Dracula. How Does Bram Stoker Create an Atmosphere of Fear and Horror?

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Daniel Brown 11b2                Monday 24th September 2007

How Does Bram Stoker Create an Atmosphere of Fear and Horror?

If this was scary in 1897, it’s not very scary now but I can see how the Narrator is trying to get a picture in your head to spook you. Bram Stoker wrote it in 1897; it was scary at the time but not as much as it is now.

The simplest way in which Stoker tries to scare his readers is by having his narrator, Jonathan Harker, keeps telling us how scared he is? “I grew dreadfully afraid”, many times Harker writes something inn his journal. The repetition of this idea builds build’s up a picture of fear in the reader’s eyes.

Another method is seen in the description of Harker’s journey to meet Dracula at the Borgo Pass. The horses and the other passengers show a “Strange mixture of fear-meaning movement and make the sign of the cross”. Obliviously they are terrified of meeting the Count, because they know him to be a vampire.

The coach part is the scariest part of the story. The driver I racing through the pitch dark night, they go in as fast as they can. They go flat out to get there before Dracula. The driver and passengers are clearly scared of meeting Dracula and this is passed onto Jonathan Harker.

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When I saw Dracula, the film and the book, I was not a bit scared, however in 1987, I could imagine the scene it caused especially Jack the Ripper on the run in London, some people were starting to think that vampires really did exist.

The most obvious way in which Stoker tries to terrify his readers is by having narrator Harker to keep saying how scared he is himself many of times saying

“I grew dreadfully afraid”, this kind of idea builds up a picture of fear in the reader. The passengers were also terrified of meeting ...

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