Viewing Dracula as More Than a Monster

Bruno Celis

Viewing Dracula as More Than a Monster

Dracula is clearly portrayed as the upmost example of evil. His weaknesses are religious items, such as holy water and crucifixes, which serve to emphasize how unholy Dracula is. If Dracula cowers and hisses at the sight of a crucifix, that is an obvious sign this creature must be from the depths of Hell. Despite the tendency to classify Dracula as a devilish creature with no traces of human in him, it is important to note that Dracula can still be sympathized with by evaluating his human-like motivations.

When we first meet Dracula, he welcomes Jonathan Harker in a very cordial manner. This is early evidence that shows that Dracula is not a mindless creature driven by evil. He seems to genuinely care for Jonathan. For instance, Dracula heavily scolds the three female vampires after their attempt to suck Jonathan’s blood. Dracula is acting like a father figure to Jonathan by protecting him. Even further, could it be possible that Dracula is attracted to Jonathan in a homosexual way? Stoker never progresses this idea primarily because he foresaw the controversy if he did include a same-sex relationship, yet the subtle hints are there. Granted, Dracula’s ability to elicit emotions of intimacy and compassion may be superficial. In truth, Dracula main focus is to keep Jonathan alive not to form a friendship with him, but to complete the necessary paperwork for his move to London. Dracula is striving for world domination and to bring back glory to his family name. In a way, his actions represent the human quality of seeking power. Thus, Dracula symbolizes both the positive and negative human characteristics, deeming him more than just a one-dimensional figure of evil.

Furthermore, the end of the novel features Dracula fleeing for his life as he is intensely pursued by Van Helsing and his companions. Van Helsing is incredibly determined to once and for all end Dracula’s reign of terror by properly killing him. Somehow, Stoker is able to make the reader feel a little sorry for Dracula despite knowing it is probable best to kill him. How is it even possible to feel sorry for him? From Dracula’s point of view, he simply desires to return to glory for himself and the race of vampires as a whole (although his methods and consequences for humanity may not be ideal). Van Helsing’s mission to stop Dracula will save countless of lives (including innocent babies who randomly get devoured by female vampires), but for Dracula, he will die in dishonor. In this viewpoint, Van Helsing and his men deny Dracula of his happiness, which makes Dracula the victim one sympathizes with and Van Helsing the monster. However, one crucial detail that contradicts this conclusion is Dracula’s facial expression of peace moments before his death. One can argue Dracula loathed being an undead vampire, especially when the novel implies that a vampire does reach Heaven after death. Dracula’s demise means pre-vampire Dracula can now experience eternal peace. Either way, Dracula displays many human characteristics that makes him more than a brainless creature out to terrorize humanity.

Is Grendel a Monster?

The purpose of Grendel appears to be in order to tell the story of Beowulf from Grendel's perspective, with an emphasis on showing Grendel's life and why he should be pitied. So I have compiled two examples of when Grendel demonstrated he was more human than he was given credit for.

1. Instead of just being a monster that destroys because he does not like the music in the hall ("It harrowed him to hear the din of the loud banquet every day in the hall," (ln 87-89)) Grendel has a much more complicated relationship with the humans and the music than simply just not liking it. (Maybe he's not a big music fan.) In Grendel, Grendel tends to get emotional about the music the Shaper produces (from when he starts getting emotion from hearing about how he comes from a cursed race (more on that later) to how he slowly began to hate the Shaper and the way he presented the "history" of the people.  As demonstrated in the line, "I clamped my palms to my ears and stretched up my lips and shrieked again: a stab at truth, a snatch at apocalyptic glee" (Gardner 45). He does not hate the music or the celebrating in and of itself, but because of what the music represents - truths he does not want to hear and lies the humans tell each other. Not wanting to face the truth, but getting mad at people for spreading lies are one of the great human contradictions. If it's something we don't want to hear, then lying is okay, but if it is something we would want to hear, then lying is bad. 
2. Grendel wants to be accepted, at least to a certain degree. In the beginning, he did not take it well when he heard that he was a descendant of Cain and thus was cursed. He rushed into the crowd (up until then he mostly kept to the shadows and few humans had seen him (that lived to talk about it anyway)). As he describes, "I sank to my knees, crying, 'Friend! Friend,' (52). Although he soon got attacked by the humans his first reaction was to reveal himself to the humans and cry out for some sympathy, for "'Mercy! Peace,'" (51). He could have easily gone into a rage, but he wanted to prove that he was not the monster they all hailed him to be and tried to come across as peaceful, as desiring an end to this line of monsters and wanting to have peace at last. The scene is effective in that it provides reason to feel pity for Grendel (He is actively trying to be a good person and prove them wrong, that he is in fact a good person and not a monster from a race of killers like the tale presents, but the humans immediately start attacking him, as if they have no idea that he is trying to be peaceful, or, even worse, that they attack him anyway, merely because he appears like a monster.) Humans, especially in modern times, like to think of ourselves as noble and always trying to do the right thing and give people a chance, resorting to violence only as a last resort, but as this scene demonstrates, humans are just as capable of senseless violence and attacking without being provoked.  Furthermore, it shows a more humane side of Grendel. He wants to believe he can be good and he wants to have peaceful relationships with a race of beings that treats him as an outcast and a monster, but is not given the chance because the ironically monstrous (or perhaps shamefully humane) humans attack him. 

- Courtney Sellars