Discrimination In Dracula Essay

Dracula’s Semitic Corruption of the Victorian Woman

Throughout human history certain groups have suffered from hatred, and prejudice for their beliefs, and or customs. The Jewish people have for a long time languished under such hatred, and still do. Throughout history the severity of the hatred has waxed and waned reaching severe points to where they are actively hunted and persecuted. Times like the Spanish inquisition, the Crusades, and the most severe and devastating of them all, the Holocaust. Even though during the Victorian age, the Jews were not actively persecuted, antisemitism can still be seen in the works of literature, like Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Dracula stereotypical Jewish appearance is meant to symbolize the Victorian distrust
of those of the Jewish faith whom they believe are a threat to the Victorian woman, and the Victorian homeland.
No matter how advanced a society becomes, stereotypes will always be present within a society. The Jewish people have a stereotypical appearance of someone with a long beard or mustache, wearing all black, which is how orthodox Jews are normally presented. Stoker’s Dracula in the titular novel is designed, and initially portrayed with the degrading stereotypical appearance. “Within stood a tall old man, clean shaven save for long white moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of colour about him anywhere” (Stoker 40). Stoker gives Dracula’s stereotypical features of how Jews at the time were perceived to dress, Stoker then goes more into the physical features that Jews stereotypically have.
“His face was strong –very strong – aquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils; With lofty domed forehead and hair growing around the temples … The mouth , so far I could see it under the heavy moustache, where it was fixed and rather cruel looking, with particularly sharp white teeth; these protruded over the lips” (Stoker 42).

