ABSTRACT
Bram Stoker’s celebrated gothic tale Dracula has been widely discussed by scholars with regard to its approach to the political stresses of its time. Stephen D. Arata’s concept of “reverse colonization” has proved useful in exploring the colonial incentives that shaped the Count’s lust for British blood, while Matthew Gibson’s in-depth research on Stoker’s own views regarding the Eastern Question has provided further insight into the political allegories embedded in the novel. Hegel once remarked that to define itself, the self, first, needs an “Other” to define: “Each is for the other the middle term through which each mediates itself”. Many British writers in the nineteenth century, such as Lord Byron, John William Polidori, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, and Stoker, used this region in their gothic writings by combining the politics of the day specifically with the vampire myth. Patrick Brantlinger’s understanding of imperial Gothic is therefore intimately linked to these discourses.
