SPECIALIZAREA ENGLEZA – GERMAN Ă FORMA DE ÎNVĂ܉ĂMÂNT: ZI LUCRARE DE LICEN܉Ă COORDONATOR ȘTIIN܉IIC CONF.UNIV.DR. NICOLETA STANCA ABSOLVENT CÎRSTE A… [631033]

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UNIVERSITATEA ” OVIDIUS ” DIN CONSTAN ȚA
FACULTATEA DE LITERE
SPECIALIZAREA ENGLEZA – GERMAN Ă
FORMA DE ÎNVĂ܉ĂMÂNT: ZI

LUCRARE DE LICEN܉Ă

COORDONATOR ȘTIIN܉IIC
CONF.UNIV.DR. NICOLETA STANCA

ABSOLVENT: [anonimizat]܉A
2017

Facultatea de Litere
Aleea Universității nr.1 Constanța 900472, ROMÂNIA
Tel. 0040 241 551733 Fax. 0040 241 650 444
E-mail: secretariat. [anonimizat]

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UNIVERSITATEA ” OVIDIUS ” DIN CONSTAN ȚA
FACULTATEA DE LITERE
Avizat Data
Semnătura coordonator ܈tiin܊ific

GOTHIC ELEMENTS IN
19TH CENTURY NOVELS
( Frankenstein, Dracula )

COORDONATOR ȘTIIN܉IIC
CONF.UNIV.DR. NICOLETA STANCA

ABSOLVENT: [anonimizat]܉A
2017

Facultatea de Litere
Aleea Universității nr.1 Constanța 900472, ROMÂNIA
Tel. 0040 241 551733 Fax. 0040 241 650 444
E-mail: secretariat. [anonimizat]

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION …………………………………………………………………………………………………… 4

CHAPTER 1. GOTHIC LITERATURE. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
1.1- Definition of the Term Gothic ………………………………………………………………………….. 6
1.2- Historical Background……………………………………………………………………………………..10
1.3- Evolution of Gothic Fiction…………………………………………………………………………….14

CHAPTER 2. GOTHIC ELEMENTS IN FRANKENSTEIN
2.1 – Atmosphere and Setting ……………………………………………………………………………………17
2.2 – The Gothic Villain …………………………………………………………………………………………..25
2.3 – The Doppleganger Motiv……………………………………………………………………………………29

CHAPTER 3. GOTHIC ELEMENTS IN DRACULA
3.1- Atmosphere and Setting ……………………………………………………………………………………….34
3.2 -The Gothic Villain ………………………………………………………………………………………………41
3.3 -The Doppleganger Motiv ……………………………………………………………………………………..45

CONCLUSION ……………………………………………………………………………………………………….49

BIBLIOGRAPHY ………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 51

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Introduction

This diploma paper aims to examine the ways in which 19th century Gothic writers,
namely Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and Bram Stoker explore and further develope the
Gothic tradition in world literature.The current dissertation starts with my personal
preference for the world of Gothic literature, whose methods of generating horror,
psychological terror and a general mood of uneasiness influenced my understanding about the
unknown, the irrational, the dark side of the human mind. The paper is composed of three
chapters, each one subdivided into three parts. The first chapter aims to paint an image of the
Gothic from its beginings to the different ways in which it later developed. Focusing on the
novels Frankenstein and Dracula the following chapters will analyze both authors ’ use of the
same archetypal Gothic elements: Atmosphere and Setting, The Gothic Villain, The
Doppleganger Motiv and their personal interpretation in their novels.
The first chapter will provide an insight into the theoretical background which
functions as a basis for the following chapters. The first section of the chapter intents to define
the term Gothic , mentioning its various significations. The following part deals with the
historical context full of chaos and turmoil, from which Gothic as a literary genre
emerged.Lastly, the third section of the first chapter explains how the Gothic fiction evolved,
from the first Gothic novel to its successors in the 20th century.
The second chapter will also concern the way in which Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
integrates in her novel emblematic Gothic elements adding to them a personal touch.Divided
into three sections, the same structure will be used also for the following chapter in order to
highlight the common Gothic elements that both novels share.Shelley ’s Frankenstein , the
base novel of this chapter illustrates its Gothic tone through the use of dark, isolated settings,
gloomy atmosphere, the presence of a grotesque villain and a psyhological bond that leads to
the appearance of the Doppleganger motiv.This second part of the chapter will present
Shelley ’s idea of creating a villain with benevolent intention in the beginning, turning into a
destructive creature, a product of human rejection.The protagonist will be shown as more of a
villain than the creature itself. The third subchapter will show the Gothic double in

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Frankenstein as more of a psihological link between the protagonist-antagonist pair, the
monster and its creator sharing an esoteric bond.
The final chapter will mirror the previous one in terms of structure, being divided into
three subchapters, each of them discussing the same Gothic elements in order to maintain the
idea that despite having a slightly different approach than the first Gothic writers, Stoker alike
Shelley inspires from the first Gothic texts, inserating typical elements and molding them to
correspond with his personal approach. The first section will paint the Gothic tone of the
novel with dark, ruined settings and an atmosphere of dread and anxiety.The second part of
the final chapter aims to affirm that akin Shelley ’s memorable villain, Stoker fashions one of
the most illustrious villain figure in Gothic literature.The final section focuses on the motiv of
the double, the villain and the hero sharing similar traits, yet being utterly different from one
another: one is a power of destruction and chaos, the other a force of God, using his
knowlegde for the benefit of humanity.

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Chapter 1 : Gothic Literature

1.1 Definition of the term Gothic
Gothic can be seen as a wide-ranging concept appling to art, literature and the mindset
of people.The term ”Gothic ” is used to describe various concepts in diverse contexts. Gothic
designates a northen tribe, ” the Goths ”, who played a crucial part in the downfall of the
Roman Empire and the development of Medieval Europe.The Goths were an important
power in the Roman world starting with the 3rd up to the 6th century AD. The wars between
the Roman emperors and Gothic rulers had a disastrous impact on the Balkan territory and the
northeastern Mediterranean region. The Goths were joined by diverse tribes and together,
under the rule of the great king Ermanaric , they set the bases of a kingdom that extended
from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea.1
In architecture the term refers to a revival (more accurately a cultural reconstruction)
of a medieval aesthetic that was in vogue in Britain from the early eighteenth to the late
nineteenth century. 2 This architectural style appeared for the first time in northern France
around 1140, slowly developing during the building of important religious institutions in
Paris.The goal was to strive towards greater dimension, height and light. In the subsequent
years, this style was also used for castles, bridges, gates etc.The main characteristics of
Gothic architecture are: imposing designes,pointing upwards with height and elegance, arched
flying buttresses, the pointed arch, vaulted ceilings, window tracery, light interiors, use of
decorative gargoyles.The Notre-Dame Cathedral, the Church of Notre-Dame de Louviers,
Chartres Cathedral, Palais des Papes and Sainte-Chapelle are a few famous buildings built in
Gothic style.In England , the majority of buildings,especially the medieval cathedrals are
built in Gothic style. The Canterbury Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, where royal
coronations take place are two important works of the Gothic architecture.Next to

1 ”Goths ”. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia . Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 22 July 2004. Web. 9. Feb. 2017

2 Smith, Andrew. Gothic Literature. Edinburg: Edinburgh University Press, 2007. Google Book Search . p.2.
Web. 9 Feb. 2017.

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cathedrals,this style extended to castles, great houses, almshouses ,trade halls and parish
churches.
Beside architecture, Gothic also spread in Literature.Gothic Literature emerged in the
late 18th, early 19th centuries (1790-1830). It is considered to be an outgrowth of literary
Romanticism, sharing a number of features , both contributing to the ascent of the novel and
poetry as primary sources of entertainment. Early Romanticists found inspiration in medieval
romances with basis in Arthurian myth( e.g Tristan and Isolde ). Gothic writer s were also
influenced by medieval literature through the use of castles as settings, dark atmosphere ,
supernatural beings and magical elements. The Gothic interweaves with the Romantic, as
poets such as Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, and Byron at various times used the Gothic to
explore,at different levels of explicitness, the role that the apparently irrational could play in
critiquing quasi-rationalistic accounts of experience.3
Romantic writers are fascinated with the use of supernatural,an element that seems to
thrive in the Gothic realm.Samuel Coleridge ’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Lord
Byron ’s Manfred are good examples in which Romantic writers merge supernatural elements
in their works. InThe Rime of the Ancient Mariner thesupernatural occurs through the use of
natural elements. The Ancient Mariner and his sailors are punished by the sun,the ocean and
the absence of rain and wind. He is cursed by the dead men whose natural corpses become
inhabited by vengeful spirits:;he hears the spirits talking about him whenthe ghost ship
carrying Death and Life- in-Death sails by.In Manfred the supernatural touch of the poem can
be felt through the spirits, Nemesis, the Witch, and Arimanes.The primary focus of Gothic
literature is on the decay,chaos, the dark side of human nature ,the chaos of irrationality and
passion over reason as a response to the historical, political,sociological and psychological
backround of the 18th-19th centuries.The Gothic also questions the very possibility of
representation and de-substantializes the symbolic order as inherently ghostly or haunted by
its own failings.4
Gothic literature can be seen as a reaction to the formal realism ideals of the 18th
century. ”Formal realism ”is a term coined by Ian Watt in his work The Rise of the

3 Id.
4Berthin, Christine. Gothic Hauntings Melancholy Crypts And Textual Ghosts . Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
Web.9 Feb. 2017.

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Novel ,(1957) . Watt defines it as "the narrative method whereby the novel embodies this
circumstantial view of life…[It] is the narrative embodiment of the premise or primary
convention that the novel is a full and and authentic report of human experience."5 Its goal is
to build a realitythrough the inner workings of a character and to delve into the individual
consciousness and perception.In contrast,the Gothic novel focuses on the environment and the
character ’s actions. Robert D. Hume argues that a Gothic novel “can be seen as one symptom
of a widespread shift away from neoclassical ideals of order and reason, toward romantic
belief in emotion and imagination. ”6 The Gothic novel slithers away from neoclassical
restrictions and combines elements from horror and romanticism.
Some of the most common elements found in Gothic novels are : dark athmosphere ,
dreary and decaying scenery, use of the Supernatural, psychological portraits (themes of
madnessand emotional distress), the Gothic hero (the anti-hero) , repeated use of motifs
(doppelgänger motif,dream motif),damsels in distress, intense emotions, experimental
techniques ( shifting narrators, literary tableaux ), attacks on the language through the use of
homophonies , ellipses, methaphors, anachronisms, clichés.In addition to the typical gothic
elements, Gothic novels often include romantic elements, such as unrequired love .
From being a term suggestive of more or less unknown features of the Dark Ages,
‘Gothic ’ broadened out to become descriptive of anything medieval – in fact, of all things
preceding about the middle of the seventeenth century.7 Since Gothic is looked upon as a tie
to Medieval times, ” it could be seen to follow that it was a term which could be used in
structural opposition to ‘classical ’ ”.8 The classical period was characterized by order, purity
and simplicity in contrast with the Gothic, which was defined by chaos, intricateness and
barbarousness. The world of the Classics was brimming with restrictions and rules, with a
need of preserving cultural boundaries, whereas the Gothic was wild, rebellious, overstated
with a predilection to cross cultural barriers.The Gothic was the archaic, the pagan, that which
was prior to, or was opposed to, or resisted the establishment of civilized values and a well-

5 Watt, Ian. Rise Of The Novel ,Chapters 1.2.5. Web. Page 32.7 Feb. 2017.
6Hume, Robert D . Hume, "Gothic Versus Romantic". Knarf.english.upenn.edu. N.p., 1969. Web. 10 Feb. 2017.
7 Punter, David and Glennis Byron. The Gothic . Blackwell Publishing, 2004. p.7. Web. 10 Feb. 2017 ( PDF.file)
8.Id.

