The thesis analyse methods of adaptation Dracula character by using five movies in chronological order. The heart of the thesis follows changes of the character in order to relationship with other characters of the movie, also in order to narrative and ideological changes. The thesis also considers differences between individual movies and what part Dracula character takes in it.

Uppsatsen undersöker och jämför tre forskares och fem gymnasieelevers tolkningar av några olika aspekter av Bram Stokers verk Dracula. I uppsatsen har Judith Langers och Johnathan Cullers teorier inspirerat utformningen av frågeställningen som berör påverkan av litterära och andra erfarenheter. Undersökningens resultat och analys visar på både skillnader och likheter mellan forskarnas och elevernas olika tolkningar, inte minst vad gäller sexualitetens betydelse i verket. Undersökningen har också visat att elevernas tidigare erfarenheter påverkat förväntningarna på Dracula, men inte påverkat förståelsen eller tolkningarna negativt utan istället hjälpt dem genom verket.

Abstract In this essay I look at the change in the symbolic function of vampires, and to see this I use Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Anne Rice’s The Vampire Lestat. My argument is that the difference between Dracula and Lestat is basically that they represent different ideologies, with Dracula being an imperialist, and Lestat being an anarchist. The difference is shown by taking examples from the text of the two novels, and also taking information about the ideologies, and seeing if the actions and thoughts of the characters match the suggested ideology. First, the essay looks at Dracula and his connection with imperialism, and then it turns to Lestat and his connection with anarchism. The conclusion is that the facts derived from the novels make it quite clear where the political hearts of the vampires lie.

Denna uppsats menar att visa på ett samband mellan det västerländska samhällets, kulturella utveckling och förändringen i vampyrens porträttering på film. Uppsatsen kommer att fokusera på de tre aspekter: porträttering, religiösa (kristna) influenser samt makt. De två filmerna som kommer att analyseras utifrån detta är Twilight (2008) samt Dracula (1931).                       Dessa två filmer är gjorda i olika århundranden vilket kommer att visas i resultatet. Resultatet visar på att den senare filmen talar för det kulturella samhällets utveckling ifrån ett fokus på kristendomen. Det som spelar roll och ger vampyrerna ett övertag är heller inte deras odödlighet, utan deras makt eller pengar likt det postsekulära samhället vi lever i. Slutligen så talar dessa filmer om en växande rädsla för gömda hot snarare än synliga hot.

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Late nineteenth-century Victorian adventure novels offer a complex depiction of manhood in relation to colonial adversaries. H. Rider Haggard's 1880s novels portray imperial adventure as an opportunity for masculine rejuvenation, while later adventure novels express a sense of imperial dread and suggest that adventure traumatizes, instead of rejuvenates, masculinity. All of these novels offer insight into a larger shift in Victorian thought concerning Britain's role as an imperial power. The novels define masculinity in two distinct ways: as modern and as medieval. Each novel approaches modern manhood as impotent when faced with the colonial threat, but the narratives all offers a different interpretation of medieval masculinity, underscoring the vexed nature of the Victorian's relationship with the past. H. Rider Haggard's novels, King Solomon's Mines (1885) and She (1887), suggest that imperial adventure offers modern manhood rejuvenation and purpose through interaction and eventual suppression of the colonial female. Haggard offers an optimistic portrayal of adventure because of both the men's distinctly medieval form of physical rejuvenation and the men's ability to influence the landscape in their favor. Authors Bram Stoker and Richard Marsh present a vastly different interpretation of empire and medieval masculinity in their 1897 novels Dracula and The Beetle. Adventure traumatizes the men in the later novels, and their hysteria attests to their effeminate lack of masculine virility. The 1897 novels critique both the optimistic depiction of imperial adventure and the unnatural reliance on medieval forms of masculinity offered in novels such as Haggard's.

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The word "necrophilia" brings a particular definition readily to mind – that of an act of sexual intercourse with a corpse, probably a female corpse at that. But the definition of the word did not always have this connotation; quite literally the word means "love of the dead," or "a morbid attraction to death." An examination of nineteenth-century literature reveals a gradual change in relationships between the living and the dead, culminating in the sexualized representation of corpses at the close of the century. The works examined for necrophilic content are: Mary Wollstonecraft’s Mary, A Fiction, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula and The Jewel of Seven Stars.

Nineteenth-century British fiction is often dismissed as necrophillic or obsessed with death. While the label of necrophilia is an apt description of the fetishistic representations of dead women prevalent at the end of the century, it is too narrow to fit literature produced earlier in the century. This is not to say that abnormal attitudes toward death are only a feature of the late nineteenth century. In fact, pathological attitudes toward death abound in the literature, but the relationship between the deceased and the survivor is not always sexual in nature. Rather, there is a clear shift in attitudes, from the chaste death fantasy, or attraction to the idea of death, prevalent in Gothic works, to the destructive, stagnant mourning visible in mid-century texts, and culminating in the perverse sexualization of dead women at the turn of the century. This literary shift is most likely attributable to the concurrent changes in attitudes toward sex and death. As sex became more acceptable, more public, via the channels of scientific discourse, death became a less acceptable idea. This “denial of death” is a direct reaction to the religious uncertainties brought about by industrialization. As scientists and industrialists uncovered increasing evidence against a literal interpretation of the Bible, more people began to doubt the nature of God and the existence of an afterlife. If there was no God, then there was no heaven, which raised questions about what happened to the soul after death. With the certainty of an afterlife gone, death became mysterious, something to fear, and the passing of loved ones was doubly-mourned as their fate was now uncertain.

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