Are Dracula and Atticus portrayed as heroic for breaking society’s taboos?

Does he have any heroic characteristics? He certainly goes about his way of life without concern for what 'outsiders' will think of him and his ways. For this should we respect him? Maybe, but this doesn't mean he is heroic, being admired for living your own individual way of life isn't a heroic quality. Being a hero usually requires doing some physical act that helps another person or group. What could Dracula possibly do to help others? Maybe Dracula's heroic qualities are hidden by our modern-day ease of life, the things we take for granted he is persecuted for. His castle of locked doors is surly representative of his status as a victim of social repression. His life of blood taking and dark ways has made him an outlando d'amour, and has inflicted a life of almost complete segregation and solitude. Whether he is breaking taboos knowingly, or just doing what he has to do to survive and breaking them in the process is of no importance. His society says he cannot live how he has to live, and has driven him underground where he has become a renegade against the synchronicity of his day. But should he be seen as heroic for breaking physical taboos, this would put Dracula in same hypothetical ballpark as modern day individuals such as Charles Manson, Ed Gein and Thomas Hamilton. These people (to the majority) are not perceived as heroic in anyway. They are all physical taboo challengers, where as Atticus Finch strives to confront metal taboos.

Atticus is a small town lawyer, a man with strict and inflexible morals for himself and his two children Gem and Scout. He is probably the main source of the books main themes; human nature, isolation, prejudice, fear and the class status in his part of America in the retrospective 1930's. He is what would be stereotypically classed as a 'good' man; he will always do his utmost to help other people, regardless of their financial status. He lets his clients pay him for his skills with what ever they can, whether it be farm produce or their services or skills for him. Why should this make Atticus a hero? Kind hearted or well brought up maybe. But is he heroic?

Atticus is prepared to protest a black mans innocence over a white mans. Whether this is because he wants to build black relations in his small yet divided town, or justify his acceptance of the black community into his life to all the town's community or just because it is unashamedly obvious that the prosecution are relying on profoundly routed racism to accuse and convict a black man, no matter how impossible the circumstances may be. But heroism isn't and cannot be simply doing good for others, this singularly could make you an incredibly boring person. Standing up for ones beliefs isn't heroic either. For someone to be heroic they need to have a percentage of selfish ignorance, otherwise why would there be any reason to push yourself or to help others? Classic examples of heroes such as Superman, Batman, Spiderman, Wonder women etc. always have double lives. They have to break from their normal, mostly boring or run of the mill lives to perform heroism, usually requiring a ridiculous costume as well to do so. I might well be criticized for drawing reference to such non-intellectual and meaningless children's fictional characters, but lets not forget that both Atticus and Dracula are both completely non-existent, despite what metaphoric qualities they might have, they have never drawn breath nor walked the earth.

In Stoker's novel, Dracula's life is always told from at the very closest, Jonathon Harker Diary. And for a large part of the book, Dracula isn't mentioned at all, only his representation or his presence on a higher level. His activities are always kept very mysterious and secretive because of this. The idea that Dracula is a 'thing' not an 'it', becomes more and more obvious as the book continues. From the start of the book, as described by Jonathon Harker's diaries, Dracula is a physical being, he has two legs, two eyes and a mind. Steadily as the traits of Dracula go on, he becomes less and less of a being, and more of a state of mind.

Having re-read the important sections of Dracula, I was able to pick out many points and extracts that I think go to build the large sub plots and the sexual mystique of Dracula. From the very start Dracula is made very mysterious and masculine. His ability to control wild beasts of the night, along with the description of his appearance, 'Lulling toughs of shaggy hair', 'Strong aqua line nose', Massive eye brows', 'Broad, Strong Jaw' and 'Overall Power'. Also mentions of his graceful mannerisms and his dark and intriguing castle go to make a deep and 'arousing' character. As the stories and notes in Harker's diary continue, so does Dracula's development into a mentality, a hypothetic state of mind. Many of the descriptions in the early parts of the book can easily be interrupted as something other than the presented. Its doesn't take a developing male's teenage mind to read through the words to find the story! You really have to bear in mind that at the time of Dracula original publication, even the sight of table legs was unacceptable for some groups! And even the thought of blood was taboo! So the idea of a man pumping his own blood into a 'lady' was inconceivable. And if you've really got your pervert head on, and give absolutely everything a sexual significance, then some of the passages in the book have very very descript undertones. Maybe this is to play on readers subconscious, maybe it is to encourage the reader to read on a different level, we will never know. But the reader definitely has some kind of respect or sympathy for Dracula through out the novel, with sections like Jonathon's experiences with the three young women, and the description of the rout to Dracula's coffin resting place only confuse and challenge the readers mind to try and understand what human trait or emotion Dracula is an allegory of.