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regulated society.9 To say it in a more simple way, every value that the Classical period
imposed, was inverted by Gothic writers.The Gothic was seen as barbaric, devoid of
elegance,uncultured and vulgar.The world of the Gothic is irrational and esoteric, it represents
madness, obscurity and the unknown.The Gothic is also a form which is generated in
different genres as well as national and social contexts.10
The American Gothic focuses on race and deals with issues concerning slavery,white
supremacy and the establisment of a black identity politics in the time after the Civil War. The
British Gothic writing was full of ”images of threatened political turmoil ”. 11 The
appearance of the Schauerroman , or ” shudder novel ” in Germany finds its origin in a
German Romantic tradition. Its main characteristics are necromancy and secret societies. The
works of Friedrich von Schiller and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe can be seen as ” shudder
novels ”. Gothic writings included poetry,short stories,novellas , dramas and starting with the
20th century, they were replaced by television, radio and film.

9.Id. p.8
10 Smith, Andrew. op.cit. p.3

11.Id.

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1.2 Historical background

The agitation and uproar that characterized the 18th century,the revolutions ,cultural
and technological innovations which caused changes throughout Britain and its citizens
became the background from which the Gothic novel arouse.The tumult of the late 18th and
early 19th century created an oportunity for advancement and change to arise. The most
influential factors include: the Industrial Revolution,which triggeredcrucial changes in every
aspect of England ’s social structure : education, economy, culture, technology, medicine,
agriculture and economic policies; Charles Darwin ’s theory of evolution of species by natural
selection threatened religious views of Creationism; the French Revolution obtained
economic and political growth for the working class, removing traditional laws and
developing liberalism; the effect ofRomanticism; Colonialism , the expansion of the British
Empire and its increasing wealth and power.

The Gothic in literature is viewed as a reaction against The Age of Enlightenment
(also known as The Age of Reason) and its values which revolved around scientific growth
and the power of reason.The Enlightenment is described as an intellectual movement
originating in France, characteristic of the 18th century which emphasized ” reason and
individualism rather than tradition ”.12 The Age of Enlightenment draws its values and
doctrines from the 17th century ’s revolutionary minds of Immanuel Kant,Wolfgang von
Goethe, Adam Smith, Jean-Jeaques Rousseau, Voltaire, René Descartes, Isaac Newton ,
Baruch Spinoza. The intellectuals of The Age of Enlightenment were ” bent on finding natural
laws and universal order, postulating the existence of discoverable and universal priciples
regulating both workings of nature and of human commnunities ”.13 Gothic writers opposed
the movement ’s values and way of thinking, their literary works being consumed by the
supernatural, the unexplained, the loss of reason.In her book Fantasy: The Literature of
Subversion , Rosemary Jackson argues that “unreason silenced throughout the Enlightenment

12Oxford Dictionaries. Web. 15 feb. 2017.

13 Vlad, Eduard, and Vlad, Florian Andrei. Early British Gothic and Its Travelling Companions. Constanta:
Ovidius University Press, 2017. Print. p.46

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period, erupts in the fantastic act of Sade, Goya and horror fiction ”.14 Therefore, one can
consider Gothic literature as a negative response to everything that the Enlightenment
portrays.
The French version of the Enlightenment provided the intellectual ferment of the
French Revolutionand American Revolutionand stimulated the activity of ‘progressive ’,
radical and liberal circles everywhere.15 Also known as the the Reign of Terror,(the most
violent period of the revolution), The French Revolution was a lethal period in the history of
France characterized by terror, panic and death. In a time where ”Terror became the
revolution, so opposing or criticising the Terror became itself a counter-revolutionary act ”,16
the number of people who lost their lives increased drasticaly.During the French Revolution, a
new instrument of terror was brought into light, the guillotine, which rapidly became the
primary instrment used to install hysteria and dread, killing a large number of people who
were suspected of counter-revolutionary acts. This was frowned upon British citizens and
authorities who believed that such diplay of cruelty ” it meant instigating the crowds to
savagery, which might pose threats to any state structure anywhere ”.17
However, the main change of mood lay in the effects of the advancement of the
Industrial Revolution.18 At the beggining the effects of Industrialization seemed to be
beneficial. New farming systems and techniques were introducedin agriculture ,which made it
easier to produce large quantities of crops in order to meet the needs of an increasing
population. Machines started to replace workers and animal labour. The textile industry
underwent a rapid growth with the help of new machines such as the spinning jenny19 and the

14 Pilgaard, Anne-Hviid, Gothic Enlightenment: A Freudian Interpretation of the Scientific Elements in Edgar
Allan Poe's Works . Master’s Theses, Aalborg University, 2012.

15 Vlad, Eduard, and Vlad, Florian Andrei. op.cit. p.48

16J. Llewellyn and S. Thompson, “The Reign of Terror”, Alpha History . Web. 15 Feb. 2017
http://alphahistory.com/frenchrevolution/reign- of-terror/.

17 Vlad, Eduard, and Vlad, Florian Andrei. op.cit. p.48

18 Marion, Sones-Marceau. The Go thic Novel: Popular Literature’s Response To England’s Late 18Th-Century
Crisis. Université Paris-Dauphine. Web. 15 Feb. 2017.
19A machine for spinning with more than one spindle at a time, patented b y James Hargreaves in 1770. Oxford
Dictionaries . Web.15 Feb. 2017.

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power loom20.Transportation industry also benefited from the Industrial Revolution.The steam
engine used for steamboats and steam locomotives changed the quality of transport.The
apparition of the telegraph facilitated the means of comunication during the Industrial
Revolution.For the overall population, progress in medicine and personal hygiene alongside
improved diet were leading to better living standards and longer life expectancy.21
Although life seemed to prosper during these times, the negative effects of
Industrialization began to get noticed and the Industrial Revolution, ” the direct offspring of
the British and Scottish Enlightenment ”22 was to blame for many deaths and feelings of dread,
panic and anxiety throughout Britain. Since machines started to replace human labour, the rate
of unemployment and poverty began to rise in rural areas.As lifestyle in the rural areas
changed, so did living conditions in towns and cities. The cities became overcrowded, since
people fleaded the countryside in the hope of finding jobs there.Whilst there was a greater
availability of work and wages in the latter, living conditions for the new industrial workers,
in many cases, were poorer than pre-industrial revolution times.23 Urban areas could not keep
the pace with the large numbers of people coming from the countryside.This resulted in poor
constructed housing, unsanitary living conditions such as the lack of sewages, poor hygiene ,
overcrowded houses, contaminated drinking water, all of which became the key factor in the
spreading of diseases and epidemics. The rate of violence and criminality grew, child labour
was flourishing, men and women worked in poor conditions for little payment, life became
full of challanges . All these elements lead to the rise of Capitalism24 as the dominant
economic system.
Middle and upper class citizens became concerned with a ” a potential popular
revolution and an overthrow of the very fabric of society as they knew it. ”25 Lower classes
became aware of the ideas that radical agitators were trying to convey, political

20A weaving loom driven by mechanical power (such as water, steam, electricit y) rather than by hand. Oxford
Dictionaries . Web.15 Feb. 2017.

21 Marion, Sones-Marceau. op.cit. Web. 15 Feb.2017

22Vlad, Eduard, and Vlad, Florian Andrei.op.cit. p.51

23 Marion, Sones-Marceau. op. cit. Web. 15 Feb.2017

24An economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are co ntrolled by private owners for
profit, rather than by the state. Oxford Dictionaries .Web.18 Feb. 2017.

25 Marion, Sones-Marceau. op. cit.

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conspiraciesand revolutionary ideologyes created an agitated athmosphere. The French
Revolution inflicted feelings of fear and panic in the hearts of upper classes. Working classes
started to organise thmeselves in political groups to try and make reforms that would give
them the rights to have a saying in the decisions regarding the way in which the country was
governed.Radical societies were regarded as dangerous by the government and tried to restrict
their activities. Authorities were sent to different cities to maintain order and keep everything
in control, reformers fought back, radical leaders and intellectuals were arrested and triale d
for treason.Progress and misery, enlightenment and alienation were going side by side in an
age of success and failure, whose uncertainities and fears were providing the emotional
background for the rise of the Gothic vision.26

26 Vlad, Eduard, and Vlad, Florian Andrei.op.cit. p.51

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1.3 Evolution of Gothic Fiction

The birth of the Gothic as a genre of fiction, the ‘Gothic novel ’, and all its numerous
successors came about as a direct result of changes in cultural emphasis in the eighteenth
century.27 The turmoil of the 18th century created an adequate grounding in which Gothic
fiction found its roots.The genre prospered during the 19th century and it enjoys a spreading
popularity even in the 21th century. Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto published in
1764is generally regarded as the first Gothic novel. The novel was first published on 24
December 1764 under the name William Marshal . It was said to be a translation of a
Medieval manuscript.After the novel ’s success, Walpole published a second edition in which
he declared authorship.The preface to the first edition places the novel in the realm of
Medieval Romance,while the preface to the second edition offers a realistic perspective of the
novel. In his second edition,Walpole argues that the novel was meant to be ”an attempt to
blend the two kinds of Romance, the ancient and the modern. In the former, all was
imagination and improbability: in the latter, nature is always intended to be, and sometimes
has been, copied with success [….]. But if in the latter species Nature has cramped
imagination, she did but take her revenge, having been totally excluded from old
Romances. ”28 Walpole presents an imaginary story narrated in an authentic fashion.The novel
provides elements of fantasy as well as rational concepts.The second preface is more valuable
than the first because the author presents the origin of the Gothic with some of its main
characteristics and objectives:
Walpole ’s opinion on contemporany literature was that it was filled with realism, it
resembled too much the real world and thus became monotonous and uninteresting.
His solution was to take an interest in a more fantastic and less realistic literature,and
to blend the old romance with the new realism: Desirous of leaving the powers of
fancy at liberty to expatiate through the boundless realms of invention, and thence of
creating more interesting situations, he wished to conduct the mortal agents in his
drama according to the rules of probability; in short, to make them think, speak and

27 Punter, David and Glennis Byron. op.cit. p.7

28"The Castle Of Otranto, A Story. Translated By William Marshal, Gent. From Th e Original Italian Of
Onuphrio Murlato, Canon Of The Church Of St. Nicholas At Otranto. London : Printed For Tho. Lownds In
Fleet-Street. MDCCLXV.". andromeda.rutgers.edu. Web. 8 Mar. 2017.

