Journal of Dracula Studies 13 (2011)
[Dr. Holly J. McBee received her Ph.D. from Purdue University in
2007 and is currently an assistant professor at Dickinson State University in
North Dakota. She teaches a range of composition and literature classes and
continues her research in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British
literature.]
In a scene from the 1943 film, Son of Dracula,
one of the characters reads Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula. Since the
characters in the film are attempting to stop Dracula, the implication is that
this novel is not a work of fiction, but rather one of truth. The novel has
moved beyond representing Victorian fears into a “How to Kill a Vampire”
handbook because vampires are real—at least within the confines of the film—and
need to be destroyed. There are many other examples in twentieth- and
twenty-first-century fiction, both literary and cinematic, that take this
approach of making Dracula or vampires real. One of the most recent versions of
this method can be found in the Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris,
which have been adapted by HBO into the show True Blood. In these works,
vampires are very real and have “come out of the coffin” to join the rest of
the world. One of best known vampire writers, Anne Rice, also takes this
approach. In her novel, The Queen of the Damned, the third in the
Vampire Chronicles series, she writes of the author of Interview with the
Vampire “The author’s name is a pseudonym, and the royalty checks go to a
nomadic young man who resists all our attempts at contact” (173). Here, Anne
Rice is the pseudonym, implying that maybe these vampire stories are true. Of
course the idea that vampires and other supernatural aspects are real is not a
contemporary invention. Gothic novels from the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries often presented some discovered manuscript that masquerades as an
authentic account documenting some supernatural phenomena.
Though written in 1897, the format of Dracula
resembles the epistolary novels of the eighteenth century since it is comprised
primarily of personal letters and journal entries. Dracula is not the
only nineteenth-century novel to use this technique. Wilkie Collins’ The
Woman in White uses a similar approach, and in fact reviews of Dracula
mention this comparison.[1]
The epistolary style used in the eighteenth-century novel was meant to create
verisimilitude about the events described within the letters and journals.
Furthermore, the eighteenth-century gothic element of the discovered or
personally written manuscript was employed for the same effect. In the case of Dracula,
the combination of the epistolary and gothic techniques is effective in making
the supernatural elements of the story believable. Therefore, if the narrative
methods suggest authenticity, then the content perhaps is authentic too.
For the characters, though, their individual firsthand
accounts do not seem convincing enough. Critics have discussed the odd mixture
of narrative styles and technologies in Dracula, often in the context of
alleviating or containing anxiety about Victorian fears and identity. Jennifer
Wicke sees the novel as a modern text that imitates mass culture and
consumption through its typewriting. Leah Richards notes the novel’s adaptation
of journalistic styles to provide authority and authenticity. Kathleen Spencer
discusses the mixing of the older gothic style with the more contemporary
methods of typewriting, labeling Dracula an urban gothic novel. She
suggests that the use of such technology is tied to modern identity. Spencer
writes, “To be modern also means that science is the metaphor that rules human
interactions with the universe, so the new fantastic adopts the discourse of
empiricism even to describe and manipulate supernatural phenomena” (200). Other
critics discuss the blending of the gothic with the modern in terms of anxiety
or control. Erik Butler sees the newer writing technologies as gateways for the
old ideas to come through and threaten the Victorian world. Vicki Hill takes
the opposite approach and examines how the gothic structure is a way for the
Victorians to deal with their contemporary anxieties.
This previous criticism has focused on the narrative’s
relationship to the Victorian audience’s identity and anxieties. My concern is
about how the blended narrative methods work together for the characters within
the novel itself. The characters are successful in their quest to destroy
Dracula because they embrace the hybridization of the gothic, epistolary style
with the contemporary modes of the typewriter and phonograph. Since the gothic
and epistolary methods already lend credence to the existence of vampires, the
implementation of nineteenth-century typewriters and journalistic means of
circulation seems unnecessary. However, these technologies also add to the
realism of Dracula. This novel offers up something that is genuinely
supernatural, the vampire, without trying to explain it in scientific terms.
Other novels from the nineteenth century discuss seemingly supernatural
aspects, but then offer rational explanations for them. It is the imagination
run wild in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey or the mad ex-wife in Jane
Eyre. Science, though not explained in full detail, justifies the existence
of the Creature in Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll’s transformation into Mr.
Hyde. Dracula is different though because it is written later than any
of these novels and its supernatural element is real. The nineteenth-century
writing/recording methods of typewriter and phonograph replace scientific or
rational explanations for Dracula’s existence. Modern inventions are not used
to explain the vampire as a science experiment gone wrong or just as an
imaginary figure; they are there to prove he exists. The vampire is real.
