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  • Essay / The influence of Stoker's descriptions of settings in Dracula

    The novel Dracula is set in Transylvania and England in the late 19th century. The period of rapid transition which saw a growth in modernization. From rural Eastern Europe to Victorian England to the Industrial Revolution. Scientific discoveries and revolutionary theories fought against religious doctrines and traditions. In this case, Bram Stoker poses a problem that blindly following scientific theories is the same as blindly following religious doctrines. What we consider to be the truth today may not be the truth in the future. So that the lessons of the rural past are not forgotten as we might learn something we might need. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay The timing and setting are very compelling because they provide the specific point of view of the story that we can see a divergence between two cultures and see how they contrast with each other. 19th-century Victorian England was a time of intense confusion, with many women dying of an as yet unknown disease (tuberculosis). Die the same way by turning pale, vomiting blood and lethargy. Almost the same symptoms of vampirism in the book. Perhaps this is the inspiration for Lucy Westenra and Mina Harker's affliction. Sexuality is also a controversial part of the book, with Victorian expectations that women should be gentle and pure resulting in the impure affliction of seductive vampirism. Transylvania is a place where Dracula's castle is located. The distance between England and Transylvania is not only literal but also figurative. It symbolizes the distance between progress and superstition prospects between the two places. Transylvania symbolizes the traditional past while England represents the secular present. Bram Stoker's use of setting to establish some of the key gothic elements of the novel Dracula proves crucial in developing both suspense and intrigue. This can be studied particularly carefully with reference to Jonathan Harker's account of his journey to the Carpathians and Mina Harker's description of her birthplace, Whitby. Both passages highlight the natural beauty of the area as well as a lingering sense of mystery, leading to heightened dramatic tension. This is most evident in Jonathan Harker's account of his journey through a region that is one of the "wildest and least known regions of Europe". Mina's description of Whitby as a 'beautifully green', 'charming' place is also surrounded by legends which are a direct consequence of how the setting is perceived. Indeed, the perception of Whitby Abbey as a ruin which encloses the "white lady" is linked to the myth of the bells which ring when ships at sea are lost to provoke an apprehension in the reader which continues to increase all the time. throughout the novel. Meanwhile, the repetition and reiteration of the "darkness" and "solemn effect" of nightfall in Transylvania foreshadows the impending horror that awaits Jonathan and Mina. The two selected passages precede the arrival of Count Dracula - first before Jonathan meets him at Castle Dracula, and then upon the Count's arrival in Whitby, England. The use of the setting as a means of creating suspense is therefore very successful. The result is an excited anticipation of an “atmosphere” that will soon evolve into an “oppressive sensation of thunder.” The reader is forced to recognize the fear of the unknown. Jonathan's PassageHarkering through Transylvania and towards the Carpathians begins with pleasant and reassuring scenery. “A bewildering mass of fruit flowers” ​​in a “sloping green field” encourages a false sense of security that Stoker soon exploits. Indeed, it leaves the reader in awe of such an obscure and distant land: “the mighty slopes” are said to have “dominated” Harker, while the “jagged rocks” and “pointed rocks” of the mountains present the landscape. as intimidating and highlights its differences from Harker's homeland, Britain. It should be noted that the foreign and unknown land of the East is an important theme throughout the book. Transylvania is considered "a whirlwind of imagination", while Harker notes that "all the superstitions known in the world are collected in the horseshoe of the Carpathians". David Rodgers notes that Stoker creates an environment "which, with its indiscernible location," is "a land that is neither entirely material, nor locatable, nor defined by the strict negotiations of these terms." Indeed, to a Victorian audience who had seen the frontiers of imperialism expand across the globe, such an isolated area was rare and disconcerting. The loss of the comfort and civilized nature of the West is emphasized in the novel's early chapters when Harker acknowledges: "There were many things new to me: haystacks in the trees, and here and there, very beautiful masses of weeping birch trees. "It is noted that the popularity of travel books in the Victorian era was enormous - it is believed that Stoker used Emily Gerard's The Land Beyond the Forest (the English translation of "Transylvania") to provide factual information to Dracula Indeed, the Victorian desire to explore and gain knowledge about remote lands meant that the setting of the books was crucial to the reader's overall disposition, causing a major shift in mood. While previously the setting of the passage through the Carpathians was both beautiful and alien, as night falls a strange tension of mystery is suggested to the reader that "the shadows of night began to fall." creeping around us.' This is evidence of the peculiar change that occurs at the end of the day. Stoker ensures that the reader is aware of Harker's growing apprehension of the 'great masses of grayness'. and “scattered trees” which are said to be “particularly strange”. Meanwhile, night is a “growing twilight” that “seems to fade into a dark fog of darkness.” Stoker uses the repetition of key ideas of the landscape at nightfall to produce a relentlessness that seems to overwhelm the valley through which the carriage travels, in a “darkness” that is both “gray” and “ominous.” The landscape became a negative backdrop with a sense of impending doom. The "ghost clouds" and, later, the "dark, rolling clouds" slide "ceaselessly through the valleys" to give a complex sense of enclosure as the clouds form a ceiling for trapping the “thunderous” and already claustrophobic atmosphere. Stoker's intention is to establish the metonymy of sadness and horror, characteristic of Gothic drama. Metonymy, a subtype of metaphor, uses one thing – here, darkness or obscurity – to represent something else – here, mystery and the supernatural. The prolonged darkness sets a precedent for the rest of the novel. The reader learns that darkness, the period in which Dracula thrives as a vampire, is when the horror should be expected to peak. As in much Gothic literature, such as The Mysterious Stranger (1860), which is thought to..