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a-little-slice-of-fandom · 3 years

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I’d love to hear your thoughts on the Irish-ness of Dracula, if you wanna ramble about it!

(Okay I just want to apologise for how long this took to answer because I know it’s been sitting in my inbox for over a month but..depression and work happened and I just didn’t have the time or energy to complete it. I seriously do apologise for this but I hope you enjoy the post anyway!)

So the first thing I need to clear up is this: the concept of a monster or a demon that feeds upon the life force of humans is not limited to one singular culture or folklore. In fact, this core concept is a wider cultural phenomenon and variations of it exist across both countries and continents. And no one country can take sole credit for the this core concept of vampires. Anyone who tries to claim otherwise either doesn’t know much about vampires or is intentionally being disingenuous. There can be cultural variations that are specific to certain folklores (and to just blatantly steal these would be cultural appropriation), but the main idea of vampires exists across a wide range of folklores and no singular person, group of people or culture can take credit for the creation of vampires.

However, arguably it was the work of Bram Stoker that aided in the solidification of the concept of Vampires that we know today. While there were other authors from a wide range of nationalities who wrote about Vampires before Stoker (including John William Polidori who wrote the Vampyre in 1819)...Dracula is the best known. (Now I personally believe that’s because Dracula is an absolutely banging novel, although I do concede that the prevalence of adaptations of Dracula from the 1920’s to today helps keep Dracula in the forefront of audiences minds.) In addition, it’s important to remember that Stoker was inspired by another Irish author Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, who wrote the novel Carmilla. As far as I know, Le Fanu and Stoker actually worked together on a magazine!

Another thing I think that needs clarification is the common belief that Stoker heavily/religiously based Dracula on the historical figure Vlad the Impailer. This is heavily debated by scholars. While there’s an obvious, undeniable similarity between the names of these two...the similarities start to wain after this, with only small similarities between the two and there’s even literal contradictions between the history of Vlad the Impailer and Dracula’s history in the novel. In fact, there’s not much indication that Stoker based the character Dracula off Vlad the Impailer, or even that he had a working knowledge of Vlad the Impailer beyond the name. In all 124 pages of his notes, there’s nothing to indicate that Stoker’s inspiration for Dracula came from Vlad the Impailer.

(Plus Dracula in the novel wasn’t even originally called Dracula...he was called Count Wampyr in the original drafts of the novel and this was only changed, from what I can gather, in the last couple of drafts.)

In fact, I’d personally argue that that connection between Vlad the Impailer and Dracula is actually something that’s been retroactively added by other artists, for example the 1992 film “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” heavily leaned into this idea that Dracula and Vald the Impailer were one in the same, and as time has progressed people assume that these elements were in the original novel when that’s simply untrue! Stoker didn’t write that! It’s a retroactive addition by other artists that’s just assumed by the masses to be canon. This phenomenon is actually super interesting and it’s absolutely not limited to Stoker’s novel Dracula/the modern day perception of Dracula (another example would be Mary Shelley’s version of Frankenstein versus the modern day perception Frankenstein). I’m not sure if there’s a word for what this is, but I like the term “cultural canon”, where something that’s been added in by other artists has become as good as canon within the minds of the masses and as such is ingrained within the cultural perception of something, despite it having no basis within the original piece or even directly contradicting what is in canon.

(Now I’ll absolutely concede that Stoker taking the name of a historical figure and possibly their likeness from another country and making them into a literal monster is something that should be discussed. I don’t know how Vlad the Impailer is viewed within Romania - whether he’s viewed positively or negatively or a mixture - but regardless he was a historical figure and Stoker did eventually use that name for his own creative purposes. Again, Stoker didn’t say that Dracula and Vlad the Impailer were the same person, that’s other artists doing, but there’s still issues with Stoker that needs to be discussed)

Now, I’ve seen people talk about how Stoker took a lot of inspiration from the Baltic folklore surrounding vampires for his novel, but I don’t really know this folklore very well and therefore I don’t feel like I’m qualified to discuss it. If anyone is more well versed in this topic wants to add to this post then they’re more than welcome to! I don’t deny that Stoker too inspiration from places other than Ireland (like the novel is set in Whitby) but I just feel like people over hype the relation between stokers Dracula and Vlad the Impailer.

Now, onto the Irish mythology side!

So the most obvious inspiration for Dracula comes from the story of Abhartach. here is a link to an actual, respectable retelling of the story of Abhartach which I’d highly recommend people read (it’s really not that long) but the key points go as follows:

There was this Irish chieftain called Abhartach, who was really cruel and the townsfolk didn’t really like him. So, the townsfolk and another cheiftain (known as Cathain) banded together to kill Abhartach. They did succeed in killing him (yay), however, Abhartach just sort of...rose from the dead and began another reign of terror (not yay). However, Abhartach needed to be sustained by blood and required a bowlful every day to sustain his energy. Cathain comes back and kills Abhartach once again, but Abhartach rises from the dead once more and now needs more blood. Abhartach is only banished when Cathain uses a word made from yew wood and wounds Abhartach with it. Abhartach is buried upside down with a grant stone over the grave to stop Abhartach rising once again.

Sound familiar? The similarities between Abhartach and Dracula are undeniable! Yes, there’s some differences between the two but the core story here is almost identical. I could totally reword that paragraph, omitting the names, and it would be indistinguishable from a short summary of Dracula! Even the way that the main characters find out about the wooden weapon that can kill the monster is similar, as both Jonathan and Cathain go to wiser and older members of their community to learn more.

