Bram Stoker’s Dracula appears to be an inspiration and the basis behind many popular supernatural tales that we are familiar with today. Even the most modern and popular vampire tales, like Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight, continue to have many striking similarities and connections to the original vampire Dracula. Stoker’s Dracula and Meyer’s Twilight share many similar establishments including characteristic traits, humanity in vampires, and the balance of nature when directly compared to each other that portray the everlasting influence that the original vampire Count Dracula continues to have on all vampire tales.
One of the more popular modern day supernatural tales is Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight. A few key characteristics of the vampires in Twilight include superior strength and speed, pale skin, a thirst for blood, a unique special power in each individual vampire, and sparkling in the sunlight. Superior strength and speed, pale skin, and a thirst for blood is directly derived from the original vampire story Dracula and seen as a common staple among almost all vampire tales. The debate whether an undead supernatural entity such as a vampire retains a part of their human self after transition is one of great controversy. In Dracula, Stoker describes his character Lucy as a desirably chaste, well respected and well behaved Victorian woman in her human life. After Lucy’s transition to vampire, her desirability is amplified and she is seen as this sexual being that is unholy and the opposite of what she was. However, perhaps her desirability was an amplified trait in her vampire life because it was prominent in her human life. In Twilight, each vampire has their own unique ability that is described as an amplified trait from their human lives. For example, the vampire Edward Cullen can hear people’s thoughts because he was perceptive of people in his human life. Meyer’s takes her own stand on the controversy and gives her characters an amplified trait of their human life that becomes a large part of their vampire life.
In Dracula, the readers can gather that vampires are weakened by the sun although Stoker is somewhat vague in this matter. Stephanie Meyer describes her vampires as having cold marble or stone like skin. In the sunlight, many stones and marbles have a sparkle to them just as she describes her vampire’s skin. However, it appears that Meyer’s vampires don’t have an obvious weakness like Dracula in the daylight. As such, werewolves are needed as a supernatural enemy against the vampires. In Bram Stroker’s Dracula, there are many instanced of wolves controlled by Dracula himself. Wolves and vampires have clearly been linked together as supernatural beings since the beginning of vampire tales. However, due to Stoker’s vague and unexplained relationship between his wolves and vampires, the wolves have played many roles and developed into many different things. In Twilight, Stephanie Meyer uses the relationship between wolves and vampires to create a balance of nature that Stoker establishes with vampires and the sun. Werewolves were created as a counterpart to vampires and are established as supernatural enemies.
Although Stephanie Meyer was likely influenced by many other vampire tales before creating Twilight, the similarities that readers continue to see between her tale and Stoker’s Dracula portray the everlasting influence that the original vampire tale has had on key vampire characteristics. Due to the vague and unexplained aspects of vampires and wolves in Stoker’s Dracula, it is intriguing to see how other vampire tales have filled in their own version of the unknown and witness the development of the aspects of those tales as well.
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Meyer, Stephanie. Twilight. Little Brown and Company: New York. 2005.
Stoker, Bram. Dracula. Ed. Glennis Byron. Broadview Press Ltd: Canada. 1998.
Marilyn, as a somewhat reluctant Twilighter, I really loved that you chose to talk about Dracula's influence on the vampire lore that followed its publication.
ReplyDeleteIf you wanted to make this into a five-page paper, I think maybe you may be best served to really take a stand on how important Stoker was to vampire mythology, and explore some other fiction that took his ideas of vampires and transformed them into our current ideas about the creature. You could go with the "modern impact" for example, and look at Buffy, True Blood, and some other contemporary takes on the vampire story.
This is really cool! Good luck writing it!
Marilyn, I think you did a wonderful job! I love your post. I felt that you had some really cool ideas and I really enjoyed reading them. I agree with Serena's comment about adding to the mythology of vampires. I think that it would be cool to read about Bram Stokers inspirations that created Dracula, since Dracula is the inspiration to so many other books. I think that you could research Stokers inspiration and discuss how the legends of vampires has remained fairly consistent for a long time. Blood sucking, speed, agility, strength, good looks and so many other similarities. I think that your point about how Stephanie Meyer used her own adaptation on special gifts that vampires have. I have never thought about that before. I think I assumed that all vampire legends referred vampires having special skills. I think your on to something!
DeleteMarilyn, I loved your post! You wrote about a lot of the same points between Dracula and Twilight like I did for my post! As a huge Twilight fan, I noticed a lot of the same points in Dracula that led me to believe that Stephanie was influenced by Stokers' novel. Why do you think that the 2 authors made the readers view vampires so differently? Stephanie makes us love them and sympathize for them. But Stoker makes us afraid of them and almost hate them. Do you think the authors did this because of the change in teenage attitudes? Or why do you think that our generation tends to love things supernatural, where past generations were terrified of them? I am asking this because I would like to know what you and everyone else thinks so I can incorporate them into my paper. Great post!
ReplyDeleteBrandi, you kind of touched on what I left as a comment on your post. I definitely the evolution of vampire lore is largely based on our ever changing society. We have become so "used to" the idea of monsters and what they represent that it takes more complex story lines and different perspectives to draw us into those movies now. Twilight has had enormous success doing exactly that. They have taken what essentially everyone knows about vampires and given them more human emotions. Which to us is pretty far outside the box, because I don't know of anything else that has done this except for Trueblood. Whereas during the time of Dracula's publishing just the surface level conflict of what vampires were caused major riffs with readers. In our society we tend to seek more enjoyment out of the emotional ties of different subjects such as Bella and Edward. Using the vampire and even werewolf lore as taken that a step further. Aside from the increasing physical attributes, how do you feel that the human qualities such as the emotions play into the direction the vampire lore is headed?
