Bram Stoker Background

Improved Essays
Not many people know of Bram Stoker but they sure do know about his works. Bram Stoker was born in Dublin Ireland, he was born on November 8, 1847. Bram Stoker was the third oldest of seven children. When Stoker was only seven years old he had an unknown disease that doctors had no cure for, he was forced to stay in bed while his brothers and sisters were out playing. When Stoker was only seventeen years of age he “entered Trinity College in Dublin”(British Writers / supplement. Vol. III. 378). When Stoker graduated from Trinity College in Dublin in 1870, he did so while having honors in history and mathematics. There is not much known about Bram Stoker’s parents other than their names and that they have one grandchild only by Bram Stoker. …show more content…
While Stoker was writing short stories he had become attracted to a young lady named Florence Balcombe. Bram and Florence decided to get married on December 4, 1878. It was only five days after they had wed they were off to Birmingham to meet actor Henry Irving. Bram Stoker had not published any of his stories until it was 1872, just a few years before he got married …show more content…
Stoker had written different types of short stories and novels, he even wrote short stories for children. “Stoker [started publishing] his stories [in] 1872, including the ‘Crystal Cup’ (1872), his first horror tale ‘The Chain of Destiny’ (1875), a collection of children’s stories Under the Sunset (1881), and his first novel The Snake’s Pass (1890), but he did not realize fame until the overwhelming success of Dracula (1897)” (victorianweb.org). Stoker was not that person who stuck to one genre. He jumped around got a feel for what he liked and when he wrote his most successful novel, Dracula, he had figured out some things that he was interested in. In the novel Dracula Stoker shows conflict with what every human person may face, good and evil. He shows how the good characters in the novel are attracted to evil, but in the end good always wins. In the novel Dracula there happens to be a lawyer who travels to Transylvania where the lawyer is almost attacked by three female vampires, but it gets suddenly interrupted by Count Dracula himself. “Stoker suggest that evil, represented by the vampires, is an almost irresistible force which requires great spiritual strength to overcome” (Beacham 's Guide to Literature for Young Adults). Stoker is suggesting that in order to overcome evil you have to have a good relationship with

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    There are a few common Gothic themes in Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula. One of the most evident themes is entrapment. Another undeniable theme in the novel is sex. Besides these two subjects, the traditional theme of good versus evil appears. These three themes are customary of Gothic literature due to their mysterious and sometimes dark nature.…

    • 720 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    (Dracula, 3.29). This novel brings to light the sexual desires both men and women were experiencing, but society wouldn’t let them express. But, Bram Stoker doesn’t stop here, the sexual actions in the…

    • 1149 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Have you ever got yourself in a tough situation? If so, what did you do or what would you do? The author of the novel “Dracula”, Bram Stoker, provides an example of how a person in a predicament should not let him or herself be engulfed by fear and helplessness; this is done through the use of characterization. When you let yourself to be overcome by fear and helplessness, your mind can not be able to think straight.…

    • 401 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, is written in a series of letters and diary entries in order to display a distortion of events. Although the diary entries of Jonathan Harker is more personal, allowing the reader to be drawn into the plot, the diary entries also includes bias. The mental state of the Harker is unstable due to his fear of Dracula and death; therefore, his diary may not portray an accurate description of what exactly happened. Words spoken as facts in the diary cannot be fully trusted and deemed credible for Harker does not know the truth of everything himself. Instead, the reader has to form their own opinion of the truth.…

    • 139 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Stoker’s choice of characters and symbols, from vampires and their victims, to marks and symptoms depict such a system. The clear antagonist, Count Dracula, is a sex figure of male domination; a part of Dracula’s body is “elongated”; with this elongated part he attacks his victims. He has an intense desire for the blood of women, a blood-lust. Whom does he target?…

    • 925 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    Although they have these differences, both works employ supernatural elements to increase the magnitude of the conflict between the good and the evil. Although both works are fine examples of the Horror genre in the 19th century, Dracula, by Bram Stoker, incorporates and develops the qualities found in most Horror works better due to its longer length and its greater use of direct, person-vs-person,…

    • 1387 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    Good Vs Evil In Dracula

