’s making. By his persistent feeding on her over time she became corrupted and eventually became the Undead. The inevitable question of what made Dracula is revealed in the final pages of the novel by Van Helsing who recalls seminars held in ‘Buda-Pesth’.

In the rising age of science there was an air of discomfort about the disregard for the previous school of thought: Religion. Some people feared that by turning away from religious practice and engorging oneself on knowledge, one became corrupted.

In the beginning of the Bible, Eve is tempted by the serpent and on eating the ‘apple’ she becomes aware. Her self-knowledge causes her to become tainted in the eyes of God and she is cast out. Ever since humans have been doing whatever they can to get back … or so the story goes anyhow.

Gothic novels around the era of early science (post-Newton) have a recurring theme of associating too much scientific knowledge with ease of corruption. In Dracula, Van Helsing notes the intellect of Dracula and how it surpassed his contemporaries. He states: “… and there was no branch of knowledge of his time that he did not essay. Well, in him the brain powers survived the physical death…” (p. 335)

Van Helsing suggests that Dracula’s intellect was so powerful it managed to overpower death; synonymous with the power of God who can supposedly choose who lives and who dies. This disregard for God’s will is reminiscent of the rebellious angel, more commonly known as Satan.

Dracula was, then, the first vampire. The first of many as they continue to breed and evolve throughout literature alongside evolutions and variations in culture. In more modern novels the vampire adapts to remain in the decadent side of nature as science has become a part of accepted practice alongside (arguably overshadowing) religion.

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Dislocation in the East

The beginning of Dracula sets out to dislocate the reader from what they are familiar with. Away from the dusty cosmopolitan streets of London, improbable things begin to happen.

Firstly there is the superstitious regard the locals show towards the Castle. Superstition is a more medieval attitude towards things we cannot understand. In an era of logic and the ‘Age of Reason’, the reaction of the locals to Jonathan Harker’s attempts to reach the castle seems absurd. Harker disregards them and continues on his errand, putting their behaviour down to foreign culture. This propels Harker into a dangerous situation that he possibly would not have encountered if someone had given him a more reasonable reason not to approach the Count.

Dracula himself highlights the abyss between English and Transylvanian culture. He studies the English culture very thoroughly and invites Harker to inform him on the subtleties one cannot gain from a textbook. Dracula’s desire to fit in with English culture is reminiscent of a tourist who wishes to fit in and experience a foreign culture from an insider’s perspective. However, Dracula’s motive for this studious nature is somewhat more malicious than pure interest in culture.

Seeing Dracula’s attempt to recreate English culture in his Transylvanian castle further dislocates Harker and the reader as their is familiarity in unfamiliarty. This English haven should not exist so far abroad in the East where the idea of ‘Western Civilisation’ becomes more diluted. Familiarity becomes a trap where Harker is reluctant to betray his own customs in order to defend his own life.

After Harker is beset upon by monstrous entities, his mind becomes unbalanced and he is able to further rebel against his own customs and trespass in his host’s property. The more he discovers about the illusion of ‘home away from home’ the more he realises he has been tricked and is a prisoner. When he eventually he manages to escape he is derranged and takes a long time to recover.

If Dracula had not embraced the English culture so fully, Harker would not have so readily accepted Dracula as a gentleman. Though Dracula was a ‘nobleman’, Harker could have seen more of his true nature if he was not blinded by his own expectations of what a nobleman should be like, perpetuated by Dracula’s echo of English customs surrounding such types.

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