In his novel Dracula, Bram Stoker's characters are deeply troubled by the existence of the vampire. The idea of ​​a living and dead creature tests their sanity by forcing them to question things they had previously considered obvious truths. Typically, these members of Victorian society would believe that one must be alive or dead, seductive or repulsive, male or female, sexual or maternal, or mentally stable or unstable. However, many of the story's characters possess traits that lead them to embody the aforementioned impossibilities. The coexistence of these conflicting ideas causes an uncomfortable tension that is called "cognitive dissonance." When characters experience this feeling of cognitive dissonance, instead of changing their worldview, they resort to questioning their state of mind. An intense fear of madness pervades this novel, so those qualities that lead the characters to question their sanity must be reconciled before they can rest and the story can come to an end. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Count Dracula is the most obvious example of a character who exists as two separate contrasting ideas. The vampire is a creature that has passed from human life, but is resurrected as a walking, talking, blood-eating monster. As coined by Stoker, Dracula is a member of the "undead". This fact causes a lot of skepticism on the part of all the characters except Professor Van Helsing, whose job is to convince the others that the vampire really exists. The reluctance to believe that Dracula could be the cause of Lucy's problems is best shown during Van Helsing's conversation with Doctor Seward. The professor lists a list of things that have happened in the world, despite the fact that, before they happened, they wouldn't even have been considered a possibility. “I stopped it here. I was baffled. It was so crowded in my mind with its list of nature's eccentricities and possible impossibilities that my imagination was firing. (Stoker 263) As Seward's mind begins to question his current ideas about reality, the doctor abruptly ends the conversation for fear of having to change his preconceptions. Seward knows that Van Helsing is asking him to draw a parallel between such events and the possibility that Count Dracula is the true cause of Lucy's downfall, but he is afraid to admit an idea that might be considered impossible or even "crazy." you are a clever man, friend John; you reason well and your ingenuity is bold; but you are too prejudiced... Don't you believe that there are things you cannot understand, and yet they are... Ah, it's the fault of our science which wants to explain everything; and if he doesn't explain, then he says there is nothing to explain." (Stoker, 261) If a phenomenon cannot be explained through reason, characters tend to dismiss the event rather than question the limits of their own knowledge. This is the simplest way out. Humans don't like dealing with cognitive dissonance because it's an uncomfortable psychological experience. The three vampire sisters who inhabit Castle Dracula also possess the binary qualities of life and death, but they are also seductive and repulsive. The vampires meet Jonathan Harker while he is alone in the castle. “There was something about them that made me uncomfortable, a desire and at the same time a mortal fear. I felt in my heart a wicked, burning desire to be kissed with those red lips. (Stoker 51-52) Rather than acting on his desires or facing his fears, Harker simplyhe remains still and allows the vampires to surround him and caress his body. Like Seward's interrupting the conversation with Van Helsing, Harker's inaction is another way of ignoring a situation he cannot understand. Jonathan is confused about being sexually attracted to vampires even though, in his time, the overt sexuality exhibited by the three women would have been completely unacceptable from any other woman. So, he tries to avoid the situation by acting as if he were sleeping, almost as if he hoped he could tell himself that the entire event was just a dream. Indeed, the next day, Harker questions the reality of the previous night's events. “I woke up in my bed. If I hadn't dreamed, the Count must have brought me here. I tried to settle on the subject, but I was unable to arrive at any indisputable result." (Stoker 55) Although the vampire's attack was remembered in vivid detail, Harker continues to question the accuracy of his memory by putting forward the idea that all of these events may have occurred while he was sleeping. Since our dreams are often irrational and indecipherable, Harker's willingness to attribute his sexual encounter to such a hallucination would imply that he believes he has been in a less than stable mental state. Therefore, Jonathan chooses to question his sanity rather than accept that these "impossibilities" may have occurred. During his encounter with the three women, Harker also becomes an anomaly by developing feminine qualities throughout the scene. "In the Victorian mentality men bore the full burden of sexual depravity; a good woman submitted to her husband's bestiality only to reproduce" (Demetrakopoulos 106). When Harker lies still and allows the vampires to take full control of him, he takes on the traditional role of the Victorian woman in sex. In Jungian