Bram Stoker published the famous Dracula at the fin de siècle, or turn of the century, 1897. Not only did it inspire fear of a new and dangerous Victorian monster, but his Gothic novel had an adverse affect on the historical immigration of many cultures. England endured a vast number of groups settling townships, starting with the Irish, then the Germans, and finally an overwhelming number of Jewish immigrants fled anti-semitism in Russia and eastern Europe. With immigration came newly inspired hatred as overpopulation took hold and jobs became scarce. Stoker's Dracula cites eastern European civilizations as otherworldly, and through partial narrator Jonathan Harker's eyes, a clumsy mix of cultures that inhabit the Carpathian mountains. Told through the point of view of Englishmen and women, it's not hard to see Stoker's unkindness toward foreign presences in the heart of England. Therefore Count Dracula serves to push forward as a monster of supernatural origin, yet he is based in characteristics commonly seen amongst the Eastern Jewish population. Published at the turn of the century, Stoker’s Dracula feeds into the already growing hatred of immigrants in the cities of England through his racial othering of eastern cultures.
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