15
act, as it might be supposed mere men and women would do in extraordinary
positions.29
Walpole ’s novel popularized elements that became fixed characteristic of Gothic
fiction: ruined castles, athmospere of mistery and suspense, stereotypical characters ,
supernatural happenings, complicated plots, overwrought emotions, omens, visions,
subterranean labyrinths.Horace Walpole paved the way for the future Gothic writers, his
novel placing the basis of horror fiction. The Castle of Otrano was followed by Clara
Reeve ’s The Old English Baron ( 1778), William Beckford ’s Vathek (1786), Ann Radcliffe ’s
The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794). Horror soon transmuted into terror, novels such as M. G.
Lewis ’s The Monk (1796), Mary Shelley ’s Frankenstein (1818) and Charles Robert Maturin ’s
Melmoth the Wanderer (1820) inducing dread and uneasiness in the heart of readers.
The Victorian Gothic shifted the setting of the novel from foreign areas to
contemporary Britain, the action moved from countryside to civilized but dark urban places.
There is a new focus on the imprisonment of women within the household representing the
inner struggle of the characters and on the realism of the novels. Supernatural elements are
still present but appear in a realist way. Such features are displayed in Emily Brontë ’s
Wuthering Heights (1847) or Charles Dickens ’ Great Expectations (1860).As the Gothic era
moved forward, there was a focus on science to explain happenings of the supernatural ,
although this wasn ’t an innovative approach. In earlier writings such as Mary Shelley ’s
Frankenstein science plays an important role in the development of the novel. Nevertheless,
in Robert Louis Stevenson ’s novel la The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886),
science becomes a central focus. Important was the increased knowledge of Darwin ’s theory
of evolution which blurred the boundaries between human and animal making some of the
monstrous transformations more plausible.30 The Gothic also showed homoerotic codes and
ideas of Aestheticism in novels such as Oscar Wilde ’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) .
The Gothic era saw a return to the sublime with novels including Bram Stoker ’s Dracula
(1897). Elements of supernatural and folklore ,old castles, vampire figures are mingled in a
dark and enigmatic novel.

29 The Castle Of Otranto, A Story. Id.

30Exploring Gothic Fiction: A Corpus-Based Analysis .Page10.The University of Edinburgh, 2010. Web. 13 Mar.
2017.

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In the 20th century writers continue to evoke the Gothic mood but as Robert D. Hume
says, they ” have accepted human limitations and uncertainity more easily than those writers
of earlier centuries who belived that man is intrinsically a great and noble being ”.31
In America cheap fiction magazines , ” pulp magazines ”32( Weird Tales, Ghost Stories )
started to enjoy an increasing popularity.They recreated old Gothic horror stories and
published the works of modern writers which included prototypal and new horrors. One of the
most important authors whose work influencedGothic and modern horror was H.P.
Lovecraft.His famous essay Supernatural Horror in Literature (1936) contained an
exceptional synopsis of the Gothic horror and supernatural tradition. Author and Lovecraft ’s
protégé, Robert Bloch, wrote Psycho (1959) which was later adapted into Alfred Hitchcock ’s
popular movie of the same name.33 Through the works of such authors, the Gothic genre
paved the way to modern horror fiction.

31 Robert D., Hume. "Gothic Versus Romantic: A Revaluation Of The Gothic Novel ". Vol.84. Jstor.org. 1969.
Web. 13 Mar. 2017.

32A magazine devoted to popular or sensational literature. Oxford Dictionaries .Web.13 Mar. 2017.
33”Gothic fiction ”. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia . Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 22 July 2004. Web. 13 Mar.
2017

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Chapter 2 : Gothic Elements in Frankenstein

2.1 Atmosphere and Setting
Considering Frankenstein and Dracula , I have come to the conclusion that both
novels share a number of common elements: a mysterious , gloomy Atmosphere with dark
,ominous Settings ,the image of the Gothic Villain,the Dopplegänger Motiv ,the use of the
Supernatural. In each novel the action is entwined with the mentioned elements to create a
novel in the Gothic tradition. In Frankenstein ,[…] sunk in constant solitude, the foolhardy
Victor presses into dangerous territory, pushing himself without rest until he compromises his
mental and physical health, a common element in extreme Gothic scenarios.34
Gothic writers use a dreary atmosphere and dark settings to create an overall feeling of
dread and uneasiness, to evoke fear and to warn the reader of upcoming confrontations.The
Gothic novel uses its atmosphere for ends which are fundamentally psychological, though its
actual use ranges from the relative crudity of Walpole to the subtlety of Mary Shelley and
Maturin .35In her novel, Mary Shelle y highlights the Gothic mood by blending a gloomy
atmosphere into remote and mysterious settings. The frame story is set aboard Captain
Walton's shipfar away in the freezing Arctic and the events that Victor Frankenstein narrates,
occur throughout Europestarting from Geneva and continuing to Ingolstadt in Germany where
he gives life to his creation.The action goes on in England,a high pass in the Alps ,inScotland
where Frankenstein tries to create a female version of his monster and ending in the frozen
North in the Arctic. In order to convey the Gothic mood, Shelley uses throughtout the novel
diverse techniques such as allusion, imagery, symbolism and contrast.
Victor Frankenstein retreats in a world of solitude in order to pursue his plan of
bringing life into a creature made from parts of different corpses in his laboratory, whic h was
” a solitary chamber ,or rather cell, at the top of the house, and separated from all the other
apartments by a gallery and staircase ”. (Shelley 43) Applying Gothic forebodings to the story,
Shelley emphasizes the severe isolation by which Victor pursues his hellish inquiry and the

34Snodgras, Marry Ellen, Encyclopedia Of Gothic Literature . 1st ed. Library of Congress Cataloging- in-
Publication Data. p.127. Web. 2 Apr. 2017.

35 Hume, Robert D . Hume. op.cit.

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increasing agitation that drives him to create life.36 Unfazed by the dark,Victoris ” forced to
spend days and nights in vaults and charnel-houses ”.37 Details such as his lack of fear of the
darkness ( ”darkness had no effect upon my fancy ”38), his torture of animals and nightly visits
tograveyards or mortuaries( ” […] as I dabbed among the unhallowed damps of the grave, or
tortured the living animals[…] ”39), the presence of the moon ( and the moon gazed on my
midnight labours40), the creaking doors( ” I heard the creaking of my door, as if some one
endeavoured to open it softly ” 41) contribute to the traditional gothic atmosphere of the novel.
The sentence that opens up chapter 5 sets up the Gothic mood:"It was on a dreary
night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils".42 The scene is set on a
night of November,a cold and dark season.The rain and ”the glimmer of a half-extinguished
light”43 outline the depressing athmosphere,while the adjective ”dreary ” adds to the unnerving
effect of the act of giving life to a monstruosity.Most of the time the dark colour and rain
follow or surround him. 44Shelley establishes an atmosphere of mystery by not giving
information about the actual procedure, just how the monster came to life. The impression
that something is going to take place but not knowing what or when stirs up a feeling of
agitation and dread in the mind of the reader,thus adding to the eerie atmosphere.
When his creation ” wakes up ” ,Victor is horrified by the monster ’s appearance .By
making the creator fearful of his own invention, Shelley establishes forwards an atmosphere
of horror.Contrast is used in the description of the creature to call attention to the dreadful
sight that stood before Victor.The monster ’s proportioned limbs, beautiful features, his hair

36Snodgras, Marry Ellen. op.cit. p.128

37Shelley,Mary. Frankenstein Or The Modern Prometheus . Ware: Wordsworth Editions Limited, 1993. Print.
p.41.

38Id.

39 Id. p.43.

40 Id.

41 Id. p.128.

42 Id.

43 Id.

44 Daniel René, Akendengué. Elements Of Gothic Romance In Frankenstein (1818) And The Strange Cas e Of Dr
Jekyll And Mr Hyde (1886) . Libreville: Omar Bongo University. Web. 3 Apr. 2017.

19
”of a lustrous black,and flowing ”45, his teeth ” of a pearly whiteness ”46 created an appalling
contrast with his ” dull yellow eye ”47 and ”shrivelled complexion and straight black lips ”48.
The creature ’s antithetical features inspire fear and repulsion into the reader ’s mind.The
beautiful and ”divine ”image of the creation that Victor wished to bring into this world
shattered the moment the corpse became animated: ” the beauty of the dream vanished,and
breathless horror and disgust filled my hear ”.49Victor ’s first impression of the creature
highlights its horrific aspect.He despises his creation, naming it a ”catastrophe ”,”miserable
monster ” ,”wretch ”, ”abhhored monster ”,”devil ”,”demonical corpse ”,the grisly mood of the
encounter culminating in the allusion the author makes : ” it became a thing such as even
Dante could not have conceived ”50. Mary Shelley increases the protagonist ’s terrors with a
shape-shifting dream of his fiancée, whom he appears to embrace only to witness her body
dissolve into the worm-eaten corpse of his mother.51The nightmare he has functions as a fuse
to the fear and anxiety that he feels:His beloved Elizabeth turns into an odious corpse whose
lips ” became livid with the hue of death ” 52.In juxtaposing the dream with the vision of the
creature, the text prophetically suggests that bringing the monster to life is equivalent to
killing Elizabeth.53The bleak atmosphere in the morning remains the same as the faitidic
night of creation ”Morning,dismal and wet…[…] drenched by the rain which poured from a
black and comfortless sky ”54. Shelley further creates a traditional Gothic mood by pointing
out the fear and horror Victor goes through : ” […] walking up and down in the greatest

45Shelley,Mary.op.cit. p.45

46 Id.

47 Id.

48 Id.

49 Id.

50 Id. p.46

51 Snodgrass, Marry Ellen .op.cit. p.129

52Shelley,Mary. op.cit. p.46

53 David, Punter and Glennis Byron. op.cit. p.199

54Shelley,Mary.op.cit. p.46

20
agitation, listening attentively, catching and fearing each sound [… ] ”, ”My heart palpitated in
the sickness of fear […] ”55.
The murder of William,Victor ’s younger brother becomes the catalyst of his
torment.The dark and gloomy atmosphere reprsents an augur for a future confruntation: ”The
storm appeared to approach rapidly[…]although the darkness and storm increased every
minute, and the thunder burst with a terrific crash over my head ”56.Shelley harmonizes the
dreary weather with Victor ’s inner anguish and misery: ”[…] grief and fear again overcame
me […] No one can conceive the anguish I suffered during the remainder of the night ”57. Sunk
into a dark depression,Victor goes to the Chamounix valley in France in an attempt to rest an d
enliven his mind.At first he comments upon the scenery that it brings consolation and has a
soothing effect upon him : ” They elevated me from all littleness of feeling, and although they
did not remove my grief, they subdued and tranquillised it. ”58 This calming effect soon
dissipates as ”dark melancholy clouded every thought. ” 59.The scenery changes as a mighty
storm emerges : ” The rain was pouring in torrents,and thick mists hid the summits of the
mountains [..]. ”60 This sudden change in the weather could be understood as indicator for
upcoming events,an anticipation for an eventual encounter between the creator and his
creation, for the reason that the author plays with the weather and uses all through the novel
to foreshadow and to warn the reader that something is about to take place.Victor decides to
travel to the summit of the glaciar Montanvert,where he describes a dreary,bleak setting
which adds to the gloomy athmosphere of the novel : ” It is a scene terrifically desolate […]
while rain poured from the dark shy, and added to the melancholy impression I received from
the objects around me ”61.At the end of his ascent,the scenery takes an icy aspect : ” I sat upon

