I’ve been thinking, as I read along , about why Stoker made the vampire in Dracula Not English
To be clear, I’m not really interested in why Stoker went with “Dracula” specifically, but why he chose to make his vampire come from outside of England in the first place. What does it change about the story to have Harker locked up in Count Dracula’s castle, and not Count Strongmore’s? What was the intention of it? “Xenophobia and Orientalism” are the obvious answers, and also correct, but much too general for what I’m thinking about. I’m thinking of specific things this changes about How The Story Works, on a wrench-and-pulleys level. What would be different--in mood, in function, in tropes-- if Harker was locked up in the castle of Baron Strongmore instead of Count Dracula?
..and,worryingly, would Dracula have been the hit it was if it didn’t trade on Scary Outsider tropes? Those earlier English vampires, after all, didn’t have nearly the permanence with the English-language reading audience.
I genuinely don’t have a set of answers to any of this; it’s just something I’m always thinking about as the chapters go by.