Beatrice Fedozzi

AP1 (WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT FOR UNIT 3): Dracula (NBC, 2013-2014)

The new Dracula: a charming monstrous

hero

Dracula, the monster with a dark soul first created by Bram Stoker, has been adapted many times over
the years. Alexander Grayson, the name that Dracula assumes in the NBC adaptation in order to hide
his identity in Victorian London, is a wealthy businessman whose main objective is to battle the
Order of the Dragon, a historic chivalric order to which Vlad the Impaler (actually Dracula himself)
belonged centuries before. Here, somehow Dracula is rehabilitated and turned into a sort of a hero; in
fact, Alexander Grayson is different from Stoker’s Dracula: he’s charming, sexy, kinda sensitive and
civilised (although he still has to satisfy his hunger by killing and drinking the blood of his victims).
Moreover, his love for his dead wife Llona is incomparably great and makes him more human, alive,
if not a real human being considering what kind of people he had to deal with (specifically the
members of the Order of the Dragon). I must add, however, that he has a number of limitations, such
as being vengeful, kinda cruel and rather selfish. Taking into account all of his flaws and qualities, I
would say he is neither a monster nor a hero in the broad sense; he’s more of a “monstrous hero”, a
hero that cannot overcome his monstrosity, even though he tries his best to better himself.

As we already mentioned, Alexander Grayson is not exactly like the monster Bram Stoker created;
for instance, Grayson is a likeable and pleasant person, an American entrepreneur who is
extraordinarily intelligent, as well as witty, cunning and a perfectionist: in the NBC tv series he says
“Good enough isn't really very good", meaning that he won’t accept anything that doesn’t reach
excellence; “good enough” is not good enough for him, he needs everything to be perfect and to go
according to plan. He is also still very much in love with his dead wife Llona, a true beauty who
appears to be reincarnated in Mina, reason why Grayson is incredibly respectful and mindful of her
and he eventually falls in love with her as well as make her fall in love with him (although at the
beginning he is hesitant of turning Mina to win her as he believes it would be terrible of him to turn
her into a vampire - reason why he tries to reunite Mina with Jonathan as it would make the couple
happy). Another thing that he has in his favor is that Grayson has a deep bond with his assistant
Renfield (who also saved from being tortured to death); I would dare to say their relationship looks a
lot like a brotherhood: Renfield plays the part of the older brother who takes care of the youngest one,
he directs, advises and protect him, very much like a brother would do. Last but not least, he is better
than the people forming part of the Order of the Dragon. Not only those last ones are the most
horrible, viperous, heartless people ever seen, but they also act in the name of God when in reality,
they think only about their personal profit and advantages. It is not hard to be better than them to be
fair, and Grayson’s acts are not even comparable to theirs (for instance, Grayson would never
exterminate an entire family in front of the father’s eyes just as a punishment, which is what the
Order did to professor Van Helsing). He can be sometimes vengeful and he is certainly cruel with his
enemies and
hunters, but who wouldn’t be? In the end, he is protecting himself and his interests from the people
that want to destroy him, something that anyone would do. What normal people would never do is
killing (and obviously drinking the victim’s blood) in order to advance themself in a dispute or to
selfishly pursuit what they want, but he is not a normal person: he is still a “monster”, so to say, who
was programmed to kill and to be unscrupulous and he cannot change that.
As previously mentioned, I wouldn’t define Alexander Grayson a mere monster nor a mere hero: he
has plenty of qualities (such as his love for Mina (and his last wife Llona), his partnership with his
loyal assistant Renfield, his being witty, smart and charming) but he has also limitations (he is selfish
and uses everything that it's in his power to get what he wants, he is thirsty for revenge for what they
did to him years back, he is cruel and sometimes not the nicest person, especially with professor
Abraham Van Helsing who tries to develop a serum to let him walk in the broad daylight). For all
these reasons I would say he is a “monstrous hero”, basically a hero with some dark in him. As
Dracula says in Bram Stoker’s book: “...the world seems full of good men - even if there are
monsters in it.”. Alexander Grayson seems an ordinary good man, one of those you can totally trust,
but in reality, there is a monster (his being a vampire) inside of him. The truth is: he cannot change
the way he is. He tries, for example depriving himself of blood to feel more human or trying to find a
method to be able to go out during the day as a normal person, but in the end, he doesn’t succeed.

Summing up, Alexander Grayson is a monstrous hero and as one he has traits both of a hero
(primarily) and a monster, a vampire to be more specific. He is at the same time charismatic,
intelligent, likeable, caring with those who he loves, and harsh, ferocious and hostile to those who try
to obstruct him and his meticulous plans. He is certainly different from the monster Bram Stoker
created but this doesn’t make him less of a vampire: he still needs blood to satisfy himself, he has to
live in the dark and he is scared of the cross. In the end, some things never change.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

- Dracula, Bram Stoker (1897), Archibald Constable and Company (UK)

- Dracula, (NBC, 2013-2014)