Children of the night: o problema da aristocracia no pensamento político de Bram Stoker

Abstract

This work is an investigation into the problem of aristocracy in three works by Bram Stoker, namely Dracula (1897), The Jewel of Seven Stars (1903), and The Lair of the White Worm (1911). The issue of aristocracy is considered a legal-political problem, and we observe a connection between the character of the villainous aristocrats in these three works and the significant institutional role played by aristocracy in the Anglo-British legal-political order. We utilize Schmittian image theory to configure these images as legal-political based on representative discourses of villainous aristocrats and understand them in relation to the Anglo-British legal-political order, with the backdrop of the constant aristocratic nature of the institutions of this order and the critical moment which the most representative institution of the aristocratic character of this order, namely the House of Lords, experienced in the end of Stoker's life. We conclude by asserting that these works, the only three horror novels by an author recognized in the horror genre, which can be read separately or together, can be understood, when read together, as a progressive artistic process of elaborating the problem of aristocracy. The final mythical image of aristocratic terror represents a form of political elaboration of the aristocracy as a problem, with significance for the entire world, but with a special meaning for the United Kingdom.