Reading scholars interpret Bram Stoker’s childhood through his novels is like watching a past version of the infamous Norman Bates in the making; he has mommy and daddy issues, he gets jealous and angry, his love life’s a mess and so is his sex life, Bram Stoker simply seems to be a hot mess. Seeing as many aspects of Stoker’s background remains a mystery, scholars have no other option but to discover who Stoker is through his texts, such as Dracula (1897). Based on psychoanalytical studies made by academics as to the disturbances that occur in Stoker’s life, I propose that Stoker’s Dracula is an adaptation of himself, whilst the remainder characters represent the people involved in the events of his own upbringing. I do this work to get a better understanding as to how Bram Stoker came to develop the characters in Dracula. In this essay, I first, will begin by relating Stoker’s real life illness to ways he has adapted it into his novel, I will then go on to discuss how Stoker’s supposed relations with Henry Irving can also be seen, and how homosexual relations and heterosexual relations intertwine in the ways they are …show more content…
He supports this proposition by stating that “the original abuser in Stoker’s life, from whom our fictional Count derives, was […] a man of many positive qualities, as sexually abusive fathers frequently are,” for the sake of my argument, I do not believe that Dracula is meant to be the father figure, but rather Van Helsing as the father figure of Stoker, whom I am relating to Dracula. Not only is Van Helsing seen as a father figure to the men in the novel; Dr. Seward, Arthur, and Quincey Morris, but I also believe that he represents the actual version of Stokers abusive