55 Id. pp.46- 47

56 Id.

57 Id. p.59

58 Id.

59 Id. p. 75

60 Id.

61Id. pp.75- 76

21
the rock that overlooks the sea of ice […] the field of ice is almost a league in width[…] the
vast river of ice ”62.
The turbulent weather described earlier foretells Victor ’s confrontation with the
monster: ” I suddenly beheld the figure of a man,[…] advancing towards me with superhuman
speed. ”63. His feeling of fear felt durig their first encounter is now replaced by hate mixed
with horror: ” I trembled with rage and horror […]rage and hatred had at first deprived me of
utterance […] ”64. Despite the disgust and hate that Victor displays,the creature only wishes
for him to listen to its point of view on the story.The monster ’s request was for Victor to
create another one like him,a mate with whom to spend his miserable life,to which Victor
agrees.Fearful of the prospect of creating another vile creature,he postpones this dreadful
process but he is tortued by his thoughts of the monster ’s vengeance on his loving family:
”This idea pursued me and tormented me at every moment […] I waited for my letters with
feverish impatience:if they were delayed,I was miserable, and overcome by a thousand fea rs
[…].”65Fearing for his family ’s safety he decides to go to Scotland in order to finish his
work.With a collection of unnamed body parts, Victor separates from his friend Henry Clerval
at Edinburgh to set up a new laboratory in the Orkney Islands at a site he describes as a rock
battered by waves.66The setting chosen is important. Shelley creates a dreary ambience
through the dull and desolated scenery: ” I thought of Switzerland; it was far different from
this desolate and appalling landscape. ” 67 The atmosphere and the process of creation seem to
fuse with Victor ’s internal feelings : ” [..] it became every day more horrible and irksome to
me[…]I looked towards its completion[…] with obscure forebodings of evil that made my
heart sicken in my bosom. ”68

62Id. p.76

63 Id.

64 Id. p.77

65 Id. p.124

66 Snodgrass,Marry Ellen. op.cit. 129

67Id.

68 Id. p.126

22
Victor ponders on the monster ’s promises of living a secluded life with his
mate.Furthermore, once Frankenstein starts his new project, he completely rewrites the
creature ’s explanations, and convinces himself that the creation of a mate may result in ‘a race
of devils to be propagated upon the earth ’.69 He feels guilty and considers the result of his
actions as a ”curse upon everlasting generations ”.70 His inner tornment is accentuated by the
monster ’s arrival : ” I trembled, and my heart failed within me [..] I saw, by the light of the
moon, the daemon at the casement ” […] A ghastly grin wrinkled his lips as he gazed on me
[…] ”71 In a moment madeness and rage, Victor destroys his unfinished work in front of it.
Once again, through Victor ’s inner anguish, Shelley creates a tense and dark mood: ” I was
alone; none were near me to dissipate the gloom and relieve me from the sickening oppression
of the most terrible reveries[…] I heard the creaking of my door [..] I trembled from he ad to
foot […] I was overcome by the sensation of helplessness, so often felt in frightful
dreams ”.72Fear turns into rage,and Victor determined not to create another monster,
commands the devilish creature to leave. The monster makes a promise, namely to be with
him on the night of his wedding. ‘I will be with thee on thy wedding night ’, the creature
threatens, a remark that Frankenstein perhaps egoistically, perhaps purposely, perhaps
inexplicably, interprets as a threat to himself.73This can be interpreted as an omen of death
which Victor belives to be his own.
The news of the murder of Henry Clerval, Victor’s childhood friend,devastates
him.Being accused of the act of murder,he is taken to prison. The author marks once again the
Gothic mood by throwing the charcter into an abiss of agonizing emotions: ”I feel yet parched
with horror, nor can I reflect on that terrible moment without shuddering and agony[…] The
human frame could no longer support the agonies that I endured, and I was carried out of the
room in strong convulsions ”.74 He is found innocent of the murder and taken back to Geneva
to prepare for his wedding with Elizabeth.Once more,Shelley uses nature to foretell of
upcoming events. She describes a dark,frightening atmosphere where “ the wind, which had

69Punter, David and , Byron, Glennis. op.cit. p. 201

70Shelley,Mary .op.cit. p.127

71 Id.

72 Id. p.128

73Punter, David and , Byron , Glennis . op.cit. p.201

74Shelley,Mary.op.cit. p.135

23
fallen in the south, now rose with great violence in the west ” , the moon had reached her
summit in the heavens […] the clouds wept across it swifter than the flight of the vulture […]
while the lake reflected the scene of the busy heavens, rendered still busier by the restless
waves that were beginning to rise. ”75 The restless waves of the lake seem to be in union with
the uneasiness that Victor felt and seem to foreshadow an imminent incident. The sudden
outburst of a ” heavy storm of rain ”76 predicts a disastrous ending. This dreary ambience is
enhanced by Victor ’s restlessness. He was calm during the day,but turned into a fearful mess
when darkness engulfed his surroundings.
Moments of peace and happiness are disturbed by Victor's worries about the monster ’s
oath.Fear occupies his mind one more time: ” […] I felt those cares and fears revive which
soon were to clasp me and cling to me for ever. ”77Victor ’s final moments of agonizing terror
culminate in the death of his wife. On the wedding night, Victor leaves Elizabeth alone in the
bedroom while he wanders the corridors, supposedly anticipating combat with the creature.78
Hearing his wife ’s dreadful screams, the horror of the truth came rushing to his mind,the evil
plan of the creature was not to kill him, but to murder what he loved the most. Upon the sight
of Eliabeth ’s corpse,Victor loses his consciousness.When he regains consciousness he breaks
down in anguish and misery: ” the horror of others appeared only as a mockery, a shadow of
the feelings that oppressed me. ”79 Shelley also describes the fear he felt as he sees the hideous
sight of his monster: ” I felt a kind of panic on seeing the pale yellow light of the moon
illuminate the chamber […] with a sensation of horror not to be described, I saw at the open
window a figure the most hideous and abhorred. ”80Driven by terror and anger he tries to shoot
the creature but as a twisted joke in prolonging his suffering, the creature dissapears,plunging
into the lake.Hearing the news of Elizabet ’s death,Victor ’s father, stricken with grief, dies
after a few days leaving Victor to succumb into a world of anguish and madness, his only
purpose being to destroy his creation: ” I lost sensation, and chains and darkness were the

75Id. p.148

76Id.

77 Id.

78Punter, David and , Byron, Glennis. op.cit. p.201

79Shelley,Mary. op.cit. p.149

80 Id. p.150

24
only objects that pressed upon me […] I had formed in my heart a resolution to pursue my
destroyer to death ”.81
Victor ’s pursue of the monster lead him from Geneva to Italy, from the blue
Mediterranean to the Black Sea, from the wilds of Tartary and Russia where ”cold,want and
fatigue ”82 were sufferings that he had to withstand up to the northen glaciers where he is
rescued by the crew of captain Walton.The most important setting of the novel is perhaps the
shipstuck in the frozen waters of the Arctic which the author introduces at the very beginning
and also at the end, giving the novel a circular structure.The scenery is first described by
Walton,who was heading to a perilous voyage to the North Pole: ” […]we were nearly
surrounded by ice, which closed in the ship on all sides […] we were compassed round by a
very thick fog[…] stretched out in every direction, vast and irregular plains of ice, which
seemed to have no end. ”83Victor ’s portayal of the icy scenery at the end of the novel seems to
be a representation of his and his creation ’s inner feelings of loneliness and isolation: ”[…]the
snows thickened and the cold increased in a degree almost too severe to support[…] the waters
rolled and swelled beneath me, became every moment more ominous and terrific. ”84The
monster chooses this inhospitable and isolated scenery because it is ” [..] one of the few
places where the monster can live: his banishment to this frozen place symbolises his
treatment at the hands of his creator and his rejection by society. ”85He finds comfort in a
place which is perceived by most people as primitive and perilous.Both the creator and his
monster find their ending in this frozen landscape.The creature vows to surrender himself on a
funeral pyre, finally ending the wretched existence shared with Frankenstein.86

81 Id. pp.151- 152

82 Id. p.155

83 Id. p. 20

84Id. pp.156- 158

85 "The Arctic Regions: Ice And Snow » Frankenstein Study Guide From Cross ref-It.Info". Crossref-it.info.
Web. 4 Apr. 2017.

86 Mayer, Laura Reis. A Teacher's Guide To The Signet Classics Edition Of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein .Penguin
Group. Web. 4 Apr. 2017.

25
2.2 The Gothic Villain

Another key gothic element which I belive to be found in both novels ( Frankenstein,
Dracula ) is the presence of the Gothic villain. Although by the time of the Victorian era the
Gothic novel started to lose its popularity, Jean – Charles Seigneuret argues that ”the Gothic
villain, however , lived on and continued to evolve psychologically, and writers began to
focus on the thematic implications of mental horror ”.87In Mary Shelley ’s novel, the Gothic
villain can be found in the character of Victor Frankenstein whose toxic obsession with the
idea of creating life becomes the catalyst of his frantic madness and thus to his and and his
family ’s destruction.
When reading Frankenstein, one might think that the villain is embodied by
Frankenstein ’s monster, a symbol of evil who creates chaos and murders innocent victims.He
is a creature dark by nature, an abomination whose actions mirror his grotesque form.
However when one delves further into the novel, it becomes clear the he is only a victim of
unfortunate circumstance. He is not good nor solely evil, his wicked actions being a result of
the world ’s reaction to him. Frankenstein ’s early rejection of the monster, the scientist ’s
detestation and contempt for his creation, and the cruelty the monster faces wherever he goes
transforms the innocent creature into a vengeful demon ”.88The monster is denied the chance
of being ” good ” not only by his creator,who rejects and is horrified by himfrom the very
beginning, but also by every human that he encounters. ” [..]Frankenstein ’s creature is also
demonstrated to be capable of both benignity and malignance; indeed, even the negative
aspect of his character, shown through his quest for revenge, has a parallel in the actions of
his human creator. ”89He started off as a benevolent creature who yearned compassion and
understanding from humans and who in return only received rejection: ” I was benevolent and

87 Seigneuret, Jean-Charles. Dictionary Of Literary Themes And Motifs A-J . Westport Connecticut: Greenwood
Press, 1988. Web. 4 Apr. 2017.

88 Seigneuret, Jean- Charles. op.cit.

89 Knipfer, Cody. "Frankenstein’S ‘Monster’: A Creature Of Evil, Or A Product O f Evil?". reallycoolblog. N.p.,
2013. Web. 4 Apr. 2017.

