So in chapter 27, the very last chapter of the book Mina and the prof are still on their journey to the Count’s castle. On this journey it is once again noted by one of the characters that the Slovakian;s are extremely superstitious. At this point the Count is still on the boat in the river, while Arthur, Johnathan, Quincy and Dr. Seward are trying to catch up to it. During the journey Mina and the prof take, Mina losses her appetite and stops making entries in her diary. Van Helsing noticing this, starts to make diary entries of his own to keep account of events. When Mina and Van Helsing reach the Count’s castle, they are seen by the three female vampire, but since earlier the prof drew a special circle around them, they cannot enter and Mina cannot leave (since she is also almost a vampire). Sometime later Van Helsing goes into the Counts castle and kills all three of the vampire women, and they all crumple to dust. He also at this point places a wafer in the Count’s coffin.

So after that deed is done, both the professor and Mina walk east (they walk because the vampire women killed the horse) and stop about a mile from the castle. Eventually they see some men approaching the castle with the Count’s coffin with Quincy and Dr. Seward close behind, followed by Johnathan and Arthur. The professor gets ready for action and so does Mina by readying her pistol. The cart stops, the men on the cart draw their weapons, there’s a small showdown, Quincy gets stabbed, the Count’s coffin is opened, Johnathan decapitates Count, while Quincy stabs him in the heart. The Count’s body crumbles and Quincy says some nice things then dies. Mina seems cured of her vampirism. 7 years later Johnathan and Mina have a child named Quincy. They go visit the Count’s castle and the book ends.

The story of Dracula demonstrates the Victorian roles by having the characters portray ideal traits dependent on their gender and position in British society. It uses the female characters in contrast to each other to demonstrate the ideal pure and innocent role and non-ideal role of independent women. It shows men as powerful if upper class and unimportant if lower class.

The novel demonstrates the role of Victorian women as pure, innocent and beautiful. Neither Lucy or Mina have much or any back story. Neither of them have any major traits nor do they play a lead role for the actual overcoming of the conflict. They are practically two dimensional characters. If you analyze the main group of characters who are combating the Count, you’ll find that 5/6 of them are older male gentlemen of a respectable position and only one of them is female. This speaks leagues as to the role of women during the Victorian era as it demonstrates that they are not considered equal to men in society, especially if they are not of the upper classes.

Furthermore, the fact that they leave Mina behind on all their expeditions to defy the Count, shows that women in the Victorian era were meant to be things of beauty, purity and ignorant of the world’s evils. They are more like fragile things to be left at home and not to be encumbered with work, “Their bodies were treated as temples as a result of which they could not be engaged in any vigorous activity”. It wasn‘t until 37 years after Dracula was published that women above the age of 21 had a right to vote in the United Kingdom, which gives very good evidence to the fact that women were maltreated. Their main purpose was to marry into nobility, please their husbands, and raise children. They had almost no career prospects, unless they were in the lower class, in which case they could be laborers or prostitutes.

Mina is the character that most obviously demonstrates the trait of being pure. In the middle of the novel she is the character that the group of men is trying to protect. They even go so far as to leave her behind for some of the more physically violent parts of their quest. They ironically fail to protect her as she is bitten by the Count and forced to drink his blood. None the less she is the one who wants for everyone to be safe and the one who wishes for the group to have mercy on the Count. She represents the Victorian woman in a manner which suggests that women at the time were treated like children, they even had similar rights to children. She is so pure that she wants to show mercy to Dracula.

Lucy, in contrast to Mina, is represented as more emotional and perhaps more progressive. However, to her dismay, it is not the way that women should be in Victorian times. I imagine if the story had taken place sometime closer to the present, the fate of Lucy’s character would be much different than it was. The main reason why Lucy could not be saved and that Mina could is that Lucy is impure. Lucy receives three proposals in one day and wishes that she could accept them all. She has sexual desires which for a Victorian woman is not respectable. While Mina, on the other hand, is content with marrying Johnathan and, as with the fashion of Victorian women, tries to become useful to him by memorizing the train schedules and learning shorthand. In other words, she is pure, whereas Lucy is not, in the eyes of the Victorians.

The other side of the gender role coin is the high stature, powerful, upper class older men. It shows the type of man that is respected in the times. All the main male characters of this book have some major traits that define them; Dr. Van Helsing is more experienced (wise), Dr. Seward is smart (intelligent), and Johnathan is courageous. These traits should come with being a man in a Victorian’s mind. By this logic though, should the Count Dracula not be a perfect example of the perfect man; strong, wise, intelligent and courageous? Why then, is he not capable of beating this group of men and a woman? Because he is promiscuous and an alien from a more eastern country, the opposite of a Victorian.

In the story, there are only a few cases of men from the lower classes. Lower class men could not demonstrate power so were not considered important as well as immoral, as when Johnathan says “Thank God! This is the country where bribery can do anything, and we are well supplied with money.”. When he sates this he is speaking specifically about the working class men and how they will do anything for money. Since women were considered lower than men in any class, lower class women are not notably mentioned. Therefore, the characters in the novel Dracula represent the roles of the different genders and the different classes in Victorian society, that is upper class men as in control and powerful, lower class men as incapable and immoral, upper class women as pure and innocent and lower class women are unworthy of mention.