terms, the vampire sisters act as an agent that brings out Harker's soul, or repressed feminine side. Later in the scene, Harker is so overwhelmed that he passes out. Fainting is another activity that is typically labeled as a feminine action, causing Harker to once again assume the feminine role. "Without a clearly defined, passive femininity against which to define himself and his world, Jonathan Harker collapses into a nightmare of uncertainty, confusion, and vampire 'brain fever.'" (Prescott and George 490) Harker's descent into temporary madness provides him with another way to deny what has happened to him; he may have seen creatures both alive and dead, or both seductive and repulsive, but it may also have been a hallucination due to his "brain fever". When Harker is recovering from his temporary illness, his girlfriend, Mina, is there to take care of him. Throughout the novel, Mina parallels Jonathan in that she also takes on attributes of the opposite sex. When she vows to never open her diary unless it becomes absolutely necessary, Mina takes on the role of protector as she attempts to push away any memories that might send Jonathan back into his state of madness. In a sense, Mina becomes Harker's "knight in shining armor". Mina also becomes a saving grace to the rest of the men as she learns to work with the latest technology and keeps careful records of each person's encounters with the supernatural. When Dracula attempts to destroy their documents, Mina was wise enough to make several copies of the documents, thus allowing the "children of light" to continue and defeat the vampire. Van Helsing praises Mina for her great achievements and exposes her dual nature as both feminine and masculine. “Ah, that wonderful lady Mina! Haa man's brain - a brain that a man should have if he were very gifted - and a woman's heart." (Stoker 321) However, after making this statement, the Professor goes on to state that, despite her availability, Mina must no longer assist in the battle against Dracula. This must happen because Mina's feminine and masculine qualities cannot be tolerated when they exist in one person. Nonetheless, Mina keeps him going in the battle against the monster and is probably the most important key to finding out where Dracula is. In stark contrast to Mina, Miss Lucy Westerna is depicted as the epitome of Victorian femininity, except that she is highly sexualized. This sexuality becomes more evident once Lucy undergoes the transformation into a vampire, but it also expressed itself – in confidence – to Mina before she became a creature of the night. “Why can't they let a girl marry three men, or all those who want her, thus avoiding all these problems?” (Stoker 81) Lucy is courted by several men at once, and although she does not accept every approach, she tends to flirt with every man and desires to be with all of them. Once Dracula takes her life and she becomes a vampire, Mina's sexuality is completely exposed and she no longer has the capacity to be a wife or mother. When Arthur, Van Helsing, Quincey, and Doctor Seward travel to Lucy's grave to end her life as a vampire, they encounter a version of Lucy who is both sexual and, in a twisted sense, maternal. Lucy calls Arthur tantalizingly, demonstrating the fact that, as a vampire, Lucy will no longer hide her sexual cravings; she can never be a pure Victorian woman. Lucia feeds on small children and enters her tomb clutching a child tightly before throwing the girl to the ground with a careless gesture. Lucy was a woman who wanted to get married and presumably become a mother to fulfill her role as a wife, but the reality was that she could never do so due to her sexuality. Dracula changed Lucy by exposing her inner self. The final character who possesses opposite qualities is Dr. Seward's patient, Renfield. Because he is a patient of the asylum, Renfield is considered the least sane of all the characters; it is what the “children of light” fear becoming. In fact, Renfield is one of the most knowledgeable people in the novel. He is aware of Dracula's presence and is able to accurately judge Seward's affection for Lucy and also tries to warn Mina that she should not stay in the asylum due to Dracula's impending attack. When his patient talks to Mina, Dr. Seward is very surprised by her coherent language and apparent perspicacity: “Here is my favorite madman – the most pronounced of his type that I have ever met – talking about elementary philosophy, and with the manner of a refined gentleman." (Stoker 319) Renfield challenges the characters' notions of what constitutes sanity. It would seem impossible that the man who collects and consumes insects could see things more clearly than the other characters in the story, yet he can correctly assess the situation much more quickly than others. However, his coherent moments are attributed to momentary lapses in sanity rather than indicators of his true mental state be eliminated so the characters can rest and feel that their work has been completed. Count Dracula and the vampires are killed by the "children of light" to make things right in the world. Since they manage to defeat them, they no longer have to worry about the existence of a creature that defies all natural laws by being alive and dead at the same time. Likewise,, 1994.