Bram Stoker Dracula: Relationship’s between Modern Science and Superstition (2013) (original) (raw)

Abstract

On this essay I’ll like to focus on Bram Stoker Dracula’s as a representation of a struggle between the emergence of modern science and the continuity of a superstition world in Victorian England. This Gothic book of Bram Stoker appears in a time when scientific reasoning starts to show a large impact on English society. The stamp of modern science and the impact of the new communication technologies is displayed in the dichotomy between the Dr. Seward phonograph, Mina Murray newfangled machine, the importance given to the train and, on the other end, Dracula’s world with ancient traditions, superstitions, ghosts and monsters. Thus, we can see Dracula as a danger to English society, but I rather read it as a threat to the implementation of modern science. Another important thing that Stoker tries to represent through the book is that even when the heroes are able to use technology to their advantage (p. ex. to try to save Lucy’s life through blood transfusions), technology has its limits. Technology fails and can’t seem to encounter solution to all kind of problems. So, heroes such as Van Helsing and Dr. Seward have to get over their blind faith in science, logic, and modern technology in order to defeat a superstition creature: Dracula. They have to confess, at least once, that vampires exist, and they have to learn ancient traditions and superstitions, to figure out how to kill it. Thus, these assumptions lead us to assert that one of the most important roles on this dichotomy lies on Van Helsing figure. This character extends a bridge between the unique knowledge of both the East and West (science and superstition), and this understanding of both worlds, even incomprehensible, should be the only thing to rid the entire world of evil.

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