Summary:
The persona of Dracula stands for treachery, evil and undiluted negative force, which threatens to envelope the whole persona. But the author also creates good and brave men to combat Dracula, and therein lies the theme of the book.
In every novel there are always two sides of a coin - good and evil, and they are always warring with each other to achieve supremacy. In Dracula, Bram Stoker uses supernatural events and personas to show that good has always fought evil but without one the later could not exist. The persona of Dracula stands for treachery, evil and undiluted negative force, which threatens to overwhelm and envelop the whole persona. But to combat this negative force with almost supernatural powers, the author has created a whole band of good and brave men to combat Dracula, and therein lies the theme of the book.
The theme of "good versus evil" takes on a religious hue with supernatural battles between God and Lucifer. The brave band of men stands for and symbolizes God. They are God's soldiers standing for all what is good and religious. There is definitely a feel of Christianity in the novel, which is spelt out in each of the climaxes. Dracula stands for Satan, and that stands for whatever is evil and bad. He hates goodness and tries to perpetuate evil while at the same time keeping an almost charming since about himself. However despite the vampires charm and strangely enticing appearances their wickedness could not be hidden from the band of men. Even beautiful Lucy, when she becomes a vampire, is hated by this band of men, despite the fact they were in love with her before. This is clearly a battle between the two most significant supernatural beings in the Christian Faith. For each of the climaxes where the vampires Lucy or Dracula are killed, the crucifix plays a major role. The evil forces are scared of the crucifix; they cover at the very sight of it, for it represents God and all that is good and pure. The Devil hates what it represents so it tries to remove all signs of it. Even After Lucy died, Van Helsing placed "a small golden crucifix over her mouth" in attempts to save her soul. (Stoker p162) When she turns into a vampire, the crucifix is one of the weapons the men used. Even in the killing of Count Dracula, the holy circle is used to trap him into the circle of good, so that he does not escape from the holy circle. Even Mina, who is one of Dracula's victims and "tainted by his blood", is unable to enter the holy circle until the men vanquish Count Dracula. (Stoker p322)
During the time Bram Stoker, the author, wrote Dracula, the theme of good verses evil was very prevalent and as a theater critic, he knew there was no other surefire success formula as the theme of good versus evil. So he created a persona with very negative instincts, who was supernaturally strong and powerful. He created the persona almost akin to the epic poems heroes, but here his persona was evil with supernatural powers. However, instead his heroes were ordinary men, brave but not so extra- ordinary. However, all six of them together represented crusaders battling demons in order to save the world from the onslaught of evil.
The theme of good versus evil is the theme on which the entire novel is based on. This is made obvious to use by every character with the help of personas as well as every event as supernatural and strange as they are.
This is the complete article, containing 564 words
(approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page).
