"The Occidental Tourist"

Stephen D. Arata’s thesis in his essay “The Occidental Tourist” is essentially, “By situating Dracula in the Carpathians, and by continually blurring the lines between the Count’s vampiric and warrior activities, Stoker forges seemingly “natural” links among three of his principal concerns: racial strife, the collapse of empire, and vampirism” (464-465). Within this essay, Arata discusses how Dracula’s arrival in London symbolizes reverse colonization, illustrating Britain’s imperialistic reign on foreign countries and the miscegenation that occurs through this, but also the “biological and political annihilation of the weaker race by the stronger” (466). What is most intriguing about Arata’s comparison of Dracula and Britain and their inverses and mirrors of one another, is the point that he makes about blood being a mark of someone’s racial identity and Dracula’s symbolical act of sucking the blood from his victims, which implies that he “deracinates his victims” (466). Arata then uses evidence from Emily Gerard, which suggests that not only is Dracula deracinating his victims due to “his vampiric nature”, but also because of his Rouomanian lineage, a group of people who were known for “[dissolving] the identities of those they came in contact with” (466). Arata also discusses the scene from Dracula where Lucy has received four blood fusions to display the act of trying to re-racinate Lucy at the same time that Dracula is deracinating her. Through the right blood, the men believed that Lucy could be saved, which emphasizes the significance of blood, meaning race in this instance, being better or of a higher grade than others, e.g. Arthur Holmwood. This point, Dracula physically and mentally draining his victims of their race, is a great example to highlight the reverse colonization that Dracula represents. It provides the audience with a different and unique interpretation of East vs. West that has not been previously read or discussed and allows for perhaps a deeper understanding of the conflict between the outsider “Dracula” and the individualistic and cultural effect that he has on the people of Britain.