The manuscript uses both eighteenth- and nineteenth-
century techniques to present its content as true.[2]
The eighteenth-century epistolary and gothic techniques provide the traditional
method to make the vampire real, and the nineteenth-century methods make the
vampire real in the face of modern science that usually seeks to explain the
supernatural as something other than the supernatural. These styles need to be
combined to provide a double layer of truth or reality, so the characters can
acknowledge the genuine existence of the vampire. It is the hybridization of
eighteenth and nineteenth-century narrative/writing technologies that allow the
characters to accept the reality of Dracula, so they can destroy him.
The process to create and accept this hybrid manuscript
is not smooth. Throughout the first part of the novel, the characters struggle
with accepting the truth about Dracula, even though they use a variety of
narrative technologies. The manuscript opens with a disclaimer: “How these
papers have been placed in sequence will be made manifest in the reading of
them. All needless matters have been eliminated, so that a history almost at
variance with the possibilities of later-day belief may stand forth as simple
fact” (5). Harriet Hustis discusses this disclaimer, noting that it is a gothic
technique. She also states that unlike most gothic novels, where the manuscript
is found, Dracula’s is assembled. Hustis writes, “This strategy not only
displaces the origins of the text, but also highlights the novel’s status as a
fictional construct” (19). However, the statement of “…a history almost at
variance with the possibilities of later-day believe may stand forth as simple
fact” sets up the idea that at least for the characters, what is being told is
true, no matter how badly they and their “later-day” science might wish
otherwise. The directness of the plea itself suggests very strongly that this
is not fiction because the characters are desperately trying to convince
themselves about the reality of the vampire. Early in the novel, the characters
struggle with the idea that their writing is recording the truth that vampires
do exist, and this doubt also underscores the realism.
This doubt is clear for Jonathan Harker during his stay
at Castle Dracula. He keeps a journal, an older narrative technique, in
Victorian shorthand. From the beginning, the manuscript is a hybrid. Harker
uses his contemporary shorthand journal for several purposes, but one is to
record the truth. He writes of his suspicions, “Let me begin with facts—bares,
meagre facts, verified by books and figures, and of which there can be no
doubt” (35), and after his encounter with Dracula’s brides, “It is not good to
note this down, lest some day it should meet Mina’s eyes and cause her pain;
but it is the truth” (42). Valerie Pedlar notes that the first person
narratives found in Dracula give the story its immediacy, “and increases the
sense of horror and bewilderment” (218), but they also lend an element of
truth. Why would Harker lie to himself in his personal journal? Harker’s
remarks that this information is “facts” or “the truth” suggests that he is not
certain of the supernatural events he has experienced. However, these moments
of self-reassurance and questioning underscore the veracity of the situation.
Hill notes that Harker writes to calm himself and maintain his sanity, but is
not very successful (198). Harker’s journal is already a hybrid, but he has not
yet accepted the reality of the vampire.
Mina, like Harker, has an ambiguous relationship
regarding the authenticity of her personal journal, which she types or writes
in nineteenth-century shorthand. In a letter to Lucy, Mina states, “When I am
with you I shall keep a diary in the same way [shorthand]…I do not suppose
there will be much of interest to other people; but it is not intended for
them. I may show it to Jonathan some day if there is anything worth sharing,
but it is really an exercise book. I shall try to do what I see lady journalists
do: interviewing and writing descriptions…” (55-56). Mina’s journal is
hybridized like Harker’s in that it is written in shorthand, but she does not
share Harker’s self-doubt about the truth of her journal, but she does wonder
about its usefulness. On one hand, Mina claims the content could not be useful,
but on the other, she equates the journal’s content with newspapers. Granted
newspapers are not always accurate, but Mina’s statement suggests that whatever
she does write could be useful and truthful, like the news. Leah Richards also
notes this, stating, “By appropriating the techniques and methods of the
contemporary newspaper, albeit on a smaller scale, Dracula acquires the
authority, relatively recently earned, of the newspapers…” (451). Interestingly
enough, Mina does include a newspaper clipping in her journal. The story about
the Demeter and the accompanying storm are “(Pasted in Mina Murray’s
Journal)” (75). There are other newspaper stories—the escaped wolf, the bloofer
lady—within the manuscript, but this clipping is the only one noted as being
inserted into a character’s personal writing. By including a newspaper story
with her own writing, Mina seems to be trying to use its credibility to enhance
her own.
