Bram Stoker’s Gothic and the Resources of Science

Abstract

While Bram Stoker's enthusiasm for technological innovation is undeniable, his overall attitude towards the resources of science generally has been the subject of some critical debate. In Dracula, for example, science is variously interpreted as the source of the vampire hunters' ability to defeat the Count, and the source of their helplessness and confusion in the face of supernatural forces. Such contradictory interpretations of his works are possible because of a certain ambivalence within the text that stems from Stoker's anxieties about science's unstable relationship with transgresssion, an issue I consider here by looking primarily at The Lair of the White Worm and The Jewel of Seven Stars, texts which seem, on the whole, to take opposing positions on the issue, and briefly at Dracula, which locates itself between the two extremes.