A Marxist Interpretation of Bram Stoker's "Dracula"

A Marxist reading is one which interprets history as a series of class struggles. Marxists believe that, within a society, people think and behave according to basic economic factors. These factors are derived from the dominant class imposing their beliefs on the lower classes in order to make them conform to the standards and beliefs of the dominant class. Bram Stoker's novel, 'Dracula' represents a class struggle not between the bourgeois society and the proletariat …

…threatens the public sphere, but the private sphere too. He invades the bourgeois home, the bedchamber, the body, and finally, the will. It is for this reason that while he converts the free subject into a slave who is compelled to act according to his will, the manner of his attack is clearly sexual. This sexual manner of attack is beyond what was seen to be accepted in the customs of the western civilised world.