Mina’s newspaper clipping technique is adopted
throughout the rest of the manuscript. Aside from the newspaper stories, the
log of the Demeter and several telegrams about Dracula’s business and
real estate in England are also included. The newspaper articles and telegrams
represent nineteenth-century technology documenting Dracula. These types of
writing, interspersed between the personal diaries and letters help to verify
the truthfulness of the characters’ writings. This approach, though used
infrequently, also demonstrates the characters’ uneasiness with the reality of
the vampire. They do not yet trust their own observations (or perhaps they do
not trust others to believe them), so their writing is supplemented with
recognized authorities.
These
multiple narratives from the characters and other sources enhance the realism
of the vampire. Dracula’s existence has been documented by so many different
sources that he has to be real.
However, in Lucy’s case there is a shift in the
characters’ faith in their own writing. On the night of her mother’s death, she
leaves a memo stating, “I write this and leave it to be seen, so that no one
may by any chance get into any trouble through me. This is an exact record of
what took place tonight. I feel I am dying of weakness, and have barely strength
to write, but it must be done if I die in the doing” (130). The purpose of the
memo is written in anticipation of any legal inquiry and records her mother’s
death and drugging of the maids. However, this is still a handwritten, personal
narrative of the night’s events, much like Harker and Mina’s narratives, but
the content is directly claimed as truthful and potentially useful for any
audience. Although there is nothing to indicate Lucy is aware of a vampire, it
is clear that she knows something is terribly wrong—for why else document such
occurrences with the law in mind. Her memo is handwritten—no shorthand or
typing—but the content still speaks the truth that vampires are real even if
Lucy does not quite understand what is happening.
The other characters still need more convincing that
something is not quite right, though Lucy’s death and her reemergence as the
Bloofer Lady point the others towards the truth. Once again, Mina leads the way
on creating a useful, truthful narrative. She reads Harker’s account of his
time at Castle Dracula, and then writes in her journal, “…that it is all true”
(163), and has this verified by Van Helsing, who tells her, “Strange and
terrible as it is, it is true” (167). It is significant that Van
Helsing’s reassurance comes to Mina in a “Letter (by Hand)” (167). This is a
turning point in the novel where three characters now know that Dracula is a
vampire, yet this truth is announced in the eighteenth-century method of a
handwritten letter despite the availability of the telegram. The characters and
the different narrative technologies now begin to cooperate. This letter also
marks a turning point in how the characters document their adventures; they
stop questioning the veracity of their own narratives regardless of the method
used to do so. The eighteenth- and nineteenth-century technologies are now
combined in an effort to destroy Dracula, who is very real to them. David Seed
also notes this change in the story and examines the importance of the
characters sharing information and working together, suggesting it is a form of
resistance to Dracula. As mentioned earlier, Richards sees the manuscript being
copied and circulated with the authority of a newspaper. Judith Halberstam and
Jennifer Wicke note that this new narrative also presents Dracula as “truth” as
either a representative of types of monstrosity or mass culture and
consumption. Glenn Morgan suggests that the typewriter and other contemporary
technologies are “dead mechanical eyes” that “deliver ‘true’ reproductions, but
at the price of real recognition” (96). There is a clear consensus about the
manuscript being able to present the truth once it has more fully adopted
nineteenth-century technologies of typing, copying, and circulating. This could
be the point for a single, omniscient narrator to take over the story, which
could improve the overall chronology and remove repetition; however, the
eighteenth-century methods remain intact. The manuscript started as a hybrid
and despite some doubt on the characters’ parts, it did ultimately convince
them that the vampire is real. For the vampire to remain real, the manuscript
must remain a hybrid.
One of the ways the manuscript maintains its
hybridization is through expressing emotion. Mina transcribes Seward’s phonograph
recordings saying, “That is a wonderful machine, but it is cruelly true,” since
it records Seward’s emotions about Lucy (197). Other moments of emotion come
through as well. After Dracula attacks Mina and Harker offers a prayer for her,
Seward states, “…he [Harker] read the simple and beautiful service for the
Burial of the Dead. I—I cannot go on—words—and—v-voice—f-fail m-me!...” (288).
Since the attack takes place at the asylum, Seward is most likely using his
phonograph to record this information, but why transcribe the obvious emotion?
