Dracula Creation: The story behind the notorious vampire
It is obvious that as soon as you hear the name Dracula, the picture of a pale male face with the glimmering eyes under the thick brows, crooked nose, the fangs that come out of the thin lips appears in our minds. He is a monster, driven by his hunger for blood and his uncontrolled lust to take what he wants.
How can all of us think of the same man? The main reason for it is Bram Stoker.
The Gothic classic thriller novel, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, without an argument, is one of the greatest page turning books in the world. It is interesting that the whole story builds up through the letters and pages of journals of the characters.
It is disclosed that anyone who read the book, comes across the question: how Bram got these incredible ideas? The story behind the novel is as interesting as the story goes.
When Bram decided to write a different story, he wanted an evil guy to run around in his story. So, he started his investigations which ended upon a mountaintop deep in the wild of Romania. Folklore of Romania was popular with its mysteries and dark creatures.
There was a theory of vampires that rise from the death, roaming in the society. This concept of vampires is related to the notorious Black Death. It was an epidemic bubonic plague caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. It hunted millions of people across Europe. As the dead was buried, the stories started to spread in the villages that the dead men are rising up in the cemeteries. It was revealed that due to the bacterial infection and natural gas, the dead bodies moved. The activities of worms caused the bleeding of the dead bodies which increased the flavor of thriller in the stories of the street. It was said that the disease hunted the vampires. The myth of vampires and the undead hit the street and the people started to do several rituals at the burials such as beheading, stuffing mouths with garlic, putting rocks in the mouths. Among them, the most popular ritual was, stake through the heart. These stories won the heart of Bram.
While Bram was looking for a suitable character, he met this interesting guy, Vlad III, most commonly known as Vlad the Impaler or Vlad Dracula, who was Voivode of Wallachia three times between 1448 and his death.
Vlad III was a war hero as well as a man with a darker shadow. He was known to be a man who has taste for human blood. It is said that he ate bread with a goblet of blood from his enemy soldiers to celebrate his victories. He had a glorious palace where he hid himself like a bat from the world. Bram studied these behaviors and started to create his fictional character who has raised from the death and feeds on blood and lives in the dark and has an ability to turn into a bat. The weakness of this monster is that he is a vampire, so, he can be killed by a stake through his heart or beheading. It is disclosed that the term “Voivode” aka Dracula in Wallachian language means Devil. Accordingly, Bram found the perfect name for his guy: “Dracula”.
Bram spent five years to complete his novel. It is crystal clear that his dedication to the story paved the path to its success.
-GS Kariyapperuma
