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Bram Stoker and Gothic

Transylvania
Marius-Mircea Crişan

Analysing the influence of Bram Stoker’s readings about Transylvania

on the representation of this region in Dracula can shed a new light
on the construction of this famous fictional place (Leatherdale, 1987:
97–9, 108–110; Frayling, 1991: 317–20, 331; Goldsworthy, 1998: 77–82;
Miller, 2006: 122–7; Cris‚an, 2013: 214–26). As Stoker never visited
Transylvania, his representation of this space is partially inspired by the
sources he consulted on the region: five books – William Wilkinson,
An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia (1820), Charles
Boner, Transylvania: Its Products and Its People (1865), Andrew F. Crosse,
Round About the Carpathians (1878), A Fellow of the Carpathian Society
[Nina Elizabeth Mazuchelli], ‘Magyarland’: Being the Narrative of Our
Travels Through the Highlands and Lowlands of Hungary (1881), Major E.C.
Johnson, On the Track of the Crescent: Erratic Notes from the Piraeus to Pesth
(1885) – and an article, ‘Transylvanian Superstitions’ by Emily Gerard,
published in The Nineteenth Century (1885) and included in the volume
The Land Beyond the Forest (1888). However, there is no doubt that it is
Stoker’s originality which created the successful image of the fictional
Transylvania.
As Carol Senf points out, Transylvania is ‘a mysterious region – an
embodiment of the past, more mythic than real’ and Dracula is ‘far
more about religion’ than politics (2000: 52). The novel has been sub-
ject to several religious readings (Starrs, 2008; Rarignac, 2012), and Clive
Leatherdale’s interpretation marks one of the main tendencies in this
direction:

It might seem superfluous to claim that Dracula is a Christian parody.

Everything that Christ is meant to be Dracula either inverts or per-
verts. Christ is Good: Dracula is Evil – an agent of the devil. Christ
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C. Wynne (ed.), Bram Stoker and the Gothic
© The Editor(s) 2016
64 Marius-Mircea Crişan

was a humble carpenter: Dracula a vainglorious aristocrat. Christ

offers light and hope, and was resurrected at dawn: Dracula rises
at sunset and thrives in darkness …. Christ offered his own life so
that others might live: Dracula takes the lives of many so that he
might live …. The link between Christ and Dracula is made explicit
through the Count’s recoiling from crucifixes, holy water, and other
symbols of Christianity. (2001: 193)

Besides a religious reading, the essence of the novel lies in its ambiguous
symbolism. The fact that it begins in Transylvania in the spring and ends
(in the same setting) in late fall symbolizes, according to Thomas Walsh,
‘a reversal of the traditional seasonal death and rebirth cycle of the pasto-
ral structure’ (1979: 230). As Leatherdale notes, ‘Stoker’s Transylvania … is
not only a land beyond the forest; it is also a land beyond scientific under-
standing’ (2001: 112). The rich symbolism in the construction of this
fictional space opens the story to countless interpretations. This chapter,
then, analyses some features which move the Transylvanian world from
its referential status, and transform this geographical space into a gothic
construction. I focus on the mythical dimension of time and space, and
refer to the use of motifs (which are, according to David Punter (2014),
essential for the gothic) such as the supernatural, the sublime, transgres-
sion, imprisonment, terror and the spectacular.
In Dracula, entering Transylvania marks the experience of a different
world, and both time and space are endowed with supernatural features.
From the beginning the reader can observe Jonathan Harker’s obses-
sion with time. The word time is frequently mentioned in the opening
paragraphs. The English young lawyer wants repeatedly to check the
‘the correct time’ and is satisfied to note that the train left Budapest ‘in
pretty good time’ (1994: 9). However, as Harker advances on his way to
Castle Dracula, he departs gradually from the historical dimension of
time and approaches the mythical one. From Munich to Bistritz – Bistrit,a
in Romanian – (via Vienna, Budapest and Cluj) the trains are later and
later: ‘It seems to me that the further east you go the more unpunc-
tual are the trains’ (1994: 11). Travelling on the Transylvanian railway,
Harker’s impression is that he dawdles all day long. The same concern
for punctuality is expressed in the dialogue with the landlady in Bistrit,a,
when the Englishman stresses the fact that he ‘must must go at once’,
as he is ‘engaged on important business’ (1994: 13). Deficiencies in time
management in Transylvania were also noticed in Stoker’s sources on
the region. In ‘Magyarland’, for instance, Elizabeth Mazuchelli describes
the city of Oradea: ‘almost every church steeple possesses four dials; but