The emotion that comes through is akin to the doubt expressed in the earlier
journals and letters. The doubt used to underscore the realism in the
eighteenth-century methods is now replaced with emotion. Susan M. Cribb also
suggests that emotion adds to the authenticity of the story (136). This is
further demonstrated by Mina, who writes after Dracula’s attack on her, “Of
course he [Harker] wanted to be with me; but then the boat service would
likely, be the one which would destroy the…the…the …Vampire. (Why did I
hesitate to write the word?)” (307). Mina’s hesitation could be due to
Dracula’s control over her, but the ellipses and capitalization of the word
“Vampire” indicate a strong, emotional response. In fact, after this the word
“vampire” is capitalized in the rest of the manuscript. By making “vampire” a
proper noun, the characters further their belief in him. The vampire and the
characters’ horror are real, and this is clearly demonstrated by the
intersection of typewritten emotion.
Aside from the emotion contained within the typed
narrative, other elements of hybridization are still present. Each character
still makes individual contributions to the manuscript and his or her writing
is given its own heading, whether it is a letter, journal, or telegram, much
like the individual headings in epistolary novels. At one point Seward notes,
“How I miss my phonograph! To write diary with a pen is irksome to me; but Van
Helsing says I must” (291). Seward expresses a preference for the
nineteenth-century method on the basis of ease, but does not indicate doubt
about the authenticity of what he writes. Seward trusts in the hybrid
manuscript.
Perhaps the most compelling remark that demonstrates the
characters’ trust in the combined narrative methods is when Harker discusses
their plans for Dracula’s demise. While pursuing Dracula, Harker writes, “The
Professor says that if we can so treat the Count’s body, it will soon after
fall into dust. In such case there would be no evidence against us, in case any
suspicion of murder were aroused. But even if it were not, we should stand or
fall by our act, and perhaps some day this very script may be evidence to come
between some of us and a rope” (290). By this point in the novel, the characters
no longer doubt the reality of Dracula, but Harker’s statement indicates his
trust in the power of the “script” itself as possible evidence at a trial. The
manuscript could not only prove to the characters that Dracula is real, but
also to others that vampires do exist. Here the manuscript, with its various
styles and technologies, becomes a non-fiction handbook on vampires.
Ironically, it is Dracula’s belief in the manuscript as
non-fiction that makes the manuscript the most real. When Harker visits
Dracula, he notes of the library:
The books were of the most varied kind—history,
geography, politics, political economy, botany, geology, law—all relating to
England and English life and customs and manners. There were even such books of
reference as the London Directory, the “Red” and “Blue” books, Whitaker’s
Almanack, the Army and Navy Lists, and—it somehow gladdened my heart to see
it—the Law List. (25)
Dracula’s library is full of non-fiction books that he uses to
educate himself about England, yet despite this impressive collection, Dracula
does not have any English novels. This omission indicates that Dracula’s
understanding of writing is that it usually presents the truth about a subject.
Granted he does have Harker write three separate letters with falsehoods in
them, but these are not meant to be typed and circulated like the manuscript.
Dracula is the subject of the manuscript, much as English life and custom are
of his library books. Given this experience he would regard the manuscript
about him as truthful, which explains why he attempts to destroy it.
While Harker’s faith in the manuscript is strong during
the second part of the novel, his note at the end suggests that his ambivalence
has returned. He writes:
We were struck with the fact, that in all the mass of
material of which the record is
composed, there is hardly one authentic document, nothing but a mass of
type-writing, except the later notebooks of Mina and Seward and myself, and Van
Helsing’s memorandum. We could hardly ask anyone, even did we wish to, to
accept these as proofs of so wild a story. (326-27)
The hybrid manuscript has served its purpose by providing veracity
for the characters, and they have done their duty—destroy the vampire.
The
hybrid manuscript is necessary to provide truth, but its function is temporary.
At least Harker does not doubt the reality of these experiences for himself and
the Crew of Light, but he does doubt if any other person would “accept these as
proofs of so wild a story.” However, Van Helsing says, “We want no proofs; we
ask none to believe us! This boy [Mina and Harker’s son] will some day know
what a brave and gallant woman his mother this…later on he will understand how
some men so loved he, that they did dare much for her sake’” (327). Like
Harker, Van Helsing does not seem to think others will believe their story, but
he does recognize that little Quincey may find the manuscript to be a truthful
version of part of his parents’ lives. Like the manuscript, Quincey is also a
hybrid since “His bundle of names links all our little band of men together…”
(326). Little Quincey would likely inherit the manuscript and perhaps view it
as it is—a manual on how to kill real vampires. Perhaps Van Helsing believes
that as a hybrid, Quincey, like the manuscript, can/will destroy a real vampire
in the future.