26
good – misery made me a fiend […] I was benevolent; my soul glowed with love and
humanity […] By the virtues that I once possessed […] ”.90
Andrei Vlad argues that despite the fact that Frankenstein ’s monster was shaped ” into
a deformed, grotesque being, phisically speaking, he tries to be morraly and intellectualy
superior to his maker ”.91The creature displays intelligence ( ” While I improved in speech,I
also learned the science of letters […]92) and kindness ( ” I had been accustomed [..] to steal a
part of their store […] when I found that by doing this I inflicted pain[..] I abstained93) when
he endeavors to integrate into human societies. Far from being a purely evil and malignant
being bent on destruction, Frankenstein ’s creature is shown to be a caring, selfless being who
wants to bring happiness. 94Seeing crime as a ” distant evil ”, the monster tries to mirror the
qualities of the family whom he made a habbit to observe : ” [..] benevolence and generosity
were ever present before me, inciting within me a desire to become an actor [..] where so
many admirable qualities were called forth and displayed ”.95He felt lonesome,a creature of
repulsiveness cursed to live in solitude: ” Was I then a monster, a blot upon the earth, from
which all men fled, and whom all men disowned? ”96The monster ’s battle with self-loathing
and self-pity exemplifies the quandary of the pariah, an unsalvageable outsider too grotesque ,
too freakish to reside in human society.97
He is aware of his hideous aspect when he describe himself as ” endued with a figure
hideously deformed and loathsome ”98, yet blindly belives that his benefactors would
disregard his appearance and instead would accept him for his understanding of human
virtues.The family ’s negative reaction to his presence filled his heart with sorrow: ” But my

90 Shelley, Mary. op.cit. p.78

91Vlad, Eduard, and Vlad, Florian Andrei. op.cit. p.430

92 Shelley, Mary.op.cit. p.92

93 Id. p.86

94Knipfer, Cody .op.cit.

95Shelley, Mary.op.cit. p.98

96Id. p.93

97 Snodgrass, Marry Ellen. op.cit. p. 129

98Shelley, Mary. op.cit. p.93

27
heart sunk within me as with bitter sickness ”. 99 His kind nature is also shown in his attempt
at saving a girl from drowning, an action which gained a negative reaction from the peasant
who thought that the monster killed her. Rejected by his creator, by people whom he thought
as being his benefactors, by every human that he encountered were was the factors that
triggered the monster ’s hatred towards everything that opposed him : ” Inflamed by pain,I
vowed eternal hatred and vengeance to all mankind. ” 100Unnamed and shunned by all, the
monster shelters in caves in the northern mountains and, like its maker, lives outside the realm
of human habitation.101
The character that embodies the archetype of the Gothic villain is the novel ’s
protagonist, Victor Frankenstein.In his attempt at creating life Frankenstein ignores the fixed
limits of human power and challanges the Gods by wanting to become one of them . His
Hubris102, his actions ultimately bring his downfall.Victor Frankenstein is explicitly described
as a man with originally benevolent impulses and great potentiality for good103 : ”Life and
death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of
light into our dark world ”.104His obssesion with creating life and his aspiration to a power
that is beyond the human real decimates his once benevolent origin, transforming
Frankenstein into a destructive godlike character : ”A new species would bless me as its
creator and source [..] ”105 .The irony of these words would later bedemonstrate by the
monster ’s thoughts about his creator and his own existence: ” Cursed, cursed creator! Why
did I live? ”106
In willingly determining to ’ break down the boundaries between life and death ’ Victor
Frankenstein becomes the most dangerous character within the text;his sins far greater than

99Id. p.104

100Id. pp.105- 108

101 Snodgrass, Marry Ellen. op.cit. p. 129

102 (in Greek tragedy) excessive pride towards or defiance of the gods, lead ing to nemesis. Oxford Reference.
Web. 1 May .2017

103 Hume, Robert D. Hume. op.cit.

104Shelley, Mary.op.cit. p.43

105Id.

106 Id. p.104

28
those of the monster he creates ”.107 His delirious desire to create life and through this to
aquire fame and glory plunges Frankenstein into a void of madness,egotism and pernicious
aspirations. He operates outside the realm of moral boundaries, not caring about the fatal
consequences his actions will have upon the world.Through his actions and his egotistic
demeanor,Frankenstein exhibits distinct traits of the archetype Gothic villain.Arrogant,
narrow-minded, determined and under the belief that he is simply entitled to do as he pleases,
Frankenstein has much in common with the earliest Gothic villains that can be found in the
work of Walpole and Lewis.108 His narcissistic nature is hidden under the false image of
hisobssesion, namely experimenting outside the laws of morality for the benefice of
humanity.Ironically, his prideful ambition becomes the reason for the misery of many
people.Frankesntein lack s compassion for the monster which only wants acceptance and
simpathy from his Creator . As a merciless God, he vows to destroy his own creation whom
he blaims for his sorrow. Acutely aware of his ’high hopes ’ and ’lofty ambition ’ his decisions
are entirely his own, made of his own free will, and it is this conscious choice that moves
Frankenstein from the realms of innocent experimenter and into culpable villain.109

107 MacArthur, Sian. Gothic Science Fiction: 1818 To The Present. 1st ed. Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. Web. 6
Apr. 2017.

108 Id.

109 MacArthur, Sian. Id.

29
2.3 The Dopplegänger Motiv
The Doppelgänger – as a narrative device that permits the confrontation or division of
the self, the violent encounter of the conscious and subconscious, or a haunting, uncanny
physical doubling – is an imperative element of many Gothic narratives, and certainly one of
the key threads of Mary Shelley ’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus.110 The term
”Doppelgänger ”, directly translated as a ” double goer ” is the dark double of an
individual.The term was coined by Jean Paul in his 1796 novel Siebenkäs . Jean Paul ’s works
present the formative developments of male subjects. The formative moment for the self-
positing subject thus anticipates the definition of Doppelgänger in Siebenkäs as ”Leute,die
sich selber sehen ”(”people who see themselves ”J.367 ).111His formative contribution paved the
way of the future generation of writers interested with the split of a ” double self ” such as E.
T. A. Hoffmann ( The Devil's Elixirs 1815), Mary Shelley ( Frankenstein; or, The Modern
Prometheus 1818), Robert Louis Stevenson ( Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde 1886),
Oscar Wilde ( The Picture of Dorian Gray 1890). Gothic literature provides a means of
criticizing particular social developments by adopting “symbolic mechanisms, ” such as
doppelgangers, to highlight the concerns and deficiencies of progress.112 In Shelley ’s
Frankenstein, the doppelgänger, the gothic double can be explained as the bond between :
creator and Creatiom, father and son, master and slave, good and evil.
Andrew Webber ’s The Doppelgänger:Double Visions in German Literature (1996)
establishes six descriptive criteria for the literary doppelganger:
It is a ” figure of visual compulsion ”, meaning that the double either is
seen […] or it is on the edge of sight […].It operates ” divisively ” on
language.It is an inverterate performer of identity,so that it is not strictly a
mirror image, reflecting the subject back exactly how it is, for there must be
some subversion and autonomy in its very presence.It represents a power play

110 Halpin, Samantha .The Gothic Doppelgänger: An Analysis Of The Relationship Between Frankenstein An d
His Creation In Mary Shelley’S Frankens tein; Or, The Modern Prometheus . Folio. Folio.brighton.ac.uk. N.p.,
2015. Web. 1 May 2017.

111Webber, Andrew J. ”The Doppelgänger: Double Visions In German Literature”. p.58.New York: Oxford
University Press, 1996. Web. 1 May 2017

112Romero, Holly-Mary. " The Doppelganger in Select Nineteenth Century British Fiction: Frankenstein, Strange
Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, a nd Dracula”. Theses. Universite Laval. p.12, 2013. Web. 1 May 2017

30
between ego and alter ego.It is almost always gendered as male […]; finally it is
usually the product of a broken home.113

Prior to the Romantic period,the doppelgänger was seen as an omen of death, a dark creature
installing fear by its mere presenceand bringing havoc to the protagonist. The doppelgänge r
was perceived as a chimera , something different from the person it was tormenting.But with
the growing interest in the human mind, and especially the unconscious, in the Romantic
Period, people started viewing the double as something that could possibly come from within
an individual.114 In 19th century novels, the doppelgänger mirrors the psychic decay of its
human counterpart, it reflects his hidden secrets and desires.It is no longer a purely evil
creature outside of the human ego, meant to plague the protagonist, but rather a representation
of the masked thoughts and obscure ambitions within it. Many psychoanalysts of the 20th
century showed interest in ”the double as a psychological manifestation of repressed parts of
the psyche ”.115
One of these psychoanalysts is Sigmund Freund who brings into question the idea of
the ”double ” and its result: They involve the idea of the ‘double ’ (the Doppelgänger), in all its
nuances and manifestations – that is to say, the appearance of persons who have to be regarded
as identical because they look alike. This relationship is intensified by the spontaneous
transmission of mental processes from one of these persons to the other – what we would call
telepathy – so that one becomes co-owner of the other ’s knowledge, emotions and experience.
Moreover, a person may identify himself with another and so become unsure of his true self;
or he may substitute the other ’s self for his own. This self may be duplicated, divided and
interchanged.116 He describes the presence of the doppelgänger as “uncanny ”, something that
was meant to remain secret but manifests itself into the open. Carl Gustav Jung brings other
observations on the idea of the ” double ”, seeing it as an archetype of the psyche:The

113 S. T., Joshi. ” Icons Of Horror And The Supernatural. An Encyclopedia Of Our Worst Nigh tmares” .pp 188-
189.Greenwood Press, 2007. Web. 1 May 2017.

114 Gamache, Christine M. “ An Opposing Self: Doppelgangers in Frankenstein, Jekyll and Hyde, and Fight
Club.”. p.3. Digitalcommons.ric.edu. Rhode Island College, 2012. Web. 1 May 2017.

115 Id. p.4.

116 Freud,Sigmund .The Uncanny. pp.141-142.Trans.David McLintock. Penguin Classics Edition. New York:
Penguin Books Ltd., 2003. Web. 1 May 2017

31
archetype is essentially an unconscious content that is altered by becoming conscious and by
being perceived, and it takes its colour from the individual consciousness in which it happens
to appear.117He proposes as a solution that the person who is plagued by the double
should not only identify and confront it, but also reclaim it as part of an undivided psyche.
In Mary Shelley ’s Frankenstein, the Doppelgänger motif can be seen through the pair
Victor Frankenstein – the Monster. Frankenstein literally ” builds ” and ”gives life ” to its
double. Playing God, he shapes a double of himself in order to achieve fame and prestige,
talking about his Creation as ” my own vampire ,my own spirit let loose from the grave ”.118
This affirmation proves that Frankenstein views his Creation as his own dark double. Shelley
emphasizes their bond by making Frankenstein and the Monster akin in several ways: both are
heinous, Frankenstein because of his actions and pernicious ambitions, the Monster because
of his physical appearance, they crave for justice and revenge, their use of language to
influence and to dominate each other, both are social outcasts driven by ambition,
Frankenstein is rational at the beginning of the novel and becomes irrational as the novel
progresses, while the opposite happens to his Monster,although driven by revenge, he also
will return to an irrational self.
All these similitudes transform the Monster into something more than a simple
doppelgänger, he becomes Frankenstein ’s spiritual double, a mirror reflecting his soul and
mind. Joyce Carol Oates asserts that the Creature is a ” "modern" species of shadow
or Doppelgänger – the nightmare that is deliberately created by man's ingenuity and not a
mere supernatural being or fairy-tale remnant [..]Where, by tradition, such beingsas doubles,
shadow-selves, " imps of the perverse," and classic Doppelgängers [..] spring full grown
from supernatural origins[..] – Frankenstein's demon is natural in origin: a manufactured
nemesis. He is an abstract idea made flesh,a Platonic essence given a horrific (and certainly
ludicrous) existence. ”119 To say it in a simplistic manner, the Monster is the embodiment of
Frankenstein ’s dark, suppressed emotions, his grotesque and decaing body resembling his
creator ’s inner portrait.

