Stoker's Dracula And The Smell Of A Vampire

The combined pain and pleasure of a vampire’s bite sends a tremor down the victim’s spine and a trail of blood down her neck onto her nightgown. In the article Stoker’s DRACULA by Wayne Hensley, he discuses the omission of the overpowering odor from a vampire has been the reason why vampire narratives have survived. Hensley provides an example of how the smell of the vampire has been omitted or spoken about in a less irritating way to get the audience more interested in vampire narratives. Hensley presented a survey in his article where young American women were presented with various smells in a romantic setting. and the results were that the various smells were noticed by the young women regardless of the environment (90). This finding made Hensley question why Mina and Lucy did not notice the smell when Jonathan express his reaction towards the smell (90). Hensley concludes that the power of the vampire is …show more content…
Vampire narratives have done their best to exclude the one thing that is important to the vampires to pick out its victims and also the people around to notice that something or someone with a ghastly smell has passed by. Although this allow the readers of vampire narrative to not pick up on the fact that a vampires is present thus creating suspense in the readers increasing their interest in the story. However, the mention of the smell could prove to show how powerful the vampire could be. Especially the power of hypnosis, the possibility of the odor of the vampire mentioned once and brought upon the notice of the vampire who is hunting for a prey. the smell not being mentioned again in the story reveals the vampire’s power to compel not just its victims but also a crowd, to hide it’s presence. The weaknesses of the vampire narrative is what authors can use to strengthen the story of the vampires and increase the suspense of the audience and also their