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English Literature Essay - the Theme of Death in Dracula and Dorian Gray
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An essay in bulleted form exploring and comparing the theme of death in Stoker's 'Dracula' and Wilde's 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'.
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Tuesday 2nd March 2019Essay Plan: Compare the ways in which the writers of your two chosen texts convey the
threat or presence of death.
Introduction:
Context: Both Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ and Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’
are works of gothic novels born out of a changing face of Fin-de-siecle Victorian
London and some of the scientific and atheist beliefs emerging at the time which
challenged the tradition and religion upheld in Victorian society.
Context: A prominent feature of gothic literature is the threat or presence of death;
subsequently, both writers present death as a consequence of or form of
punishment for transgressing traditional Victorian values.
In ‘Dracula,’ Stoker uses the antagonistic Dracula, who disregards societal norms, as
a symbol of death to emphasise the danger the morally good Christian characters are
exposed to.
Meanwhile, in ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray,’ death could be perceived as an escape
from the repercussions of one’s sinful actions, as the eponymous character meets a
violent demise after deviating from the Victorian standard of being a virtuous,
chivalrous gentleman - and instead embarks on a hedonistic journey to moral
degradation catalysing his downfall.
Point one:
From the outset of ‘Dracula,’ the threat of death is illustrated as a palpable element
which alters behaviour and surroundings in Jonathan’s journey and arrival at Count
Dracula’s castle in Transylvania.
Initially, the threat of death is implicitly present in Jonathan’s journey in which the
epistolary form Stoker employs allows him to include mundane interjections of
Jonathan’s reality which is juxtaposed with more menacing elements of the setting.
For example, Jonathan observes the “green swelling hills,” which attempts to
romanticise the otherwise ominous scene, and the colour symbolism of “green”
carries connotations of nature and life; in opposition to the theme of death.
In contrast to this, Stoker builds up a strong sense of foreboding through the
pathetic fallacy of “dark rolling clouds” and the “oppressive sense of thunder,” which
has symbolic significance in terms of foreshadowing the fatal threat that Dracula will
pose to Jonathan.
A further factor culminating in this undercurrent of fear in the opening of the novel,
is the townspeople’s reactions to Jonathan when he reveals that he is visiting
Dracula: they say “ordog,” “pokol,”” vrolok” - meaning Satan, Hell and vampire - and
the landlady or the Golden Krone Hotel insists on giving him a “crucifix,” which he
regards as “idolatrous,” being a civilised “English Churchman.” Ironically, this relic is
what later saves him from Dracula’s “demoniac fury.”
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