It is clear that the various narrative styles and
techniques in Dracula contribute to its horror, anxiety, and realism.
While the combination of older epistolary and gothic methods with typewriters,
phonographs, and telegrams initially reveal doubt on the part of some
characters, these techniques later lead to collaboration to form the hybrid
manuscript, which in turn creates belief and resolve for the characters. It is
this very mixture of narratives that creates the space for the question if
vampires are real. The novel is of course fiction, but through fiction, we will
continue to insist that vampires are real in order to keep them alive, or at
least undead.
Works Cited
Austen, Jane. Northanger Abbey.
New York: Signet, 1996. Print.
Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre.
Ed. Margaret Smith. New York: Oxford UP, 1998. Print.
Butler, Erik. “Writing and
Vampiric Contagion in Dracula.” Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies
2 (2002): 13-32. Print.
Collins, Wilkie. The Woman in
White. New York: Signet, 1985. Print.
Cribb, Susan. “If I Had to Write
with a Pen’: Readership and Bram Stoker’s Diary Narrative.” Journal of the
Fantastic Arts. 10.2 (1999): 133-41. Print.
Halberstam, Judith. “Technologies
of Monstrosity: Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” Dracula. Ed. Glennis Byron.
New York: St. Martin’s, 1999. 173-96. Print.
Harris, Charlaine. Dead Until
Dark. New York: Ace, 2008. Print.
Hill, Vicki. “This Fearful
Business: Professional Writing and Negotiations of Authority in Dracula.” Journal of the Georgia Philological Association 1 (2006):
194-210. Print.
Hustis, Harriet. “Black and White
and Read All Over: Performative Textuality in Bram
Stoker’s
Dracula.” Studies in the Novel 33 (2001): 18-33. Print.
Morgan, Glenn. “Oh, Fill Me (Kill
Me) with That Evil Eye: Perceptual Destruction and
Narrative
Re-Visioning in Dracula.” Readerly/Writerly Texts: Essays on
Literature,Literary/Textual Criticism, and Pedagogy 10.1-2 (2002-03):
89-96. Print.
Pedlar, Valerie. “Dracula:
Narrative Strategies and Nineteenth-Century Fears.” The Nineteenth-Century
Novel: Identities. Ed. Dennis Walder. London: Routledge, 2001. 217-41.
Print.
Review. Anthenaeum. June
26, 1897. Dracula. Eds. Nina Auerbach & David J. Skal. New York:
Norton, 1997. Print.
Review. San Francisco Chronicle.
Dec. 17, 1899. Dracula. Eds. Nina Auerbach & David J. Skal.
New York: Norton, 1997. Print.
Rice, Anne. The Queen of the
Damned. New York: Ballantine, 1988. Print.
Richards, Leah. “Mass Production
and the Spread of Information in Dracula: ‘Proofs of So Wild a
Story.” ELT 52.4 (2009): 440-47. Print.
Seed, David. “The Narrative Method
of Dracula.” Nineteenth-Century Fiction 40.1 (1985): 61-75.
Print.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein.
Ed. J. Paul Hunter. New York: Norton, 1996. Print.
Son of Dracula. Dir. Robert Siodmak. Perf. Lon Chaney Jr. Universal, 1943. Film.
Spencer, Kathleen L. “Purity and
Danger: Dracula, the Urban Gothic and the Late Victorian Degeneracy
Crisis.” ELH 59.1 (1992): 197-225. Print.
Stevenson, Robert Louis. The
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Ed. Emma Letley. New York: Oxford
UP, 1987. Print.
Stoker, Bram. Dracula. Eds.
Nina Auerbach and David J. Skal. New York: Norton, 1997.
Print.
True Blood. HBO. 2008. Television
Wicke, Jennifer. “Vampiric Typewriting:
Dracula and its Media.” ELH 51.2 (1992): 467-93. Print.
[1]See Review. Anthenaeum. June 26,
1897. Dracula. Eds. Nina Auerbach & David J. Skal. New York: Norton,
1997. Print. And Review. San Francisco Chronicle. Dec. 17, 1899. Dracula.
Eds. Nina Auerbach & David J. Skal. New York: Norton, 1997. Print.
[2]I use the term “manuscript” in reference to what the characters are
creating within the novel, and the term “novel” when discussing the fictional
work that is Dracula.
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