Holte, James Craig, ed. The Fantastic Vampire: Studies in the Children of the Night : Selected Essays from the Eighteenth International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002.

In Chapter 5, Ploeg discusses the evolution of Dracula in film, literature, and stage since Stoker’s novel.  He specifically focuses on the extent to which Stoker’s Dracula is “Gothic.”  He perceives the common labeling of Stoker’s Dracula as being Gothic as breeding misunderstanding as to the nature of Dracula.  Ploeg asserts that Stoker’s Dracula is not a Gothic novel, but that increasingly recent incarnations of Dracula have become increasingly Gothic (or neo-Gothic).  He cites Stoker’s nephew, who claims that “Dracula succeeds partly because it is not Gothic; to the Victorian it must have seemed darlingly modern.”  Ploeg believes that Stoker’s Dracula has far more in “common with the developing genre of the crime story.”

Ploeg concedes that Dracula is full of Gothic conventions, but asserts that Stoker does not rely on the Gothic belief in the supernatural to structure the novel.  The ultimate “debunking” of Dracula in the novel separates it from the film version.  Ploeg argues that in the novel, Dracula is presented more as an accident of nature than as a supernatural entity.  He cites Van Helsing’s explanation of Dracula as a unique phenomenon that arises “doubtless, [from] something magnetic or electric in some of these combinations of occult forces which work for physical life in strange way.”  The film Dracula is purely supernatural.  Unlike earlier films, such as The Cat and the Canary, Dracula (1931) offers no rational or logical explanation is for the horrors that occur.  This lack of explanation was new to American audiences, and likely contributed to the success of the film.  The palatability of the film’s more charismatic version of Dracula also played a part in this success.  Ploeg recounts the embellishments to the vampire since the Stoker’s original vampire:  “They fly by their own powers… they have incredible mental powers of control, telepathy, telekinesis… they are immortal… they battle with demons and alien gods… they are great seducers… they have culture, discernment, and style.”  The latter two are introduced by Lugosi’s Dracula.  Ploeg cites these as examples of the evolution of Dracula away from the scientific rationalization and mystery elements in Stoker’s novel and towards the realm of the Gothic supernatural.