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

The puritanic men and women conveyed in Bram Stokers Dracula are pure and innocent members of the upper and middle class. However, hiding behind this composed 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 down and outs who make no contri besidesion to the workers cause". Victorian culture discriminated against these vagrants, who were seen not only as shiftless and immoral, but dangerous as well. Sex 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 people 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 cannister be desirened to the 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 maintain upper-class Victorian traditions against the traditions of the lower class. This paper will examine the similarities between the vampires and the knowledge 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 reality he is more associated with the lumpen. While trapped in Draculas castle early 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 even acting as the horse-carriage driver. He slumbers in dirt, much like th e homeless, and is nomadic for most of the book. The Count associates himself most clearly with the lumpenproletariat in the form of a horde of gypsies who "attach themselves as a rule to some gravid 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 conk" air (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 federal agency of the lower class, we can draw some assumptions. If one draws this parallel to its logical 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 righteous ruling class, and the threat is expelled from Britain. However, this ruling class does not come out of the battle unscathed, and the Vic torian tradition is mostly lost. By reading Dracula as a battle to maintain Victorian tradition, one can more fully fancy the actions of the characters. Their prudishness, Sewards scientific adherence to logic, and the idea of the fall from grace take on a new meaning in the light of such an understanding. Just as the characters in Dracula cling 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