DeleteGreatness. I enjoyed the similarities drawn between Dracula and the modern characters. I probably would not have thought of what Serena said on my own, but I agree that some historic impact would make this even more interesting.
ReplyDeleteLet me start by saying, I am not a Twilight fan nor have I read or seen anything related to Twilight. So I can’t really comment too much about this post other than it’s an interesting comparison. I can say that Bram Stoker’s novel was influenced by John Polidori’s story The Vampyre (1819). This was the first time it was published that vampires have pale skin. Also, before Polidori, vampires were seen as walking corpses. Polidori chose to make vampires seem handsome and desirable. In Polidori’s story along with others written in the decades to come, you can see a lot of the vampire lore such as super human strength, fangs, and inability to stand sunlight. Also, I like what you said about wolves. I find it funny that werewolves and vampires are seen as enemies in today’s society. Their lore coincides for generations, but the idea that they were enemies is a product of Hollywood. It was the 2003 movie Underworld that made the idea popular. It was the inspiration of the werewolf-vampire war for both the 2004 movie Van Hellsing and the 2005 novel Twilight. I think I read too much into origins…
ReplyDeleteMarilyn,
ReplyDeleteAwesome. I knew somebody would write about this. Great introduction. Your thesis is awesome, and it can clearly be found in the last sentences of your introduction.
In your miniclaims, it seems as if you are missing textual evidence and some research. You make multiple claims comparing the books, but you should definitely have some evidence. I believe that you should look for interviews with Stephanie Meyers. I think it would help a lot.
What is different in the novels and the films, since both books have been turned to movies? Can you find specific parts in both books that will support your claims?
This seems like a great paper.; I wish you the best of luck in completing this.
-David E.
This is compelling and really interesting. Even though I have only read half of the first book, I can see how you connected Stoker and Meyer's work. I think it would be really interesting if you could find, as David said, some quotes of Meyers talking about vampires in general (because I doubt she directly related to Stoker's novel, but I maybe wrong). Also, I'm sure you'll have these in your paper but you're missing citations in your post.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with what Serena said, comparing it to other works that involved vampires. I just don't know if you'll have enough to write 5 pages over, but like i said, I only read half of it. lol
Good luck!!
David, thank you for noticing these points. I have many places marked in Dracula for reference, but I did not have the Twilight book with me before Thanksgiving break so it didn't feel right to have textual evidence from one book without the other so I focused instead on ideas and main similarities or differences. If I do use this for my final paper, I plan on researching the legend origins and inspiration both Stoker and Meyer used to write their vampire novels. Although Hollywood has played a large part in the way these books are interpreted through movies, I have not decided if I would like to focus on this aspect or not yet. I had originally considered comparing True Blood and Vampire Diaries as well, but since I have not read the books that influenced the tv shows I decided to stick with Twilight. I appreciate everyone's comments so far! Each comment has helped me consider what to focus on and research for the final paper.
ReplyDeleteI think it is important to consider the purpose of each story. I believe that Meyer's main goal with the Twilight series was to create a love story thriller that brought emotion out of the reader. It makes sense that the vampires in this story would be attractive, smart, and passionate. Where I am puzzled is what was the author's purpose for writing Dracula? Was it to warn the audience of the hidden evils of society or false prophets? In Dracula the vampires are mysterious, ravenous for human blood, and master tricksters. I think that if you think of why the novel was written it will make more sense as to why the vampires are portrayed the way they are.
ReplyDeleteI have to disagree with Michelle. I have a guilty pleasure for Twilight, so I believe it is much more than a thriller and love story, although that is what led me to read it in the first place. Throughout the Twilight series Bella wants what she cannot have, she wants something different then the norm. He intrigues her. I think it would be interesting to see why vampires intrigue normal human characters in the first place.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I think it would be awesome to incorporate the idea that they are always on the move, much like Count moves from Transylvania. Despite the straight forward similarities, there is also deeper ones you may be able to unveil.
It would also be really cool to differentiate why some things may be different between the 21st century vampire and Stoker's vampire. I would not go so far as to say though, that they do not both have deep meanings, Although, I know Stoker is definitely a higher art than Twilight, obviously.
I think to fill a five page paper it would be a good idea to illustrate what Meyer kept of Bram Stoker's and what she discarded, and why?
"So What?" Authors use vampires... because...
Good point Veronica, but that is sorta what my paper is about! That's funny because I am working on those same points. I think Marilyn should really focus on the fairytale sides of the 1800's and todays, like you stated on my post! You could discuss how the love portrayed in Dracula was obviously only between humans. And once Lucy was turned, her husband was able to destroy her because "she was a monster". In Twilight, Bella gives up her humanity in order to spend an eternity with Edward. These are VERY different types of love stories, even though the vampire traits are very similar! I love were you are going with this paper, and I hope it goes well!
ReplyDeletereally interesting post. i was waiting for someone to compare these two. i like the siomilarities you brought up as far as the roll of women in certain parts, in both of these stories. perhaps consider elabirating more on this point, obviously they are key rolls, but not really something most people consider when comparing the two.
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