    • 1388 Words
    • 6 Pages

    In the exposition of the hair-raising novel Dracula by Bram Stoker, Jonathan Harker, an English lawyer, travels to a mysterious and unknown place by the name of Transylvania. He helps a nobleman by the name of Count Dracula who wishes to purchase a house in England. Upon arrival, Harker’s suspicion about Count grows and soon comes to the realization that he is in fact a vampire. Dracula does not wish to move to London for the house but instead he has the desire to drink the blood of English people. Next up in the inciting incident, Harker escapes from Dracula’s castle and manages to flee without being killed.…

    • 1388 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In Addition, the transcendent Hero, after completing his descent into the special world must overcome challenges. But, the greatest challenge comes as the transcendent hero’s engage in the ordeal, especially through the fear of shadow, life-death crisis, and judgment. Also, only through overcoming the ordeal can the transcendent hero grow and mature. First, in Dracula by Bram Stocker, Harker’s confrontation with fear lead to the ordeal, especially through Shadow. For instance, Dracula is the representation of the shadow as he represents the characteristics of dark, shadowy, unknown and embodies chaos.…

    • 681 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Kassandra Valle Jones 1 Dracula Essay 27 December 2014 Christian Tradition in Dracula In Bram Stoker’s epistolary novel, Dracula published in 1897, Christianity is often portrayed through a positive light. Corresponding to most gothic/horror based literature books; many of them have Christian symbolism. The actions taken by the vampire Dracula are faintly similar to many features of Christianity, yet they are metaphorically/darkly misleading. If count Dracula is meant to symbolize the devil then it is Stokers’ way of saying that the evil one is resisted through the power of God.…

    • 1026 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    Gender Roles In Dracula

    • 1596 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Phenomenon of vampires is highly incorporated in today’s popular culture with a large number of books, films, and TV-series about them emerging every year. Still, many people cannot deny that Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” is an exceptional literary creation that stood at the origins of the cult of vampires. Not only did this Victorian novel, written in 1897, become a landmark piece of gothic literature, but also it defined the contemporary form and image of vampires and paved the way for multiple interpretations in modern culture. Nevertheless, “Dracula” is not just an outstanding horror fiction book. It is also a profound insight into Victorian age – a defining time in the history of the Western world, when so many cornerstones of society began…

    • 1596 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Have you ever been faced with a danger so fierce that your mind became clouded with fear? What are some thoughts you may have if you were in a situation like this? Imagine being trapped in a place with no visible way out, succumbed to intimidating surroundings. In Bram Stoker’s, Dracula, the central idea is fear. Bram Stoker demonstrates this idea by using the literary devices of conflict and point of view.…

    • 852 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Religion, even today, is a notable force in driving society’s values, actions, and beliefs - the Victorian age, in which Bram Stoker’s Dracula takes place, is no exception. In Dracula, Christianity especially was the driving force in the Victorian age in Europe, where the tale takes place. When applying the Reader Response lens, it can be concluded that the role of religion is crucial to the idea of vampires, actions of the characters, and the plot of Dracula - religion is essential crucial to the entire work of Dracula.…

    • 1018 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Supposedly based loosely on an erotic dream of Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ (1897) embodies one of the most fascinating and symbolically sexualised characters in English literature. Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ addresses Victorian anxieties regarding its women’s feminist awakening and breaking of patriarchal chains during the time and highlighted this fear in his novel. By focusing on these topics in his novel, Stoker, who was a staunch conservative Anglican and advocate of patriarchy, emphasises how women’s interests were leading to a dangerous change in the Victorian morality, and with the advent of the New Woman could hyperbolically eventuate in the complete destruction of English civilization. Throughout the Victorian period, men were becoming worried about women’s interests and what role they should play in society.…

    • 1236 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    An Analysis of Dennis Foster 's “The Little Children Can Be Bitten” Dracula by Irish author Bram Stoker is a seminal piece of Gothic horror fiction. The novel 's portrayal of an undead master (the titular character) being chased by Van Helsing and his band of vampire hunters has been consumed for over a century. Dennis Foster 's critical article “The little children can be bitten: A Hunger for Dracula” uses a psychoanalytic approach to analyze this influential work of literature. In his article, Foster makes a compelling, successful argument about the nature of the novel and how it relates to the inner workings of the human mind. He posits that the visceral, unchained figure of Dracula represents the innate desire for the mother and a return…

    • 772 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Dracula’s Influence on Popular Culture Dracula, by Bram Stoker has had an influence on the popular culture. It has had many movies, books, and plays made about it. There have been numerous books and movies published about it. The book itself was published on May 26, 1897. He has created a mythical person who some wish to be.…

    • 1306 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays

Related Topics