Victorian Foreigners = Today's Minorities

In Bram Stoker’s Dracula, foreign invasion proves to be a driving theme throughout the novel. The vampire Dracula is characterized as haunting, pale, and exoctic. His personality and overall demeanor emphasizes a sort of gender conflation and mixed sexuality. His desire for Lucy, Mina, and even his vampiresses prove his sexuality as hetero, but he also conflates that role when he declares to the Van Helsing group that he will get to them through their women. During the Victorian era, British imperialism and industrialization was on a rise and faced a collapse due to foreign invasion. The British at the time were focused on making their country thrive and keep British ties within the homeland, so foreigners were branded as unwanted entities.

The concern of the “Other” creates an allegory between Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Britain of the 19th century. This allegory can be represented by not only Dracula, but by also the Crew of Light group, which included Van Helsing, Jonathan Harker, Quincy Morris, Arthur Holmwood, and John Steward. If you look at the Crew of Light group, you can see an alliance between British, American, and Western Europe. This alliance must then works together to defeat the threat from Eastern Europe, Dracula. Dracula’s foreign invasion is then parallel to his smaller “invasion” of Lucy’s English home. Lucy represents a kind a light in the west and Dracula is able to victimize Lucy giving an alarm to his potentiality to victimizing an entire nation. But, to compare to present day issues, Dracula’s foreignness could symbolize the personae of minorities, in the sense that they are the “Others”.

If you look at other supernatural movies, television shows, or books, each creature or character has its own characteristic that makes it similar to its species. For example, take a look the Twilight Saga. Vampires are perceived as the eccentric and exotic figures that take the lead in many societal aspects. Since the vampires represent superiority, they are a parallel to white people in America. The Twilight vampires are powerful, graceful, desired beings and you can see this power and desire in a subtle racial hierarchy, which is still present to our current society. Now, take this parallel and focus on the other main characters of the saga, the werewolves. In the novels, these wolves descend from a mystical line of Native American tribe culture. The Quileute pack are goofy, energetic, impulsive, and base their personalities on a more brute/ animalistic side. This is the representation of minorities and how they are the more savage side of people. Relating back to Dracula, the foreignness or sense of other was feared because the British believed these cultures were more primitive and would destroy their nation. In a way, the minorities in Twilight represent that same primitive culture, but make them non-white characters and the supernatural being of an actual animal.   

The Foreign Invasion: Friend or Foe?

            Racism and xenophobia: two things plaguing our world today that keeps us from seeing eye to eye. To say that these are “hot” topics in today’s world would be an understatement; issues having to do with “foreigners” are one of the biggest issues in our modern world. It isn’t recent issue however; racism and xenophobia have been consistent problems all throughout history. So then, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to find out that it is one of the underlying themes in Dracula.

            The most obvious evidence for this claim is the man himself, Dracula: a foreigner who speaks imperfect English with a heavy accent, coming to a different country and immediately causing trouble. This entire idea parallels the thought process of people of Great Britain at this time. This comes, at least in some way, from the decline of British Imperialism. For the longest time Great Britain had conquered and oppressed country after country and when they finally calmed down, many people were worried(scared more like) that some of those people would be a bit ticked off. Many were taking note of the rise of other economies, such as Germany and the United States, and the growing unrest in British colonies and took it as a sign that Britain was in a decline-economically, politically, socially and so on (Arata 622). This rise and their fall caused many citizens to grow afraid of foreigners as they were on the rise and might want payback for Britain’s misdeeds.

            So then, Dracula represents an invasion of sorts into the British way of life. Dracula shows up and (though a small group) life starts becoming chaotic. Lives are lost, routine is interrupted and so on. But Dracula only represents one side of the foreign invasion. Consider Quincey Morris, the Texan who is not only one of Lucy’s love interests, but also one of the “heroes” of the story. Everyone seems fine with him, but he is a foreigner so what’s up with that? Well there’s a few reasons for this. First of all, by this time America and Britain were allies. Tensions were not nearly as high as they had been in the past, so the fear of Americans wasn’t very high. However he is portrayed differently from the Brits. Quincey, while not being portrayed as dumb per say, isn’t portrayed as the smartest man. In fact, in terms of story, he doesn’t provide much. A blood transfusion, some dialogue here and there, and help in destroying the boxes, he isn’t exactly the most important character…until the end. In the final fight with Dracula, Quincey is one of the main contributors in the fight against him, and also the only casualty on the “good” side. In one fell swoop, both foreigners, Dracula and Morris, are killed. I believe this is a way for Britain to “assert” its rapidly declining power, having the British characters survive while the foreign, friend and foe, perish. Whether or not it actually signifies that exactly, the similarities and differences between Morris and Dracula are interesting.

Here is my source by the way: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3827794?seq=2#page_scan_tab_contents