Stoker crafted Dracula with this appearance to give a vivid description in order to implant the idea that people who look like this are capable of the actions this character does. The stereotypical appearance of Dracula could be used to symbolize to the reader that this is what a Jewish person looks like. So as Dracula is the antagonist of the novel, it is meant to convey the message to the reader that Jewish people are bad.
The British people feared anyone who was different than the ideal British view of themselves. That mistrust led to Bram Stoker’s creation of Dracula, a symbol of the Jewish people that the British people could hate. Stoker gave Dracula the stereotypical traits of a Jewish person along with traits of sexuality, violence that went against the Victorian values of being reserved, and sophisticated. “Dracula’s abuses of capital and his avarice with money, and his excessive sexuality but it also identifies Dracula within a racial chain of signification that links vampirism to anti-Semitic representations of Jewishness” (Halberstam 348). Dracula was designed like this to give an identity or a face to the mistrust the Victorian people felt about the Jewish people. So with the mistrust and prejudice having an identity, the story of Dracula is told to show the horrors the come from deviating from the Victorian way of life. “My conclusions seemed sound, the vampire and the Jew were related, and monstrosity in the Gothic novel had much to do with the discourse of modern anti-Semitism” (Halberstam 333). Halberstam view Draucla as being a representation of anti-Semitism do to Dracula being portrayed as the antagonist of the namesake novel, and the Jewish stereotypical qualities he has. Dracula’s looks and actions throughout the namesake novel paint a picture of horror given to anti-Semitism.
The prejudice against the Jews was nothing new to the Victorian society, anti-Semitism has existed for centuries.
During the Middle Ages prosecution was sanction buy the Catholic church which at the time was one of the most powerful entities. During the Black Death, the Jews were targeted in an attempted to provide a face, to the faceless killer. “During the Black Death…rioters burned Jews alive under the auspices of public health. Hundreds of Jewish communities were destroyed” (Biss 21). The prejudice died down but it never truly went away, mistrust led to Bram stoker creating Dracula. “Bram Stoker’s rendering of Count Dracula with a prominent nose and piles of gold and vague origins of Eastern Europe, suggests he is intended to be read as a Jew”(Biss 21). With Dracula intended to be read as Jew with his stereotypical appearance, Stoker proceeds to paint him as a villain with his unholy actions that lead to the corruption of Lucy and the deaths of
others.
Throughout the novel, anything Stoker’s Dracula interacts with becomes susceptible to corruption and falling from the Victorian view of perfection. This is shown when Dracula changes Lucy; she goes from the perfect virtuous women to a unvirtuous beast. Lucy at the start of the novel was the ideal Victorian woman, pure and lady like. “Oh, Mina, couldn’t you guess? I love him. I am blushing as I write, for although I think he loves me, he has not told me so in words. But oh, Mina I love him; I love him; I love him!” (Stoker 77). Lucy is then corrupted by Dracula and falls from grace, going from the pure, ideal Victorian woman to a savage beast. “When Lucy – I called the thing that was before us Lucy because it bore her shape – saw us and drew back with an angry snarl … then her eyes ranged over us. Lucy’s eyes in form and colour, but Lucy’s eyes unclean and full of hell-fire, instead of the pure, gentle orbs we knew” (Stoker 218). This deterioration from a virtuous angelic-like woman to a barbaric beast symbolizes the anti-Semitic view that many Victorians held of Judaism corrupts and pollutes the English lifestyle.
Mina’s triumph over the corruption Dracula placed on her symbolizes how the English faith triumphs over different faiths. Mina Harker was once a devote Christian, she was the symbol of the English faith in Dracula, but due to her purity Dracula attempted to corrupt her. “Unclean! Unclean! Even the almighty shuns my polluted flesh! I must bear this mark until judgment day” (Stoker 296). As Dracula represents Semitic corruption Mina symbolizes the anti-Semitic corruption of the English Faith. However, Mina overcomes the corruption placed upon her by the vile Dracula, and the mark a upon her forehead embodying her return to the purity of the English faith. “Now God be thanked that all has not been in vain! See! The snow is not more stainless than her forehead! The curse has passed away!”(Stoker 368). With Mina’s curse removed the last of Dracula’s vile, and corrupting actions are removed from the Victorian lifestyle.
Dracula brings dirt from his homeland to symbolize his attempt to take root in England, and threaten the Victorian life Style. Dracula brings dirt from Transylvania, his home, so that he may survive in England. The act of Dracula bringing dirt shows that he intends to take root, and that he will corrupt the very land of England with his filthy heathen dirt. To counter this, the protagonists of the Dracula set out to destroy the boxes of dirt in an attempt to purify and save England from an unholy corruption. “It is alright. We found both places six boxes in each, and we destroyed them all” (Stoker 302). The physical destruction of the boxes of dirt symbolizes the might of the Victorian people and their power to cleanse their land.
Dracula’s invasion of England in the title novel, and the deaths it cause show the Victorian people the dangers those of a foreign faith and nationality to the Victorian way of life. When Dracula descends on the unsuspecting Victorian England, he brings an unholy corrupting shadow that causes the death of many people, most notably Lucy Westenra, and Quincy Morris. Lucy, who already died due to Stoker’s Dracula polluting her being, rises up as a Vampire which out of Mercy for her soul forces her Fiancé to put her down like the rabid animal she had become. “Arthur placed the point over the heart, and as I looked I could see its dint in the white flesh. Then he struck with all his might.”(Stoker 223). Dracula brought about the Death of Lucy, a pure ideal Victorian woman, twice the first being when the disease killed her. “The funeral was arranged for the next succeeding day so that Lucy and her mother might be buried together” (Stoker 174). Showing the danger those outside of Christianity can bring to the British people if not unchallenged.
The protagonists of the novel set out to purge the unholy blight of Dracula and his spawn from the Earth, but this endeavor comes at a cost as Quincy perishes in the final battle. “I am only too happy to have been of any service! Oh, God!’ he cried suddenly struggling up to a sitting posture and pointing to me, It was worth for this to die!” (Stoker 368). Quincy, an American, dies so that the British people may live on, no longer troubled by this impure monstrosity. The deaths Dracula caused serve as a warning to the British people to guard themselves from anyone who is different, as that can bring harm to the Victorian way of life. The Victorian people in order to place a face on their hatred created Dracula to represent the Jewish people.
Stoker’s Dracula was created to give an identity to the prejudice and mistrust the British people felt towards those of the Jewish faith, and those who differed from the Victorian norm. Dracula is given a stereotypical appearance so that he may symbolize the Jews so that when he commits the atrocities he does, the have an image to with them, one that breeds the prejudice and anti-Semitisms that was building before the Victorian era, and continues to build throughout the modern age. Dracula throughout the novel corrupts some of what the Victorians hold dear. He takes two pure Victorian women, and corrupts them, one of the women, Lucy, falls into the corruption and never rises from it, and is put down. Mina however is redeemed, and saved form the corruption, thought her strength and faith, symbolizing how the English faith is stronger than anything that may corrupt it.
Stoker’s Dracula with his stereotypical Jewish appearance, and the atrocities he commits against the Victorian people, reflect the hatred many British people felt towards the Jewish people.
For them being different than the ideal Victorian man, and believing a different religion than the British people. Mistrust and hatred like this is never leads to anything good, only serving to please those who spread it for various reasons. It leaves only is pain and suffering to those it is directed towards. If humanity is ever to truly advance, the Human race must learn to leave prejudice behind and bring acceptance to the
table.