117Jung, Carl Gustav . The Archetypes and the Collective Unconsciou”. p.5. Trans. R.F.C. Hull. Ed. Sir Herbert
Read, Michael Fordham, Gerhard Adler, and William McGuire. Bollinger Series XX. 2 nd ed. New York:
Princeton University Press, 1968. Web. 1 May 2017

118 Shelley, Mary. op.cit. p. 64

119 Oates,Joyce Carol. "Frankenstein's Fallen Angel." Knarf.english.upenn.edu, n.d. Web. 1 May 2017.

32
When one considers the relation between Victor and the Creature psychologically, it
becomes obvious that there is something deeper than aesthetic repulsion that drives Victor to
reject his creation.120 By doing this, he ” protects ” himself in a way. He builds a barrier to
keep himself unaware of the fact that his repulsion originates from the fact that his Creation is
merely an echo of his decaying self and that he recognizes it in the image of his vile Monste r.
Although the Creator and his Creation mirror each other, they also contrast each other in some
aspects.Victor Frankenstein appears to pose a more gentle and reserved nature being raised to
become a cultivated, polite and compassionate gentleman. The Monster on the other hand
displays a harsh nature, despite the fact that his intentions were benevolent at first. He is
driven by his natural instincts. Whereas Frankenstein seeks solitude, his Creature yearns
human contact and to be a part of the society. Frankenstein tries to be cold and to behave
rational, opposing his passion filled Monster who bathes in a range of emotions: ”I felt
sensations of a peculiar and over-powering nature;thy were a mixture of pain and pleasure,
such as I had never before experienced, either from hunger or cold, warmth and food; and I
withdrew from the window, unable to bear these emotions ”.121
Both the Monster and Frankenstein need each other in order to survive, they can ’t
function as one self splitt into two halves. Although the creator detests his Creation, he can ’t
be complete without him.In a similar way, although the Creature wants to destroy his creator,
once he dies, the creature realizes that he cannot exist without Frankenstein.Although the
relationship between the protagonist and his double is complicated in this story due to the fact
that they are two autonomous, separate characters, the intrinsic psychological ties between
Victor and the Creature are evident by the close of the story.122 After Frankenstein dies on the
ship stuck in the frozen waters on the North Pole, the Monsten struck with grief vows to kill
himself, thus demonstrating that one can not exist without the other: ” I shall die, and what I
now feel be no longer felt. ”123
The literary Gothic ’s interest in the doppelgänger highlights the period ’s interest in the
exploration of the psychopathological nature of man, in its scientific search for the basis of

120Gamache, Christine M. op.cit. p.6

121Shelley, Mary.op.cit. pp.106- 107

122Gamache, Christine M. op.cit. p.7

123Shelley, Mary. op.cit.p.170

33
fear and dread in the psyche.124 The Doppelgänger, an element of the uncanny, as
Freuddescribed it and of macabre, produced in the Gothic Literature, a curiosity with the
duality of the psyche,whose harmony cannot be reached unless both separated parts are
reunited into a proportional unity.
Although critics identify Shelley ’s Frankenstein as being the first scient fiction novel,
it portrays characteristics commonly found in Gothic works. Elements such as an eerie
atmosphere, dark , isolated settings, a monstrous villain and characters sharing traits,thus
becoming each other ’s double, can be found in Shelley ’s work , confirming its place in the
world of Gothic fiction.

124Hui OŶg YoŶg, aŶd WeŶdy, Fall. " Glossaƌy Of The GothiĐ: DoppelgaŶgeƌ.”.EpuďliĐat ioŶs.ŵaƌƋuette.edu.
Marquette University, n.d. Web. 1 May 2017.

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Chapter 3 : Gothic Elements in Dracula
3.1 Atmosphere and Setting

Bram Stoker ’s Dracula continues the Gothic tradition of evoking terror, angst,
uneasiness into the readers ’ hearts through stereotypical Gothic elements such asdark settings
and atmosphere,vampiristic villains possessing supernatural powers,superstitions and myths
found in Romanian folklore,doppelganger traits that entangle the villains with the
heros.Written in an epistolary form, the novel contains multiple setting changes, from rural
Transylvania, a somber land full of superstitions, to different dark locations of modern
London, which are meant to induce feelings of dread and uneasiness and as Mary E. Snodgrass
argues ”provide an allegorical and psychological extension to the human character and
behavior ”.125
The first Gothic setting is shown at the beginning of the novel when Jonathan Harkers
travels to Count Dracula ’s castle in the heart of bucolic Transylvania.The land as well as
Dracula ’s castle are engulfed in mystery, being an enigm even to the modern maps of Britain,
Harker stating that an accurate location can not be given ”as there are no maps of this country
as yet to compare with our own Ordance Survey Maps ”.126It is an isolated country, hidden
deep in the Carpathian mountains which are described as ” one of the wildest and least known
portions of Europe ”127, a place where ” every known superstition in the world is gathered into
[..] as if it were the centre of some sort of imaginative whirlpool ”.128 Dracula ’s castle akin its
surrounding land, is isolated from other households.Being built ” high above a waste of

125 Snodgras, Marry Ellen. op. cit. p. 158
126Stoker, Bram. Dracula. bramstoker.org . p.2. pdf.
127 Id.

128 Id.

35
desolation ”129 and sitting atop of ” a thousand feet on the summit of a sheer precipice ”130 the
castle exudes an impression of wildness, vileness and seclusion.
Stoker ’s castle is comparable with those found in earlier Gothic novels being
described by David Gates as a ” "haunted castle" in the tradition of Otranto, Udolpho, and the
others ”.131 The dark, ruined castle ” built on the corner of a great rock ” with its ” tall black
windows ”132 and whose ” broken battlements showed a jagged line against the sky ”133
evokes feelings of fear and angst. Faced with such an imposing building, fear and doubt start
creeping into the visitor ’s mind to whom everything ” seemed like a horrible nightmare ”134: It
is a hermetic building: nothing goes in or out without permission,therefore Harker is trapped
between its somber walls: ” The castle was built on the corner of a great rock, so that on three
sides it was quite impregnable, and great windows were placed here where sling, or bow, or
culverin could not reach, and consequently light and comfort, impossible to a position which
had to be guarded, were secured ”.135 The interior of the castle resembles its exterior, the dark
tunnel-like passages, aged furniture rotting inside dusty rooms, locked doors, the old ruined
chapel giving of the same feeling of dread and angst as the facade of the castl e. By using a
feral land standing in contrast with modern England, Stoker manages to enclose in his novel
typical British fears concerning the barbaric, wild and foreign, Count Dracu la’s words
towards Harker resonating as a warning: " We are in Transylvania, and Transylvania is not
England. Our ways are not your ways, and there shall be to you many strange things ”.136
The location shifts from bucolic Transylvania to modern England where several
buildings are important in the understanding of the Gothic setting. The first building is the
insane asylum whose administer is Dr. John Seward.Asylums are known as cold prinsonlike

129 Id. p.353

130Id

131 Gates, David. Bram Stoker's DYa'cu'la and the Gothic Tradition. Theses, McMaster University, 1976. p.21
https://macsphere.mcmaster.ca/bitstream/11375/9592/1/fulltext.pdf

132 Stoker, Bram. op.cit. p.14

133 Id.

134 Id. p.15

135Id. p.32

136Id. p.20

36
places where the only feelings that flourish are insanity,cruelty, histeria and dispair, thus
Stoker ’s choice of including such a location in order to portray a part of the novel ’s Gothic
setting. The dread and angst portrayed by Gothic settings are also emanated by the asylum
through Dr. Seward comments upon the image of his building describing it as ”grim sternness
of my own cold stone building. with its wealth of breathing misery".137By observing his
patient ’s behaviour under the influence of vampirism, his state alternating from madness to
periods of sanity,followed by an obssesive desire for death, Dr.Seward allows the readers to
descent into the human psychecontrolled by powers of supernatural origins.
Another relevant Gothic setting in the novel is the Count ’s English house , the Carfax
estate, its importance being highlighted by David Gates observation that ”in Gothic novels
which are set in England, the isolated country house often becomes a substitute for the
mysterious castle ”.138 Thus, the Carfax estate, ruined and isolated is shown as a mirror image
of the Count ’s castle in Transylvania:
The estate is called Carfax, no doubt a corruption of the old Quatre Face, as the
house is four sided, agreeing with the cardinal points of the compass. It
contains in all some twenty acres, quite surrounded by the solid stone wall
above mentioned. There are many trees on it, which make it in places gloomy,
and there is a deep, dark-looking pond or small lake, evidently fed by some
springs, as the water is clear and flows away in a fair-sized stream. The house
is very large and of all periods back, I should say, to mediaeval times, for one
part is of stone immensely thick, with only a few windows high up and heavily
barred with iron. It looks like part of a keep, and is close to an old chapel or
church.[…]The whole place was thick with dust. The walls were fluffy and
heavy with dust, and in the corners were masses of spider's webs, whereon the
dust had gathered till they looked like old tattered rags as the weight had torn
them partly down. 139
The depravity and wickedeness that surround the Count ’s house is discerned by Harker when
he along with his friends break into the house, their goal being to destroy the Count ’s boxes

137Id. p.110

138 Gates, David. op.cit. pp. 22- 23

139Stoker, Bram.op.cit. pp.22,234

37
filled with transylvanian earth. He is aware of the foul air which emanated pure evilness ,
describing it as ” composed of all the ills of mortality and with the pungent, acrid smell of
blood, but it seemed as though corruption had become itself corrupt […] every breath exhaled
by that monster seemed to have clung to the place and intensified its loathsomeness ”.140
Other settings of Gothic tradition which appear throughout the novel are the
ruined Whitby Abbey, the churchyard where Lucy ’s tomb is located and Dracula ’s coffin in
the old ruined chapel of his castle. Whitby Abbey, ruined by attacks of the Danes is described
as ” a most noble ruin, of immense size, and full of beautiful and romantic bits ”.141Although
Whitby Abbey doesn ’t portray a significant setting in Stoker ’s novel ”it does serve as a
reminder of the corrupt monasteries and convents which were an essential part of the novels
of Ann Radcliffe, Matthew Lewis, and Charles Robert Maturin ”.142 The place where Lucy ’s
tomb is located is of Gothic heritage: an old churchyard, a creepy tomb,darkness engulfing the
surroundings, a bleak, sordid atmosphere:
At last we reached the wall of the churchyard, which we climbed over. With
some little difficulty, for it was very dark, and the whole place seemed so
strange to us, we found the Westenra tomb […]The tomb in the daytime, and
when wreathed with fresh flowers, had looked grim and gruesome enough, but
now, some days afterwards, when the flowers hung lank and dead, their whites
turning to rust and their greens to browns, when the spider and the beetle had
resumed their accustomed dominance, when the time-discoloured stone, and
dust-encrusted mortar, and rusty, dank iron, and tarnished brass, and clouded
silver-plating gave back the feeble glimmer of a candle, the effect was more
miserable and sordid than could have been imagined.143
The old chapel from Dracula ’s castle which also function as a grave is an important Gothic
setting, Harker finding the Count in one of the coffins laying inside the chapel. He describes
the place as an ”old ruined chapel, which had evidently been used as a graveyard ”144, its roof

