A Linguistic Analysis of Dracula And Twilight

A comparison of the most well-known vampires

This was such a fun piece to write for a class that I wanted to share it with you. Maybe you’ll find it boring, but I hope you think it’s as interesting as I do!

A Brief Synopsis of Dracula by Bram Stoker

Dracula by Bram Stoker was originally published in 1897. It forged an entirely new genre of literature and fiction based on vampire folklore.

Jonathan Harker is a young lawyer who is working for a firm with plans to travel to Transylvania to meet with his client Count Dracula. He receives an unsettling reaction from the town’s residents upon disclosing that he will be visiting Castle Dracula.

Harker notices that Dracula has a very peculiar, distinct appearance.

He accidentally cuts himself shaving and Dracula attempts to attack him. This is when Harker learns that Dracula is a vampire.

The novel follows Harker’s interactions with Dracula, Harker’s fiancé Mina, their friend Lucy, and a vampire hunter named Dr. Van Helsing (Lohnes).

Why I chose this novel

I chose this novel because it paved the way for a new genre of fiction that I aspire to write one day.

Many accomplished writers, such as Anne Rice, Stephen King, and Stephenie Meyer, have taken inspiration from Stoker’s work and added to the horror genre as a whole.

Dracula is a literary classic that should be on the bookshelves of all aspiring writers and literary theorists.

A Brief Synopsis of Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer is the first novel in the Twilight Saga and was originally published on October 5, 2005.

The novel follows Bella Swan who moves in with her father, Charlie Swan, in Forks, Washington after her mother remarries. Soon after arriving, Bella learns of a mysterious and reclusive family that also attends Forks High School.

Edward Cullen, one of the siblings in the same year as Bella, saves Bella’s life in incredible ways twice before Bella begins to connect the dots that something strange is going on. She confronts Edward and learns that he, along with the rest of his family, is a vampire.

The novel follows Bella’s journey as she attempts to keep their secret while also running for her life from a tracker vampire named James who caught her scent during a baseball game (“Twilight — Stephenie Meyer”).

Why I chose this novel

This novel holds a special place in my heart because I read it in my younger, formative years. It created an entire generation of vampire enthusiasts and changed the stereotypical vampire narrative.

Meyer used vampire folklore that has existed for generations and added interesting twists. This is especially interesting for aspiring writers with an interest in urban legends and folklore because it proves that you can take a topic that has been done many times over and make it your own without compromising its origins.

Semantics

According to Linguistics for Everyone: An Introduction, semantics are a “system of rules underlying our knowledge of word and sentence meaning” (Denham and Lobeck 292).

Using this definition, we can see how the set of rules in the English language changed from the 1897 publication of Dracula by Bram Stoker to the 2005 publication of Twilight by Stephenie Meyer.

One of the semantic fields, categories of words stored in our mental dictionaries, that began with Dracula and continued through Twilight would be vampires.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines a vampire as “the reanimated body of a dead person believed to come from the grave at night and suck the blood of persons asleep” (“Vampire”).

Example

One example of elements of semantics that we see in regard to these two novels is polysemy, or “words with two or more related meanings” (Denham and Lobeck 305).

Both examples of vampires are pale, strong, ice-cold, live away from the main town, cannot walk into direct sunlight, and lust for human blood.

In Dracula, Count Dracula is a vampire by Bram Stoker’s definition of the word.

Count Dracula is not attractive in Stoker’s novel and is described as having a “thin nose”, “lofty domed forehead”, “massive eyebrows”, “sharp white teeth”, and “extremely pointed ears” (Stoker 18). He drinks human blood to survive and changes young women into vampires to do his bidding (Stoker).

In Twilight, the Cullen clan are vampires by Stephenie Meyer’s newer and slightly different definition of the word.

During Bella’s first sighting of the Cullens, she describes them as “devastatingly, inhumanly beautiful” (Meyer 19).

Shortly after that, she realizes that their eyes change color, though she does not learn why until later. The vampires in Meyer’s novel have golden colors when their hunger is satiated and “flat black” eyes when they are hungry (Meyer 46).

While some vampires in the novel drink human blood to live, the Cullens and other civilized vampires in the series hunt animals and drink their blood to survive. This allows them to live fairly normal lives among humans (Meyer).

Register Levels

A register is a “manner of speaking that depends on audience” (Denham and Lobeck 192). Typically, these registers will be either formal or informal and can shift unconsciously depending on who we are speaking to.

In Dracula, Stoker maintains a largely formal register in comparison to what would be used today.

