Dracula The Impaler

Nevertheless, the essential aspect upon which the vast majority of interpreters and scholars have agreed is that Dracula is a roman à clef based on the life of Vlad III, better known as Vlad “the Impaler”, a fifteenth century Prince (Voievode) that ruled the Wallachian throne. But who was he, and how did he achieve such fame? In his essay “Dracula: Fact, Legend and Fiction,” Paul Dukes analyzes thoroughly the story behind the figure of Dracula, and shows how “there is a basis in fact and Eastern European legend for the ghoul” (1982: 44). As he explains, the vampire that haunts our dreams is inspired in Romanian history, concretely Stoker’s nineteenth century vampire is inspired in the fifteenth century ruler of the Danubian principality