dualities, he wants only lives, things that he can eat or drink, that are useful to him. Dracula's agenda of making everybody around him like himself may be a reflection of fears that mixing self and "other" would cause absorption of the self into the "other". The text may be demonizing Dracula in reaction to these fears. Here Dracula is the other, and "normal" human being is the self, which can perhaps be read correspondingly as foreigners and Englishmen. To differentiate, to set up boundaries, is an effort to ensure separation. However, Dracula does not want separation. That he sees no differences in blood may be an ominous sign. I believe, however, that Dracula is actually an agent for the positive intermixing of cultures and people. Significantly, Dracula has the power of hypnotizing and mesmerizing his victims. He seems to be tapping into the unconscious wishes of his patients, and bringing them to the forefront. It seems that his victims want to be engulfed by him, they desire his bite, and willingly have their blood sucked. