ABSTRACT
The myth of vampirism, especially retold in Bram Stoker's classic gothic tale Dracula, offers us a compelling account of obsession. With insights beyond many text-books, Stoker's Dracula is arguably indicative reading for any student studying addiction and compulsive disorders. The tale of Dracula weaves together many common threads of repetition-compulsion, and is of especial relevance in terms of the elements of allure, danger, and death. Most interpretations of Dracula focus on the heterosexual content of the narrative, that is to say, Count Dracula as the patriarch who sires his offspring with a blood bondage that becomes a mark of family. The mad and wild winter Dionysus would seem to be the prototype for the popular construction of the modern vampire. Published in 1897, Stoker's Dracula has become synonymous with the myth of vampirism. Arthur's question about drug users' fascination in Dracula may be at its clearest in the resemblance of the plight of the maligned and blood diseased outsider.