Jonathan Harker is in Transylvania on professional business with Count Dracula so he begins in a formal register with strangers, new acquaintances, and Count Dracula.

His tone is more informal when speaking to his fiancé, Mina, or others that he knows closely (Stoker).

Twilight was written in the first-person perspective of a teenage girl who maintains an informal register as she narrates and only switches to a more formal register when talking to authority figures or meeting Esme and Carlisle for the first time (Meyer).

Stylistic Elements

While both novelists have extraordinary talent, Bram Stoker has a much more professional writing style in Dracula than Stephenie Meyer does in Twilight. This could largely be due to the differences in the time periods the pieces were written, the level of education, writing experience, or the first-person perspectives of the characters.

Jonathan Harker is a young professional and his diary entries reflect that. Mina is an assistant to a schoolmistress and is surrounded by education which is also reflected in her writing.

Examples of that include using words like “lovely” or “viaduct” which likely would not be used by a woman of her age today (Stoker 66).

The transformation of language from 1897 to present day can make Stoker’s writing difficult to get through without needing to look up older grammar structures and how the meanings of some words have changed.

Stephenie Meyer wrote Twilight from the perspective of a seventeen-year-old girl and the writing of the novel reflects that.

Bella Swan’s inner thoughts are very informal, easy to understand, and often relatable to adolescents. The novel was written for teenagers to young adults and it shows in the language used.

Reading this novel likely would not require any additional research for someone reading it today.

Influences

Dracula

The most notable influence for Dracula was the life and legends surrounding Vlad III the Impaler and Romanian superstitions.

Vlad III was the son of a Transylvanian governor and noblewoman. He later became known as Vlad Dracula because of the legacy his father left behind. “Drac” can mean either “dragon” or “devil” in Romanian and “ula” means “son of” (Ramsey).

After his father was assassinated in 1447, Vlad III briefly held the Turkish thrown before needing to flee to Moldavia. Later, he rose to power in Hungary and was allowed to have control of Transylvania back.

He is known for his incredibly cruel methods of torture and execution. “Vlad III would have stakes arranged in geometric patterns outside the city, and the impaled corpses would remain on the stakes for months.

According to some reports, a Turkish invasion met an abrupt end when the Turkish army encountered twenty thousand impaled Turkish prisoners outside the capital. This was known as the Forest of the Impaled” (Ramsey).

Between Vlad III’s bloody legacy and the urban legends surround vampires in Eastern Europe, Stoker felt compelled to draw inspiration from him for Dracula (Ramsey).

Twilight

According to Stephenie Meyer’s website, the idea for Twilight came to her in a dream that was so detailed she felt compelled to write it down.

Her inspirations for Edward’s name were Mr. Rochester from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and Mr. Ferrars from Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (Meyer, “The Story of Twilight and Getting Published”).

Isabella was the name she was saving for a daughter if she ever had one but she only gave birth to sons.

While she makes no other references to inspirations for the book on her website, it is highly speculated that she took inspiration for her vampires from Anne Rice and others who modernized their ideas of the present-day vampire.

References

Denham, Kristin, and Anne Lobeck. Linguistics for Everyone: An Introduction. 2nd ed., Cengage Learning, 2012.

Lohnes, Kate. “Dracula | Summary, Characters, & Facts.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 24 Jan. 2019, www.britannica.com/topic/Dracula-novel.

Meyer, Stephenie. New Moon (The Twilight Saga). 1st ed., Little, Brown, 2008.

Meyer, Stephenie. Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1). Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2006.

“Periods of American Literature.” Encyclopedia Britannica, www.britannica.com/list/periods-of-american-literature.

Ramsey, P. S. “Vlad III the Impaler.” Salem Press Biographical Encyclopedia, 2020. EBSCOhost, https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.snhu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ers&AN=88367654&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Stoker, Bram. Dracula. Bantam Books, 1981.

“The Story of Twilight and Getting Published.” Stephenie Meyer, 13 Nov. 2020, stepheniemeyer.com/the-story-of-twilight-getting-published.

“Thirsty.” The Merriam-Webster.Com Dictionary, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/thirsty.

“Twilight — Stephenie Meyer.” Stephenie Meyer, 2016, stepheniemeyer.com/project/twilight-book/.

“Vampire.” The Merriam-Webster.Com Dictionary, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vampire.

McCaylee Putney has a BA in English and Creative Writing from SNHU. She is working on her MFA in Creative Writing and is the editor of Moments of Memoir while juggling all the other facets of her life. Follow her here or on Twitter to see more of her journey.