The story of Dracula would be different if there was only one traditional narrator, first person protagonist, in the sense that the tone of the story would change, the feeling of realism would not be as strong and if the narration was first person from a protagonist the characters would have armour against death.

If the story of Dracula was told through a traditional narrator, it would lose its mysterious feel. This would happen because there would be details that the narrator might describe in first person, that may be omitted in epistolary form because the character forgot, or chose to leave out the detail for some reason.

The loss of mysteriousness would then lead into the loss of realism in the story. For example, in the story, it could be argued that you get to know some of the characters personally, supported by the fact that the readers get to read the characters personal diaries. The newspaper clippings and diaries help give the story more realism, a form of evidence that the tale actually happened within the universe in which the story takes place. While the story of Dracula, when transcribed in the first person, would resemble more of a tale being told by a friend at a party, it might be true, or it could be a complete lie where there is no solid evidence as to whether or not it really happened.

The tale of Dracula told from first person, would also suffer another consequence. The character telling the story would have a type of shield against death, because without this, how can the character tell the story if they are dead? Unless the author introduces some form of reincarnation or afterlife where the dead can interact with the living, such as in the Percy Jackson series where the protagonist tells the tale. Whenever Percy was in mortal danger the suspense was lost because if he didn’t survive, there would be no point doing anything else in the book.

Mystery, realism, and unpredictability of the characters’ fate add to the interest of the novel. If the tale of Dracula was told in a traditional first person protagonist narrative form, it would have less mysterious, have less realism, and would give the protagonist a sort of armour against death.

In the tale of Dracula, the Count the main vampire of the story has many different powers, which are almost all symbolic of something. Below is a list of things he can command, according to Dr. Van Helsing and their symbolic value.

Storm- Chaos/unknown

One of Dracula’s powers is the power to control small storms, such as the one around the ship. Storms represent chaos and the unknown because of their unpredictability at times.

Fog- Obscures/distorts

The second power mentioned is his power to control the fog. Although it might be thought that fog would be encompassed with storms, it is not. In the story it is mentioned separately in the story because of it’s symbolic value. The fog is a representation of obscurity and distortion in the figurative sense, as well as the physical.

Thunder- Power, Energy

Thunder, in the story represents power and energy. Much like Thor and his hammer Mjölnir, the Norse god of thunder, Dracula can control thunder. It demonstrates that he is physically and mentally powerful, even though he may be old.

Rats

One of the Count’s powers that are mentioned that I could not find a symbol for is his ability to control rats. He uses this power a few times in the story, such as in the chapel in his London house. If I had to take a guess though, I would imagine that it represents the uncleanliness of the Count. For rats can stereotypically be found in sewers, which are dirty.

Bats- Death, Rebirth

Bats are a big symbol associated with vampires, it’s one of the first things that come to mind. They represent death are rebirth. In the story Dracula can with certain restrictions transform into a bat. This could represent him being able to figuratively and literally die and resurrect himself in another physical form, but his soul will never leave his body.

Foxes- Evilness, corruption, cheating, sly and cunning

The foxes are not used in by Dracula in the story, but it is a nice symbol to develop his character. All the traits represented by foxes, evilness, corruption, cheating, slyness and a cunning mind are all things the Dracula posses. For example his cunning mind can be seen in the thoroughness with which he plans his invasion of London.

Moths

Not a clue what moths are supposed to represent.

Owl- Death and Wisdom

The owl, a symbol of wisdom and strangely death.

Wolf- Militarism

Wolves are a prominent thing in the beginning of the novel, Dracula uses then at one point on an unfortunate woman. Wolves are usually used on shields and flags of military groups. A lone wolf represents courage and self reliance. This is more what is to be seen in the symbol of wolves in Dracula. They demonstrate his strength and self reliance.

I believe that if Dracula was set in the modern era, and published more recently, it would be a completely different book. The female characters would be better developed, the modern setting would change the story dramatically, and Dracula would have different and better motives.

The female characters in the novel Dracula by Bram Stocker when read in modern times, seems a little behind the times to say the least, it doesn’t even pass the Bechdel test. Especially with the lack of development in the female character department. If the story was written in the modern era Lucy and Mina would be more developed, therefore making them more interesting. Lucy for example could be an aviatrix, similar to the real life aviatrix Amelia Airheart. She could be a much stronger character than she really was.

If the setting of Dracula was changed to a more modern setting, such as the present the story would alter the story and bring it to a much more open to things than they were in the book (they were pretty open for the times the book is set in). The characters, especially the female ones would be developed in a much more different and interesting way in my opinion.

Finally the antagonist Dracula would have different motives, therefore making him a much more interesting character. He could have accumulated scientific knowledge about himself and his curse, testing the limits of his body, curse and mind. He could have built up a library of knowledge over the hundreds of years of life and have his blood consumption down to an exact science. Perhaps he could even be trying to impose his “curse” on the human race as he thinks it is an evolutionary step.

These ideas, a general movement of the book into the modern era would in my opinion make the story more interesting with modern/present day ideas, motives and technology. It would improve the strength of female characters in the book, the book would have more intriguing themes and morals, and it would give rise for the better motives than there originally were.