To Kill A Mockingbird is written from a growing child's viewpoint. You can really see how the children's understanding of the world and its ways change through the book, usually the understandings grow and evolve into more mature understanding. But sometimes as the children grow, their free thought is moulded into what they've subconsciously learnt is 'the done thing'. Gem and Scout's view of there father is more concentrated than any other characters in the book because of their sibling love for him. They more than just love him as their father, the know and have done from an early age that he is different from others. They might not know why, but Gem develops a good understanding of his father towards the end of the book; he has a more sophisticated perception of Atticus than his younger sister Scout, though they both respect him equally.

Because the children sometimes describe what they think, and being children don't always fully understand a subject, we as the reader can use the recollections that they have to understand the situation better. Even with this link to Atticus's home life and thoughts, it is hard to predict what Atticus is thinking; he isn't a very open character. He lives his life in a very precise way, and has many morals, but unlike Dracula, he is not purposely trying to hide anything, or be secretive. His nature is to be conserved and instantly resourceful should he need to be. His character changes very little through out the book, his temper and understanding of his life change, but the man Atticus Finch stays as solid, ethical and honest as he always had been.

The attack on Dracula on pages 363 to 366 is one of the turning points in the book, it is the first time where the hunting group discover, due to the professors intellect that Dracula is fearful of something. In these pages Dracula changes from a fearless animal, into a being with a weakness. The use of money in this section is very important. It's ridiculing the fact that every human being is a slave to money, and at the fundamental point in Dracula's fate, he is surrounded by what rules everyone human. It's ironic that the hunters burn the money. They are now more in control of themselves than Dracula is of his future. Also in this scene, there are more of the binary opposites that Stoker loves to play with in Dracula. Dracula is a patent

miss-mash of female and male personas, he never is either one at once, but wont stick with one for very long at all. This is partly why he is the outcast or unsettled being he is. Also, Stoker is toying with the reader, changing their emotions towards Dracula from nervous, to savage, to rage, to sympathy, to fear and then onto anxiety when we read that he is actually in fear, and his hunters are actually more powerful than him.

In chapter 15 Atticus stops and disperses an angry mob of townsfolk who are after Atticus's client, he does this with the at first unwanted help of his children. He quite specifically told them to stay at home, but if they hadn't taken it upon themselves to decide to disobey their father, then the outcome of the night's event wouldn't have been so peaceful. Despite being in complete control of his children, Atticus isn't in control of the mob, his Gem and Scout are, and it is their innocence that shames the crowd, especially Mr. Cunningham, into leaving the scene because they are too humiliated, maybe too embarrassed to now carryout what they were planning to do. The innocence of a little girl overpowers the aggression of a mob of irate and aggressive men. Harper uses the fact that the men know what they're doing is wrong, and the smallest thing would topple their nerves. That smallest thing was Scout and her age is miniature in comparison to her power. The reader is encouraged to have sympathy for both groups in this scene; the men in the mob have been humiliated, and probably demoralised. Whilst at the same time a continued sympathy is present from the wrongly accused Tom Robinson.

Is Dracula portrayed as heroic for breaking society's taboos? I don't know. Dracula represents a different part of everyone. He is representative of the nasty side of everyone that resents another person for an ability that he or she has, but unlike the rest of us, he simply deprives them. 'How many times have you wanted to kill, everything and everyone, you say you'll do it but never will'. A quote not from either texts, but fitting to Dracula's way of life. I am at a disadvantage; I don't find Dracula seductive or representative of anything other than a haemophile. But I know from my time studying Dracula that he is a lot of different things to each reader, depending of their recent experience and views on life, sex and relationships. But for his physical taboo braking, he is definitely a self-motivated innovator; he's not out to shock, because in his life there isn't anyone to shock. We should definitely admire him for his self-earned confidence. Being Irish, Stoker felt the un-pretty end of the British discrimination and bias towards her neighbours. Maybe he wrote Dracula to represent the prejudice against his county, woman and so on. He would have maybe wanted to make Dracula heroic or powerful to remove the label of backwardness from his country.

Is Atticus portrayed as heroic for breaking society's taboos? Maybe he should be seen as heroic for the good things he was doing for his towns race relations (to put a modern label on it) but that would be conforming, conforming just like the rest of his town were doing before Atticus brought justices to the Afro-American people that surrounded him. Certainly to me, he didn't come across as a hero, but nor did Dracula. I think this is because of the modern-day pop-culture meaning of the word. No one in this day and age thinks of anyone as a hero unless his or her life has been save in an extraordinary event. And I as the reader haven't been affected at all by either. Harper might have wanted Atticus to be viewed as an heroic character because of what Atticus is an image of. He is to be seen trend setting, accepting, befriending and helping Negro's. We should to look to when the book was written. The 1960's. What would Harper be saying about her surroundings? What would be happening in 1960's America that would influence her writing? Well, the basic subjects in the book are racial acceptance and unity. She would have been hearing through the news all about M L K and the peaceful black movement for equality. Is Atticus representative of god, trying to hand the white ruled world, the honest black man who wants to live his life with them even after all that the white man has done to him? Is Atticus a metaphor? It's a possibility.