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“Only A Sufficient Cause:" Bram Stoker's Dracula As A Tale Of Mad Science And Faustian Redemption, Leah Christiana Davydov

ETD Archive

While present Dracula scholarship has made an extensive examination of the ways in which the novel reflects apprehensions about late Victorian scientific advances, little work to date has been done to link these anxieties to fin de siecle fiction involving mad scientists or to Bram Stoker’s lifelong interest in the story of Dr. Faustus. In this work, I argue that the primary menace within Dracula is not actually the threat posed by the novel’s vampires but rather the threat posed by the biologically determined, materialist, and potentially “mad” science practiced by the characters of Dr. John Seward and his patient, …