Dracula

“He that Believeth on Him is not Condemned” Throughout the Bible, an array of passages are found instructing us that faith, not good works, is the key to Christian salvation. Faith gives us courage in the face of adversity, gives us hope when confronted with abysmal circumstances, and it provides the comforting idea of an afterlife when the hour comes for the angel of death to grasp and envelop us. Faith of an eternal life in Heaven is what allowed 17th century poet John Donne to challenge death when he penned, “Death be not proud, though some have called thee mighty and dreadful, for ,thou art not so.” (Holy Sonnet X) Ephesians 2, verses 8-9 says that “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and not that of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.” Salvation from death is a prevalent idea in the Christian religion and one that is heavily emphasized in the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker. Just as the Bible deflects emphasis of human works onto the importance of faith alone, when depths of evil go beyond the grasp of human understanding, characters in Stoker’s story turn only to faith in God to seek safe haven. The importance of Christian salvation as promised by God is an underlying theme throughout Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and is the key component in victory for forces of good conquering the unfathomable devilishness of Count Dracula. From the earliest pages of Stoker’s novel, the reader comes in contact with Christian salvation and its’ believed importance. Jonathan Harker is set to embark on business to Castle Dracula in Transylvania when he is implored by an elderly lady not to go. “Do you not know that tonight, when the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things in the world will have full sway'” (Stoker) Because Harker is in a hurry to conduct business, he disregards the warnings of the locals, but finds everything “very mysterious and not by any means comforting.” (Stoker) Before departing from the old woman, she “rose and dried her eyes, and taking a crucifix from her neck offered it to me.” (Stoker) The cross is a symbol that is present throughout this novel. It, more than any other symbol, is an icon representing salvation, and those who adorn it are openly displaying their faith in God and the promise of overcoming the grave. After spending time in Castle Dracula, Jonathan Harker soon realizes the reason for the zeal with which the elderly woman and other individuals were entreating him to stay. He sees the castle as a “veritable prison, and I am a prisoner!” (Stoker) He witnesses the sinister Count scale the castle walls in the manner of a lizard, and feels the slow evaporation of human understanding when attempting to conjure up a reason for the bewildering sight. “I feel the dread of this horrible place overpowering me; I am in fear-in awful fear-and there is no escape for me; I am encompassed about with terrors that I dare not think of…” (Stoker) As Harker’s mind becomes less able to understand the situation, the reader is able to see Stoker’s theme of Christianity as the slow emergence of Christian salvation takes priority. When the fear of death takes hold of Jonathan Harker, he turns to God. “Tomorrow! Tomorrow! Lord, help me, and those to whom I am dear!” (Stoker) Death is also viewed for the first time, as a form of salvation. When horrors of unspeakable evil surround Harker physically and mentally, the salvation of Heaven is first presented. “At least God’s mercy is better than that of these monsters…” Jonathan Harker’s experience at Castle Dracula immediately provides the theme of the importance of having faith in Christian salvation. Harker summons courage through faith in God and the comfort of the crucifix he was given. Faith in salvation affords Harker the fortitude to risk death in the face of an evil that Stoker delivers as the counter to his Christian Salvation theme. Count Dracula is a perfect representation of the evil that can only be overcome through faith in Christian salvation. He is of an ancient age, his gaze is a “blaze of basilisk horror”, and has a “grin of malice which would have held its own in the nethermost hell.” (Stoker) These physical attributes, along with his sharp fangs and blood-red eyes, paint the picture that enables the reader to envision the Count as Satan in the Biblical sense. As the novel continues, the satanic evil of the Count continues to reveal itself, along with the importance of Christian salvation to counteract it. Once the Count reaches England, he makes a victim of Lucy Westenra. Lucy is a picturesque image of beauty and sexuality with looks “oh, so sweet.” (Stoker) After being bitten and falling under the influence of the Count’s treachery however, “the roses in her cheeks are fading, and she gets weaker and more languid day by day; at night I hear her gasping as if for air.” (Stoker) With the diminishing of Lucy’s health, the reader is once again introduced to what faith in Christian salvation can offer. After numerous blood transfusions by Dr. Seward with only momentary results, Professor Van Helsing is summoned for assistance. Van Helsing is a character who propels the theme of Christian salvation and faith against the evils of a devil like Dracula. Helsing’s methods of defeating evil go beyond scientific methods of humans but depend rather on symbolic means of faith. To combat the process of transformation into a vampire, Helsing places garlic flowers throughout the room in faith that they repel the evil creature. After events leading to Lucy’s death, it is Helsing’s faith once again that enables Lucy’s soul to finally be freed from the grasps of death. “He took from his neck, inside his collar, a little golden crucifix, and placed it over the mouth.” (Stoker) The crucifix once again is placed as a protection against evil. When Helsing discovers that Lucy is a vampire that has been terrorizing children in the local area as the “Bloofer Lady” (Stoker), he comes to the dark conclusion that the body must be mutilated in such a way as to set her soul free from the realm of the “Un-Dead” (Stoker). To protect himself and his comrades from her evil as they wait by her tomb at night, Helsing places communion wafers in a line, blocking the re-entry to her tomb. This is yet another symbol of Christian faith and salvation. Communion wafers represent the body of Jesus Christ and partaking in communion is symbolic of believing that Christ died to give each person salvation from death and sin. Helsing and his comrades free Lucy from the grasp of the un-dead by hammering a stake into her chest. “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.” (Stoker) This hideous image of evil is soon extinguished as death and the freeing of Lucy’s soul display the freedom of Christian Salvation. After painting the picture of the devilishness that was on display while performing the ritual, Lucy’s body was “no longer the foul Thing that we had so dreaded and grown to hate…” but rather she appeared “as we had seen her in her life, with her face of unequalled sweetness and purity.” (Stoker) As the novel nears its climax, more examples of Christian faith are constantly on display. Van Helsing and his comrades go on to search out Count Dracula and kill him. Helsing notes that he, along with his company, are as “ministers of God’s own wish.” (Stoker) In the same way that Lucy’s demonic state returned to purity and beauty once released from the bounds of the un-dead, Dracula and his three “weird sisters” (Stoker) are killed, and from the perspective of Christian salvation, freed from their eternal lives of soullessness and damnation. Dracula seemed to even have a look of peace on his face after death. Faith in Christian salvation is obviously a key theme in this novel. Bram Stoker continuously uses Christian icons and symbols as a means of saving grace, courage, and protection. Most characters however, only come to resort to these means after exhausting all their human understanding, such as Jonathan Harker did in the beginning when faced with hopelessness at Castle Dracula. In the same way, human understanding only went so far when trying to cure Lucy from her illness. Where science was failing, God and faith took over and took their course. Having faith in a salvation from the grasp of death, whether that salvation preserves life on Earth, or sets free a bound soul for the eternal life in Heaven, allows that which is not understood by human means, to be confronted with courage. Faith in salvation and eternal life gives assurance that, even through death, one can look it in the face and know that “For me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” (Philippians 1:21), and “To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord”. (2 Corinthians 5:8)