Dracula, Stoker’s Vision and the Path to the Modern Vampire

When Dracula was published in 1897 it was an instant success, but one built on an old legend. The strange gothic count of the novel may have been new, but the legend on which Bram Stoker built his story was decidedly not.

Vampires had been around for hundreds of years, one of the motley assortment of undead creatures which haunted the fringes of European society. These predators were to be feared but they had existed in legend for long enough to be familiar, if only rumoured.

Vampires in fact are so ancient that history does not record their definitive origin. The origin of the word would seem to be easily traced to the Serbian vampir but for the fact that this is an 18th century word and more accurately a specific label for a creature already known, rather than its origin. 

The fact is “vampire” or something like it is a word which has long existed in pretty much every Slavic and Turkic language. Go back far enough with these words and their meaning starts to dovetail with other malevolent creatures in human form: the Turkish word uber for example, which has been suggested as an origin, means “witch.”

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Perhaps the most specific of these source words is the Albanian dhampir and its meaning is very telling. The word dham in the Gheg dialect of Albanian means “tooth” and pir means “to drink” and together these provide us with a clear and on-the-nose solution: vampires bite and drink blood, everyone knows that.

Except not everyone knows that. There is a metamorphosis which has occurred between the ancient vampires of medieval folklore and Eastern European legends on the one hand, and our modern vision of vampires on the other.

And Bram Stoker, with his Count Dracula, sits right on the crux of that transformation.

Binding the Old into Something New

Bram Stoker was well aware of the legends of vampires and was sure to embed his character in these tales. Indeed, much of what we see Dracula do during the novel is down to the peculiarities of his existence as a vampire, as well as the limitations imposed by his curse.

Dracula has command of the beasts that haunt the forests that surround him, lesser creatures such as wolves. This power proves extremely useful when Dracula transplants himself to Victorian London, where he is able to control the rats and bats that infest the city.

So too we see that he has the vampire’s power of shapeshifting, able to assume the form of these creatures. Dracula appears as a large bat several times (or possibly his flying form is mistaken for one, the novel being filled with such vagueness around details) and even a mist.

Stoker sprinkles other associated myths into his narrative which are drawn from related folktales. When driving his visitor and intended victim Jonathan Harker to his castle he spots the coach to go hunting for hidden treasure, illuminated by rings of blue fire. An odd interlude, but one which Stoker included to adhere to the existing Slavic legend.

Such things we know about vampires, as creatures of pop culture. But other things from the novel and from Stoker’s own commentary show that he had different ideas for the character.

The most obvious is that Dracula does not have a mortal fear of daylight. He may move freely during the day but he is robbed of his supernatural powers: he cannot transform, he cannot disappear, he has none of his enormous strength.

Stoker also made a very telling comment about his count which most today would find surprising: when asked as to Dracula’s weight he replied that it would not be more than a few ounces or grams. This vampire is not an undead body, but a ghost.

Modern vampires are not ghosts, but if you delve far back enough into the folklore you find that the lines become blurry. Dracula was Stoker’s attempt to bridge the two worlds and write a modern vampire story while still remaining respectful to the roots of the legend.

Looking at the novel, there is indeed no reason for Dracula to not be a ghost. He is able to dissolve into nothingness, he can transform into forms capable of flight, he is shown many times to be possessed of formidable strength, but he is never manhandled himself.

What then did Stoker create in his novel, what was it about Dracula which thrilled a generation of readers anew. Simply put, his creation was not just to be a vampire but a noble vampire, not just in far-off foreign climes but at the heart of the British Empire.

Dracula is dangerous not simply for his murderous habits because he is a threat to society, an imposter gentleman who is possessed of impeccable credentials but who does not behave as one in his station should. He is an aristocrat but he is also a monster, one of a clutch of fin-de-siecle characters (along with Jekyll and Hyde for example, or the Phantom of the Opera) who explored this uncomfortable juxtaposition.

Our modern vampire, as a hypnotic and high born predator, comes from Stoker. His genius was to take this shambling monster from the fringes of society and turn him into someone who had everything. Dracula, unlike earlier vampires, is not a monster due to desperation. He is a monster because he chooses to be one.

True, there were aristocratic vampires before Stoker, in fact for almost a century such a creature had been roaming the pages of fiction. The genesis of this character is probably with John Polidori and his “Vampyre” based on, and intended to flatter, Lord Byron. Similar such creatures followed, but it is with Dracula that the very folklore is changed, and vampires are cemented as nobleman, foreign (and “alien” in other ways) and degenerate by choice rather than necessity. 

Beyond his mere vampirism, Stoker went out of his way to make the character unsettling within this particular narrative theme. Dracula has no servants; he drives Harker himself to his empty castle and is later seen making the beds and laying the table for dinner, something a high born gentleman should never do.

Dracula invites a guest into his house but does not dine with them. He allows him the run of the castle but does not warn him of the real dangers within, effectively setting a trap. He ultimately imprisons Harker, the very antithesis of an idealized Victorian host.

Stoker did not create the idea of a vampire, that much is clear. But what he did was create a modern vampire, not just a monster but a poor host, not a desperate individual but a wantonly cruel creature. Dracula’s degeneracies were not just born of necessity, but of his character.

And in this cruelty, and this casual assumption that such a creature could walk among us undetected, he created a new monster, one which has thrilled and frightened us for 125 years.

Header Image: Bram stoker’s Dracula showed us the way to our modern pop-culture vampire. But the author needed to pay homage to existing legends, even as he created something new. Source: Dracula (1931) / Public Domain.