Dracula Social Sensitivity

Dracula Social Sensitivity

While Dracula's subject matter is disturbing, young readers today are unlikely to find the novel extremely frightening and may miss its sexual elements altogether. Depictions of violence in movies and television have produced a great difference between modern readers and Stoker's original Victorian audience. The suspense and terror which mark Dracula's finest passages depend on the reader's imagination rather than graphic descriptions.

The sexuality in the novel is so suppressed that it may not be recognized by young readers, although it is now commonplace to find discussions of the sexual elements in critical discussions of the novel. Also, recent vampire movies, especially comedies, have exploited the sexuality inherent in the vampire legend. Even the earliest film versions focus on male vampires attacking beautiful female victims, asleep in alluring nightclothes.

What violence and sex there is in the novel is thematically important. Blood, which ties these two...
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