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.
Between The Leaves 