Bram Stoker has a unique way of writing and thinking. In his reading of Dracula, he reflects what he thinks about society and the people who make part of it. Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker shared the same but in a totally opposite way. In every novel there are always two sides of a coin - good and evil, and they are always warring with each other to achieve supremacy. In Dracula, Bram Stocker has created an evil side akin to Satan. The person of Dracula himself stands for treachery, evil and undiluted negative force. But to combat this negative force, the author has created a whole band of good and brave men to combat Dracula. Stoker defined society as the good side by choosing four brave men to fight against the evil and to restore peace. Mysterious and villain with almost supernatural powers, Dracula was able to turn himself into a wolf, dog, mist, fog or bat. Dracula is a very formidable enemy but he cannot escape the power of the holy-cross and the garlic which are the only two things that scare him and these are the instruments with which hi is vanguished.
In other words, society was defined as being good and Dracula evil. This statement is totally the contrary of Mary Shelley’s beliefs. She started with the story of Adam and Eve who made out of peace, hatred and rebellion. In her novel Frankenstein, the main character, Victor, creates a monster that is seen as an evil. But Mary tries to show along the pages that the monster was not the evil. He was born innocent and the society drove him to become bad. All he wanted was to find love and all he got from the others was hatred, disgust and repulse. She characterized the roles differently than Stocker. The society was seen to be evil and the monster was the innocent.
In Dracula, Bram Stoker emphasizes how as daylight ends, the horror begins, for from the depths of the swirling mist, he appears, his pointed teeth gleaming as he edges towards his victims. This is count Dracula, the King of the un-dead-the dreadest vampire. Centuries old, he walks the earth to quench his insatiable thirst for the blood that gives him life. Everyone is scared and fears him. He controls and leads Lucy, Mina and all his victims. While on the other side, Abraham Van Melsin, who is considered as the hero of Dracula, shows as much leadership. As a doctor of medicine of philosophy, of letters and a lawyer, he is portrayed as the leader of the band against Dracula. He has the capacity, the characteristics of a ruler. Unfortunately, it’s not the case of all characters in the novel; Mina and Lucy were seen as the victims. Mina was resolute and determined to fight against the evil. She knew she was unclean through the bite of Dracula, yet she manages to get a pledge from the men that if necessary, they will kill her. Men did not see this as courage but more as she was dirty, hiding the devil in her. Lucy, who had three lovers had no mercy from Dracula’s bite and had to be killed by her lover. Mina and Lucy are great examples of dominated women while Dracula and Van Helsing are dominators. Bram Stoker wanted to portray the male-domination at that time. A very nice way to define it would be: « Leave the woman take care of the house and children while the man takes care of the planet. »
In Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, the society is viewed as being corrupted and we mainly get a negative image of it. The creature was brought into the world innocent and with good intentions. He was then left on his own, when he seeked refuge in the forest he found a family and tried to help them. In response, when they first saw him they were terrified and attacked him, a similar event occurred in a village near by later on. After he swore to never get close to humans again but he sees a young girl drowning, he saves her, but when the father gets to the scene, he gets the wrong idea and shoots the creature. And it’s only then that he becomes bad. In her novel, Shelly tries to illustrate that society has also a bad side and sometimes it is not as civilized as it claims to be. None of these ideas can be found in Dracula, on the contrary, the society is a positive symbol and everything that is bad is out of it like Dracula’s castle which is isolated, Dracula himself seen as the enemy of the society.