(Also please mythology blogs don’t come for me I know my retelling was an incredible oversimplification but I’m writing on my iPad and my thumbs are starting to hurt. People have wrote full papers on the similarities between Dracula and Abhartach and there’s so many more people more qualified than me, I’m just an 18 year old trying to make a fun and interesting tumblr post. Again, if anyone wants add anything like extra sources or more information or even to point out my mistakes then I more than welcome the additions)

Another piece of folklore that’s also said to have inspired Dracula is the Dearg Due. Now there’s multiple different versions of the tale, but the version I have heard goes like this:

There’s a noble woman who wants to marry a penniless peasant boy, but her dad disapproves and wants her to marry another man who is much richer. The rich man and the noble woman were eventually married but the woman didn’t love the rich man. In retaliation, the rich man locked the woman in a windowless castle where she starved to death. The woman was buried by the locals who took pity on her, but because she was buried hungry she came back to life and drank the blood of her father and her husband as revenge. The version I heard says that the dearg due now basically wanders ireland drinking the blood of men who have hurt or wronged women (as one should) but there’s other endings to the story.

(Again is anyone has a reliable source they want to share then please feel free to add!)

So this is another Irish piece of folklore that clearly includes some elements that we now associate with vampires. Now people (including Wikipedia) claim that this story was specifically what Stoker based Dracula on, and while I definitely think that Stoker was aware of this story and took inspiration from it, I personally think that the Dearg Due inspired the concept of Dracula’s wives more than Dracula himself.

However the key point still stands: Stoker was likely aware of these legends and even the most staunchly anti-Irish person would have to concede that there’s similarities between all three stories. And very rarely are these similarities discussed in classes about Dracula...which I feel is a real disservice. I don’t think students should have to have an intense knowledge of Irish mythology (my knowledge is spotty at best) nor do I think it should be an exam question...but even a brief acknowledgment of “hey, Stoker was inspired by these stories and you can clearly see similarities between them” would be nice. Moreover, it further solidifies my original argument that Stoker was, at least to some extent, Irish and that his Irishness inherently influenced his work.

Also...the social context of what was going on in Ireland in this period can’t be ignored! Again, while Stoker did spend time in both England and Romania, he spent a lot of his life in Ireland and therefore would have known what was going on in his own country.

Dracula was published in 1897, which is exactly 50 years after the worst year of the Irish Famine/ The Great Hunger/An Gorta Mór. Now I don’t have time to do a whole history of the Great Hunger but the effects of the famine were greatly exacerbated by the horrific mismanagement of Ireland by the British government and the British system of ruling in Ireland. How many people died during the famine isn’t clear, but we do know that the population of Ireland at the time was 8 million and the population today is 6 million...200 years later and we still haven’t recovered. So while we all like to joke about the fact that Stoker wrote about an unfeeling member of the aristocracy literally feeding off others with no remorse and basically ruining their lives...are we really going to pretend that there isn’t social commentary there? Scholars specifically think that Stoker was commenting on the absentee landlords (basically British aristocrats who owned land in Ireland but didn’t live there and as such didn’t care about the well being of their tenants) who would often have tenants forced off the land when they couldn’t pay rent...despite the fact that their tenenants were already starving and had no money because their only source of food and income failed.

(I’m not being shady by the way, I also love to joke about the social implications of Dracula, but I feel like people forget that the jokes have actual points behind them)

There was also a cholera epidemic in Ireland in 1832 which is generally accepted to be one of Stoker’s biggest inspirations. You can read more about the epidemic here if you wish, but I’ll summarise what I feel are the key points. Not only was Stoker’s mother from county Sligo and lived through this cholera epidemic, but Stoker also asked her to write down her memories of the epidemic and used her accounts to aid in his research of the cholera epidemic. Now the fact that he was actively researching this should indicate that it would influence his work, especially considering the situation in county Sligo was incredibly morbid. There’s accounts of the 20 carpenters in Sligo town being unable to make enough coffins to keep up with the amount of people dying, resulting in hundreds of dead bodies just lying on the street. However, the most horrific account from this epidemic was the stories of terrified nurses placing cholera patients into mass graves while they were still alive. Stoker himself literally stated that Dracula was “inspired by the idea of someone being buried before they were fully dead”. So while at first there seems to be very little relation between the novel and a medical epidemic, it quickly becomes clear that Stoker’s fascination with this historical event influenced his writing.

My overall point is that Stoker’s irishness inherently influenced his writing. Writers don’t write in their own little bubble, divorced from the world around them, their views and work are shaped by their position in society and their upbringing (it’s why I dislike death of the author as a literary theory). So when people try to claim that Dracula is a piece of British literature...it indicates either a lack of understanding of the context in which Stoker was writing in or a wilful ignorance founded on colonialist ideas. His influences are so obvious to me as an Irish woman but they rarely get discussed, and even if they are it’s seen as overreaching! To call Dracula British literature and to ignore the inherent Irishness of the novel does a great disservice to Stoker!

Anyways I really hope you enjoyed this discussion my love! Once again I apologise for how long this took to write. Also I’m sorry if this comes off as argumentative or anything, that absolutely wasn’t my intention, I just have a particular style of writing long posts haha.

#dracula #bram stoker #irish literature #british literature #bram stoker’s dracula #gothic #gothic literature #ask #ask answered #anon ask #anonymous ask #anon #anonymous #being irish is my only personality trait

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