140Id. p.235

141 Id. p.58

142Gates, David. op.cit. p.22

143Stoker, Bram. op.cit. p.185

144Id. p.43

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was destroyed ”and in two places were steps leading to vaults ”145.In one of the boxes filled
with earth lay the Count with his lips ” red as ever ”.146
Aside from using Gothic settings, Stoker skilfully inserts elemets to create a somber
and dreadful athmosphere in order to convey the Gothic tone of the novel. The Gothic
athmosphere is highlighted from the beginning of the novel, Transylvania being a place where
darkness, wildness and superstitions come together to create a warning for those who
endeavor in journeys through its territory. Superstitous peasants, strange sounds at nights, the
howling of the wolves, darkness that engulfs everything around it are eerie details which are
meant to establish an atmosphere of horror and anxiety.
Harker is begged by the frightened peasants not to leave on the eve of St. George ’s
Day, a holiday in which the power of every supernatural and evil creaturedrastic ally
rises and they are free to bring havoc to faithful people: ” It is the eve of St. George's Day. Do
you not know that tonight, when the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things in the world
will have full sway? ”147 As a safety measure, he is given a crucifix while the sign of the cross
is made as a ” charm or guard against the evil eye ”148.The atmosphere darkened as the
carriage in which Harker travelled approached the Borgo Pass opening,as to forshadow an
imminent encounter with something of evil nature.The Gothic mood is revealed in the
following scenes by both the animals ’ and the peasants ’ frightful reactions. The horses began
to agitate,to neigh and snort violenly. It is important to know that there is a rural belief which
says that animals can sense evil and they become agitated in its presence.This belief is
demonstarted in the following scene as the readers see that the horses ’ agitation rooted from
the arrival of a caleche which generated a ”chorus of screams from the peasants and a
universal crossing of themselves ”.149 The howls of the wolves in Dracula adds to the eerie

145Id.

146Id. p.44

147Id. p.5

148Id. p.7

149Id.

39
atmosphere and is used as a replacement for ” the ”ghostly ” music which was a favourite
device of Ann Radcliffe ”.150
The Gothic atmosphere is further created through an inversion of day and night at the
Count ’s castle. Thus while ”day and night are reversed ”151 Harker must accustom to
Dracula ’s way of living, being active at night. It is worth noting that evil creatures often
appear when darkness falls and the night plunges everything in eerie shadows. Inside the
castle, Harker goes through a period of nightly terrors and anxieties which makes him wish he
could escape from ” this dreadful thing of night, gloom and fear ”.152 Stoker carries this
atmosphere full of dread and angst to the lands of modern England, where the peaceful
livestyle of people will be shattered by the iminent arrival of the Count,foreshadowed by
strange happenings: old Mr. Swale ’s erratic rambling about the wind on the sea that ”sounds,
and looks, and tastes, and smells like death ”153, Miss Mina ’s observation about a ” 'brool'
over the sea that sounds like some passage of doom ”154, Miss Lucy ’s increasing agitation and
the sudden change in weather.Horror also comes in the form of dreams, as lucy states that fo r
her, dreaming is a ”presage of horror ”155.
As in any Gothic novel, the weather plays a significant role in the portrayal of the
Gothic mood. Dreary weather, storm, rain, black skies are seen as a foreboding of evil
encounters.Dracula ’s arrival on a ship is associated with such gloomy weather:
Then without warning the tempest broke. With a rapidity which, at the time,
seemed incredible, and even afterwards is impossible to realize, the whole
aspect of nature at once became convulsed[…]The wind roared like thunder,
and blew with such force that it was with difficulty that even strong men kept
their feet[…]White, wet clouds, which swept by in ghostly fashion, so dank and
damp and cold that it needed but little effort of imagination to think that the

150Gates, David. op.cit. p.26

151Id. p. 26

152Stoker, Bram.op.cit. p.42

153Id.

154Id. p.69

155Id. p.118

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spirits of those lost at sea were touching their living brethren with the clammy
hands of death, and many a one shuddered as the wreaths of sea-mist swept
by.156

The ship captain ’s journal log is filled with bizzare events that add to the Gothic atmosphere
of the novel. The crew members were scared and on edge talking about a strange figure which
could be seen lurking at night : "It is here. I know it now. On the watch last night I saw It, like
a man, tall and thin, and ghastly pale ”.157Mass histeria took over the ship ’s crew andsoon
transformed into unspeakable horror when the last sailor came ” […] up on the deck […] as if
shot from a gun, a raging madman, with his eyes rolling and his face convulsed with fear.158
Stoker skillfully introduces the Gothic mood by pinpoiting Lucy ’s transformation into
a creature alike Count Dracula. Marry Ellen Snodgrass argues that ”unlike the sweet,
maidenly girlhood friend Mina Murray, the wanton Lucy Westenra despoils her fiancé Arthur
Holmwood and lusts hungrily for Count Dracula.159The scene of Lucy being freed from her
devious body is symbolic for Gothic novels, as it depicts images filled with gore and horror
and actions brimming with a gruesome violence :
Arthur took the stake and the hammer, and when once his mind was set on
action his hands never trembled nor even quivered […] Arthur placed the point
over the heart, and as I looked I could see its dint in the white flesh. Then he
struck with all his might. The thing in the coffin writhed, and a hideous, blood-
curdling screech came from the opened red lips. The body shook and quivered
and twisted in wild contortions. The sharp white teeth champed together till the
lips were cut, and the mouth was smeared with a crimson foam […].160

156Id. p.72

157 Id. p.80

158 Id. p.81

159 Snodgrass, Marry Ellen. op.cit. p.120

160 Stoker, Bram.op.cit. p.203

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3.2 The Gothic Villain

Bram Stoker ’s ” parasitic Boyar vampire ”161 remains one of the nost prolific figure in
the world of Gothic literature.Dracula became a symbol of the Gothic Villain, a monster
whose lust for blood generated terror and hysteria in the form of Vampirism.According to
Marry Ellen Snodgrass, Stok er’s villain belongs to the category of the satanic hero which is ”
the hero-villain who intrigues and ameliorates villainy by a twisted equivocation of vice ”.162
Coming from a wild, uncivilized country and sharing its land ’s peculiarities,Dracula disturbes
the peaceful atmosphere of modern Londonwith his depravity and venal nature.The
Transylvanian Count beares some characteristic withearly Gothic Villains: he is a protoypical
loner, isolating himself in a dark castle on the lands of a remote country, he possesses
supernatural powers such as shape-shifting, control over animals and nature. Dracula
dominates the novel, not with his presence, but through the constant fear that he inflicts in
those who know about him. He possesses a dual nature, being originaly heroic only to be
tained with the essence of evil, he is cunning yet alluring, fa scinating and repelling the readers
simultaneously.
Gothic writers mark their antagonists with characteristics which are meant to provoke
fear , the evil nature of villains being promptly unraveled by their psysical appearance ”
where faces can be read as omens ”.163Dracula ’s description displays traits which make his
appearance ghastly yet oddly alluring. He is described at first as a ” tall old man clean shaven
save for a long white moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck
of colour about him anywhere ”164, his cruel-looking mouth hiding a pair of ” peculiarly sharp
white teeth ”.165 Dracula ’s appearance changes later in the novel, ” from an old man into the

161 Snodgrass, Marry Ellen. op.cit. p. 88

162 Id. p. 350

163 Marshall M., Bridget. ” The Face of Evil: Phrenology, Physiognomy, And The Gothic Villain”. Hungarian
Journal of English and American Studies (HJEAS). Vol. 6, No. 2 ( 2000):161-172. Web. 11 June. 2017.

164 Stoker, Bram.op.cit. p.15

165 Id.

42
more conventional and younger ”dark seducer ” figure ”166. His appearance was evil and
seductive at the same time, his face ” was hard, and cruel, and sensual, and big white teeth,
that looked all the whiter because his lips were so red, were pointed like an animal's ”.167 The
Count ’s symbolic feature is his red, loathing eyes which ”are enough to indicate the evil that
is present ”.168 They are described a few times throughout the novel, each time creating
feelings of dread and anxiety. The first time Mina describe ’s Lucy ’s attacker as having a ” a
white face and red, gleaming eyes ”169, later Lucy describing as ”something long and dark with
red eyes ”170.
Dracula influences the men around him, turning them into what he is. They become
predators,trying to eradicate Dracula and his bloodline in order to save humanity from such
blood consuming monsters.Dracula is also descibed as a powerful being, prideful, cunning
and cruel with a child-like brain which becomes one of his weaknesses. He, unlike other
vampiristic villains, is rich, educated and polite giving the impresion of a veridic
Transylvanian Count: ” The light and warmth and the Count's courteous welcome seemed to
have dissipated all my doubts and fears […] In the library I found, to my great delight, a vast
number of English books[…]The books were of the most varied kind, history, geography,
politics, political economy, botany, geology, law, all relating to England and English life and
customs and manners […] ”.171
Dracula ’s character is shrouded in mystery and secrecy, though his role as a titled
aristocrat is a ”feature of the Gothic and Byronic heroes ” as Samuel Gow stated. (qtd. in
Carlson 30 )172The majority of the traits that he possesses in his vampire form find their root
in Dracula ’s initial human form, that of Vlad the Impaler ,former voievod of Wallachia who
was known for his strenght,bravery ,wisdom and cunningness. The legend says that the
Draculas gained such powers through wicked ways connected with the Devil. After his

166 Gates, David. op.cit. p. 61

167 Stoker, Bram.op.cit. p. 162

168 Gates, David. op.cit. p. 60

169 Stoker, Bram.op.cit. p.86

170 Id. p.93

171 Id. p.19

172Gow, Samuel. "Gothic Elements in Bram Stoker's Dracula." Academia.edu. N.p., n.d. p.5.Web. 18 June 2017.

43
death,all these traits which were put in use for noble causes became corrupted, the once
benevolent Voievod now using them in wicked purposes:
He must, indeed, have been that Voivode Dracula who won his name
against the Turk, over the great river on the very frontier of Turkeyland. If it be
so, then was he no common man, for in that time, and for centuries after, he
was spoken of as the cleverest and the most cunning, as well as the bravest of
the sons of the 'land beyond the forest.' That mighty brain and that iron
resolution went with him to his grave, and are even now arrayed against us.
[…]The Draculas were, says Arminius, a great and noble race, though now and
again were scions who were held by their coevals to have had dealings with the
Evil One […] There have been from the loins of this very one great men and
good women, and their graves make sacred the earth where alone this foulness
can dwell. For it is not the least of its terrors that this evil thing is rooted deep
in all good, in soil barren of holy memories it cannot rest.173

Stoker ’s villain is not only described as a supernatural creature consuming the blood
of the innocents( it is shown by the fact that most of his victims were small children) but also
as a sexual predator,lusting for young women.An argument for this statement is the presence
of thethree enchanting young vampiric women inside his castle and his two female
victims,whom he either seduced or taken by force: Lucy Westera and Mina Murray. One key
scene that sustains the previous statement is that in which the Count invades Mina ’s roo m
forcing her to drink his blood. It remarkably resembles a rape scene:
On the bed beside the window lay Jonathan Harker, his face flushed and
breathing heavily as though in a stupor. Kneeling on the edge of the bed […]
was the white-clad figure of his wife. By her stood a tall thin man, clad in
black. […] With his left hand, he held both Mrs. Harker' s hands, keeping them
away with her arms at full tension; his right hand gripped her by the back of the
neck, forcing her face down on his bosom […] The attitude of the two had a

173 Stoker, Bram. op.cit. p.226

44
terrible resemblance to a child forcing a kitten's nose into a saucer of milk to
compel it to drink. 174
Dracula as the diabolical villain plays more of a role in the novel as a presence rather
than as a person or character.175 He spreads fear and terror into the mind of the characters not
only with his presence, but also with his absence considering the fact that even when he is not
present ,other characters still fear him and are in a constant state of dread.Stoker ’s Gothic
Villain manages to evoke feelings of hate and repulsion into the heart of his readers, the
Count being regarded as the embodiment of sinfulness and imorality.

