Bram Stokers Dracula: A Struggle to Maintain Victorian Upper and Middl

The Victorian men and women conveyed in Bram Stokers genus genus genus Dracula be pure and virtuous members of the upper and middle classify. However, hiding behind this collected and civilized conception of England lies a dark and turbulent underbelly. This underbelly is the lumpenproletariat, whom Karl Marx defined as "the lowest and most degraded section of the proletariat the good deal and come to the fores who make no contri scarceion to the workers cause". Victorian culture discriminated against these vagrants, who were seen not only as shiftless and immoral, plainly dangerous as well. stimulate was taboo and purity was held sacred to the Victorian middle and upper class, but prostitution and sexually transmitted diseases ran rampant among the lumpenproletariat. The rich strive to be pious and good, but consider those of lower social standing to be less than human. The reaction of the characters in Dracula to the evil of the vampires dirty dog be likened to th e Victorian conception of the lower classes. They were seen as a hedonistic but powerful force, with the collective capacity to end the affluent citizens way of life. In this sense, the novel can be viewed as a struggle to assert upper-class Victorian traditions against the traditions of the lower class. This paper willing examine the similarities mingled with the vampires and the perception of the lower classes in regards to superstition, sexuality, inequality and the "preying" of the lumpenproletariat on the respectable middle-class. It will also examine the signs evident in the novel of the Victorian mindset.           Dracula is an aristocrat with a castle and noble title, but in naive realism he is more associated with the lumpen. While trapped in Draculas castle former(a) in the novel, Jonathan discovers that he has no hired help, has been performing menial tasks such as bed-making and table setting in secret, and stock-sti ll acting as the horse-carriage driver. He slumbers in dirt, much like the homeless, and is nomadic for most of the book. The total associates himself most clearly with the lumpenproletariat in the form of a horde of gypsies who " prehend themselves as a rule to some great noble"(49). They even do his bidding "The gypsies have given me these"(50) Dracula says of Jonathans ill-fated letters. Dracula attempts to hide his lumpen nature and exude an aristocra... ... "stagnant and foul" convey (111). Vampires and the poor are projected as animal-like, and both prey on others.     Since the vampires in Dracula can be seen as a authority of the lower class, we can draw some assumptions. If one draws this parallel to its tenacious conclusion, the battle with the vampires, it can be seen that in the end the lower class and their perceived values are soundly defeated by the blameless ruling class, and the threat is expelled from Britain. Howev er, this ruling class does not come out of the battle unscathed, and the Victorian tradition is mostly lost. By reading Dracula as a battle to maintain Victorian tradition, one can more fully understand the actions of the characters. Their prudishness, Sewards scientific adherence to logic, and the idea of the derive from grace take on a new meaning in the light of such an understanding. Just as the characters in Dracula hang to their humanity, so too do they cling to their upper-class values in the face of the lower class.Works CitedStoker, Bram. Dracula. England Pengiun, 2003.defn"Lumpenproletariat". Oxford English Dictionary. http//dictionary.oed.com