Compare and contrast the presentation of monsters in Bram Stokers Dracula and Mary Shelleys Frankenstein.

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Kurt Shead

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Compare and contrast the presentation of monsters in Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

The concept of a monster is subject to literary interpretation – werewolves, vampires and manmade abominations all hold the label of monster, and yet a monster can also be a normal-looking person, but with the internal thoughts and warped consciousness such a creature would be considered to possess. Count Dracula cannot be considered to be anything but a monster – he feeds upon the blood of mortals to survive, and plans to wreak a similar havoc upon London and its ‘teeming millions’. But can the creation of Victor Frankenstein really be called a monster? Or this time, is it the creator that is deserving of such a title?

        Count Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster both evoke within the reader certain aspects of repulsion and horror. The Count’s face is described as ‘aquiline’ and ‘rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth’. His ears are described as ‘pale, and at the tops extremely pointed’, and the nails on his hands were ‘long and fine, and cut to a sharp point’. All of these references hold connotations of an animal, or more specifically, a predator, and therefore while Dracula seems human in appearance, the reader feels threatened by the rather deceptive way in which the Count elicits fear – outwardly, there is nothing to be frightened of. But still, there remains an underlying level of horror, which is alluded to frequently, such as when Dracula is said to have an ‘extraordinary pallor’ which makes the reader feel uneasy as the sight could resemble something akin to a corpse. Another is when the Count touches Harker, and the solicitor describes ‘a horrible feeling of nausea’ coming over him. The reader empathises with Harker as they too can almost imagine the feeling of cold sickliness emanating from Dracula, which again adds credence to the deceptive and covert nature of the fear Dracula evokes.

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        In contrast to the appearance of the Count, it is interesting to note that the terror of Frankenstein’s monster is only skin-deep, and that the creature’s actual appearance is based heavily on Frankenstein’s bias and the reader’s own imagination. Although the reader is given some glimpses of the monster’s features – ‘his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness’ and ‘his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun white sockets in which they were set’ much of the monster’s description comes from the sensationalism of Frankenstein’s language, ...

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