In the Gothic book Dracula, Bram Stoker mainly presents good and evil in kampfstark contrast in a very simple way. This probably mirrors Even victorian views great and bad as opposed however inextricable, a strict perspective of right and wrong in a spiritual sense. Yet more interesting than this create is the figure of Renfield, the man who have appears to be natural, caught involving the clearly righteous good plus the evidently wicked. Throughout the story, he is immersed in a metaphorical grey region. Stoker uses Renfield to provoke deeper thought about good and nasty, and indeed wants the reader to fear this grey area alone.
Frequently , Stoker does tend to present quite easily accessible interpretations on good and evil. For instance , when Ganga is fed on by and similarly feeds coming from Dracula in chapter 21 years old, the literary technique isnt hard to suss out. Descriptions just like “white-clad” and “clad in black” are used to describe Mina and Dracula: the colors are clearly opposed although Stoker features even absent as far as turning the format of the adjectives to emphasise the opposing tips. You also observe Mina’s “nightdress” which has been “smeared with blood” and which in turn thus features connotations of any loss of virginity, due to the Victorian belief the fact that exchange of blood and reproductive essential fluids are identifiable. It means a loss of purity from shade imagery, a deflowering of Mina’s persona. There is also crystal clear contrast with regards to religious lexicon from “God’s mercy” to the “devil fantastic children”. Therefore , in many ways (visual and metaphorical, and in allusions to the Bible), Stoker reveals good and evil to become very clear cut-subject, something that doesnt require loads of00 thought.
This begs the question: think about Renfield? In which does he fit in? He’s generally an extremely ambiguous figure. His primary interactions with Dracula arent clear in the exposition. It is also unclear why it is that he’s therefore particularly very sensitive to Dracula’s movements. An additional ambiguity can be his odd and unnatural obsession with immortality. She has described as a “madman”. Not any past, not any personality. So we are kept to rely purely within the text, but the writing gives a very grey too. We are often left confused about Renfields warped character: he shows kindness and politeness (much like the best Victorian bachelor) by “tidying” before Sl?ktens enters his cell and in many cases says “let the lady come in” simply after he has completed cleaning. However , this only makes it even more uncomfortable to see the character exhibiting signs of wicked. As Seward says when ever Mina enters the cell, “I thought that he may have had some homicidal intent”. Similar to the in-between of horror and terror, the grey, Renfield is one of the uncomplaining. He is the two good and evil.
One of the displays of Renfields possible nasty is his strange behavior of ingesting the pesky insects in his place. The lures and spiders sent simply by Dracula him self are naturally under his influence, since Harker says in the next chapter with the novel in comparison with Castle Dracula, supposedly an area where the Satan and the “Devil’s children”. Perhaps, the insects are the “devil’s children” under consideration, under the influence of the Count. The juxtaposition with the insects and Renfield makes him appear much more bestial, bringing about the Victorian fear of devolution and thus transmitting the impression that he is evil.
In chapter twenty one when Renfield is on his deathbed, he mentions the “Acherontia atropos of the Sphinges”. As Truck Helsing says, this equals the “Death’s Head Moth”. The use of this kind of symbol has a huge impact on both the Even victorian and the modern day reader. Inside the 1840s, the entomologist Moses Harris stated that the moth was “the device of evil spirits” because of its skull-like pattern, which interpretation was digested by the society of times, people in that case believed the moth was some sort of evil omen. In well-known culture, surrealist Salvador Dalà also employed the design intended for his work in relation to loss of life, further pressing conventional beliefs surrounding the moth. Renfield however consumes these pesky insects in his cell: this is once again an in-between state of evil and good since the physical ingesting of the pesky insects in the right order from the food chain is a entirely natural process. However , seems twisted, and brings back the sickly, shoddy, revulsed feeling at the take action.
When Renfield is incredibly close to fatality, it is explained to the reader that he simply should already be lifeless due to the injuries he’s sustained. These include his “pool of blood” hes laying in, his “back broken”: your dog is “paralysed”, and has a “mark on his head”. This is the interconnection Renfield contains to the dark side, evil, even when hes close physically to death. But hes strangely alive, with “uncertain breaths”, and he could be “quickly revived” when Seward wets his lips with brandy. Hes also undergoing “agonised confusion” and the males are in a state of “nervous suspense”. So he’s on his deathbed but incredibly strangely vital and sane (which is definitely unusual for him): this can be just another example of how he could be completely a middle man among good and evil. This boundary between the two keeps forth Even victorian fears of the liminal, harmful Stokers readers with illogicality and double entendre.
Because David Rogers says, Victorian times recently had an “apocalyptic nature”: this was a time of doubt and change. Often , Stoker accentuates this fear by using Renfield as a middle man to make this uncertainty and unease regarding the forces of good and evil more accessible to his readers.
