Petale de lumina Revista Petale de lumina nr. 18 | Page 29

Halloween Story
D
Dracula - a novel by Bram Stoker
racula is one of the greatest horror stories ever written. It is the
story of a vampire – a creature who, neither really alive nor dead, feeds on
human blood and has great supernatural powers. Jonathan Harker is an English
lawyer who travels to Transylvania, a wild, mountainous part of Central Europe, to
find Count Dracula, a mysterious aristocrat who wishes to buy a house in London.
Soon after arriving at Dracula`s huge castle, Harker begins to realize what the
Count really is – a monster who plans to hide among the millions of London and live from their
blood. He cannot stop the Count from leaving for England, where he begins to prey on those
nearest and dearest to Harker himself. There, only one man, Professor Abraham van Helsing,
understands what is happening, and he soon informs Harker’s friends that they have a battle in their
hands – not just for their lives, but for their souls.
Bram, or Abraham Stoker was born in Dublin, Ireland, in November 1847. Stoker died on
April 20, 1912, in London, far from rich. He did not live to see the worldwide popularity that his
evil Count attained through stage and film productions of the 1920s onwards.
Part of the richness of Stoker’s novel comes from the knowledge that he gained from his
research into the stories of southern Central Europe, where the myth is particularly strong, and
from where the word ‘vampire’ comes. It was particularly Transylvania that Stoker was interested in.
Though studying the tales of this mountainous, forested area, now in Romania, Stoker learned, for
example, that garlic can be used against vampires, that crosses frighten them, and that a wooden
stake through their hearts can kill them. He included Transylvanian details so successfully in his
book that some readers thought he had been there, which he never had.
In addition, this research gave him the greatest of all his additions to the vampire myth –
the name and at least something of the character of Count Dracula himself.
In his reading, Stoker came across the true historical figure of a fifteenth
century Romanian prince, Vlad III, the ruler of Wallachia, an area just
south of Transylvania. Vlad III was a great warrior who defended his land
against the Turks and became – and still is – a Romanian national hero.
However, he was also one of the cruelest rulers of all time. He executed
thousands of his own people, as well as his enemies, often using terrible,
torturous methods. He had several names in his time. One was ‘Vlad the
Impaler’, because of his favourite method of execution. Another was
‘Dracula’ which means ‘Son of the Dragon’, or ‘Son of the Devil’.
Alexandra Dumitriu, class VII A
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