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Coppola's Adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula Essay

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Coppola's Adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula

The legendary creature Dracula has mesmerized readers and viewers for nearly a century. In Bram Stoker's masterpiece, Dracula, the infamous monster affects each reader in a different way. Some find the greatest fear to be the sacrilegious nature of his bloodsucking attacks, while others find themselves most afraid of Dracula's shadow-like omnipresent nature. The fascination with Dracula has assimilated into all parts of society. Dracula can now be seen selling breakfast cereals, making appearances on Sesame Street, and on the silver screen. Countless film adaptations of Stoker's original novel have been undertaken by the some of the most skilled directors in Hollywood including, …show more content…

Coppola focuses too much upon the personal struggles of Dracula himself and the audience feels a great deal of pity towards Dracula. The genius of Stoker was that his Dracula caused readers to feel both sympathy and at the same time hatred towards the monster. James Craig Holte illustrates this point when he says:

As Stoker recognized, classic horror is close to tragedy, and in a work of classic horror, there are elements of pity and fear, pity for the vampire's situation but fear of his menace. Careful readers of Dracula are at the same time sympathetic to and repelled by Dracula. Coppola, despite the best of intentions, creates a work in which there is far more pity than fear; the sympathy finally overwhelms the repulsion. (Holte 85)

The foundation of Coppola's film is based upon the love between Dracula and Elizobeta, and later upon the love between Dracula and Mina. His beloved Elizobeta commits suicide in his castle upon erroneously hearing of his death. Dracula was fighting Muslim invaders for the benefit of Christianity, and upon his return home he is devastated by the death of his beloved wife. Due to the fact that Elizobeta committed suicide, the head priest denies her burial in consecrated ground. This angers Dracula a great deal and causes him to renounce God in the face of the priest. He vows to

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