174 Id. p.264

175Gow, Samuel. op.cit.p. 5

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3.3 The Doppelgänger Motiv

The Doppelgänger, a recurrent element in the Gothic convention is commonly
depicted as the evil double of a character , an omen of chaos and turmoil. The Gothic
Doppelgänger is usually depicted as a monstrous being, whose mere appearance evokes
terror, hatred, repulsion and is seen by critics as a representation of 19th century social
anxieties. In Dracula the Gothic Double is not embodied only by the protagonist – antagonist
pair but also, the novel itself is a doublig, as William Hughes argues, binary pairs being
found in the contrast ”East and West, modern and feudal, technology and religion ”.176
Built on binary oppositions, Stoker ’s novel illustartes the contrast between rural
Transylvania with its old superstition and beliefs and modern London, a city of techonological
and cultural development, from which one understand Transylvania as being the uncivilized,
wild double of urbane London. From the beginning of the novel, the geographical location of
Transylvania is surrounded in mystery , Harker describing it in his journal as ”one of the
wildest and least known portions of Europe ”.177 Count Dracula ’s homeland is depicted as
beautifuly strange, wild,eerie and enigmatic. It is a surreal place where ”pine woods […] ran
down the hillsides like tongues of flame ”178, where the night with its darkness and stilness
creates ” a peculiarly weird and solemn effect, which carried on the thoughts and grim fancies
engendered earlier in the evening ”.179 Dracula ’s castel ” whose broken battlements showed a
jagged line against the sky ”180 emits an impression of wildness and isolation, being buit ”
high above a waste of desolation ”181 and sitting atop of ”a thousand feet on the summit of a
sheer precipice ”.182

176 Hughes, William. Bram Stoker's Dracula: A Reader's Guide. London: A&C Black, 2009. Google Book
Search. Web. 11 June 2017.

177 Stoker, Bram. op.cit. p.2

178Id. p.8

179Id. p.9

180Id. p.14

181Id.p.398

182Id. p.404

46
One further double stands in the form of feudal Transylvania, still rulled by archaic
precepts, old beliefs and superstitions.Being a rural land, technology has not spread its roots
along it, consequently making it a primitive,mysterious, underdeveloped place with simple-
minded,superstitious inhabitants.The contrast with modern London it’s made through Harker ’s
words regarding the maps of Transylvania ”as yet to compare with our own Ordance Survey
Maps ”.183 Stoker describes Transylvania and its locals as wild, uncivilized,secluded which
may give the impression that Dracula ”as a product of his environment, may likewise be
savage and atavistic ”.184 Although at first Dracula is portrayed as a courteous and clever
Transylvanian count, his warm greeting tricking Harker into letting his guard down: ”The
light and warmth and the Count's courteous welcome seemed to have dissipated all my doubts
and fears ”185, his callous nature cannot remain hidden for too long.
Dracula ’s barbaric and powerful character originates in his human form, that of the
cruel and merciless voievod Vlad the Impaler, who was described as ” the cleverest and the
most cunning, as well as the bravest of the sons of the 'land beyond the forest ”.186 The
barbaric hero morphed into a parasitic vampire,savage in nature with a devilish desire to
create havoc. Stoker ’s antagonist, who Van Helsing describe as ”[…] brute, and more than
brute; he is devil in callous, and the heart of him is not ”187 represents a threat to the civilized
society of London.Dracula, like any other Gothic doppelganger, embodies the Victorian,
London social fears and anxieties regarding the acceptance of the barbarous foreigner whose
presence can create a discrepancy in the civilized world of modern London.According to Gill
Davies, Stoker ’s novel is about ” crossing borders, encountering the alien and driving it
back ”188, as well as about ” dangerous, unrestrained movement and the need for confinement
of the threatening 'other' ”189. Dracula is a foreigner, an intruder coming from the East, a poor,

183Id. p.2

184 Van de Water, Bianca. ” The Cultural and Aesthetic Significance of Doppelgang ers in Dracula and The
Hound of the Baskervilles ”. Scribd . N.p. 24 March 2017. Web. 11 June 2017.

185 Stoker, Bram. op.cit . Id. p.16

186Id. p. 264

187 Id. P. 222

188Gill Davies, ”London in Dracula; Dracula in London”. Literary London: Interdisciplinary Studies in the
Representation of London , Volume 2 Number 1 (March 2004). Online at http://www.literarylondon.org/lon don-
journal/march2004/davies.html.Web. 11 June 2017.

189Id.

47
underdeveloped,primitive part of Europe spreading chaos and disease in Victorian
London.Thus, one can understand the Transylvanian count as the embodiment of the fear of
the unknown, of the foreign of 19th century London.
The Doppelgänger motiv is highlighted through the pair Dracula-Van Helsing,two
characters who despite their differences, are linked to each other by their avid inclination
towards knowledge and their label marking them as foreigners in a British society. Van
Hellsing is an old Dutch proffesor, an expert in the world of both traditional and modern
medicin,being described by Dr.Seward as ” a philosopher and a metaphysician, and one of the
most advanced scientists of his day ”190 with an ” absolutely open mind ”.191 His open-
mindedness incited Van Helsing to learn about religion and superstitions, his broad
knowledge about vampires being the key factor in rescuing Miss Mina and getting rid of the
devilish vampire once and for all. His advancement in the field of medicin is demonstrated in
the scenes where he undergoes blood transfusion, an advanced technique in those
times.Dedicated to his cause of erradicating the vampire bloodline, Van Helsing ” studied,
over and over again ”192 texts from all over the world related to the evil Count. He has learned
everything about vampires, from their strengths and weaknesses, to their needs and customs,
fact that makes him Dracula ’s arch nemesis. In his book Gothic Literature , Andrew Smith
describes the pair in a simple yet accurate way saying that Van Helsing ”can be read as a
highly professionalised version of the Count ”.193
Van Helsing uses his knowledge for a benevolent cause, wishing to save humanity
from a tenebrous future, which stands in opposition with Count Dracula ’s thirst for learning,
making him ” as potent a force for good as Dracula is for evil ”.194The reader finds from the
beginning about the Count ’s desire to improve his knowledge through Harker ’s description of
Dracula ’s library which contained ” a vast number of English books ”195 with various topics

190 Stoker, Bram. op.cit.Id. p. 106

191 Id.

192 Id. p. 282

193 Smith, Andrew. op.cit. p. 114

194Gates, David. op. cit. p. 41

195 Stoker, Bram. op.cit. 19

48
which were ” all relating to England and English life and customs and manners ”.196 Unlike
Van Helsing, Dracula wishes to use his knowledge for selfish purposes, his information about
England and everything related to it paving his way towards an easier shift in locations: from
archaic Transylvania to modern England where he will rull as ” the father or furtherer of a
new order of beings, whose road must lead through Death, not Life."197
Whereas Dracula is perceived as the parasitic foreigner, plaguing England with chaos
and depravity, Van Helsing coming from Netherlands, a country akin England, prospering
through technological and cultural advancement,is perceived differently.Although both of
them portray the image of the foreigner, Dracula coming from an uncivilized,wild country is
feared that he, as a barbaric and wild character alike his native land, will downgrade Britain ’s
cultural assets by imposing his vulgar concepts and ideas. His doppelgänger on the other
hand, a respected proffessor with an impressive knowledge from different fields, represents a
valluable asset for the British society. Similar to his double, Van Helsing ’s geographic
background plays a significant role in his acceptance by the British comunity. His
homecountry prospers from technological and cultural growth and a man coming from such a
country and posssessing wast knowledge over different fields can only be of use for a country
like England. In this manner Stoker uses the doppelganger motiv as a function tovalidate as
well as mediatexenophobic social anxieties by identifying desirable and undesirable foreign
influences ”.198
Stoker ’s Dracula proved its place as a novel in the world of Gothic fiction through
elements and details similar to those used by the first Gothic writers, such as old and dark
settings ( castle, churchyards, ruined houses and chapels) ,dreadful atmosphere creating a
general feeling of horror and anxiety, vampiristic villains spreading fear and chaos and the
clash between the hero and his evil double. Influenced by early Gothic writers Bran Stoker's
” treatment of theme, setting, and atmosphere follow the traditional models laid down by
Radcliffe, Lewis, Maturin, and the others fairly closely ”.199

196 Id.

197 Id. p.283

198 Van de Water, Bianca. ”The Cultural and Aesthetic Significance of Doppelgang ers in Dracula and The
Hound of the Baskervilles ”. op.cit.

199Gates, David. op.cit

49

Conclusion

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and Bram Stoker have proved their place as proeminent
figures in the world of Gothic literature through their intriguing novels depicting corrupt
characters with immoral values, wild, foreign and mysterious settings,atmosphere meant to
induce fear, panic and uneasiness into those who dare to study their pages.This diploma paper
has proved that both authors, inspired by works of the pioneers of Gothic literature,inserted
identical Gothic elements yet sculpting them to apply to their personal artistic views.
The first chapter has given an outline on the origin, background and development of
Gothic fiction, providing information about the first uses of the term Gothic, the historical
background filled with turmoil and uproar from which Gothic as a literary genre appeared and
its development throughout the centuries, from Horace Walpole ’s first Gothic novel in the
18th century to American pulp magazines two centuries later.
The second chapter has aimed its attention to Shelley ’s Frankenstein, demonstrating
its use of Gothic elements in order to portray the Gothic style of the novel. The chapter has
drawn the conclusion that Frankenstein , through its use of dark locations, gloomy
atmosphere,the blameless villain in contrast with the corupt hero,the motiv of the double
linking the protagonist and antagonist in an unbreakable bond is written in the Gothic
tradition,marking it as an emblematic novel in the realm of Gothic art.
The third chapter has focused on Bram Stoker ’s novel Dracula and has proved its
place in the world of Gothic fiction,analogus with Shelley ’s Frankenstein , by analyzing
Gothic elements inserted throughout the course of the novel. The shift from a wild,
uncivilized land full of mysteries and superstitions to equally dark locations from modern
England, the parasitic vampire creating chaos, spreading its vile principles and shattering the
peaceful scenery of London,binary pairs sharing doppleganger traits, being similar yet at the
same time antithetic have demonstrated Stoker ’s ingenious creativity, marking Dracula as a
classic work of Gothic literature.
In conclusion, the aforementioned diploma paper has demonstrated how Gothic
literature formed its roots, starting as a reaction to the scientific development, reason and

50
rationality, later developing in one of the most renowed genres in the literary world.It has also
shown how the successors of the first Gothic writers continue to use elements found in their
works, but also adopt them to their own style.

51

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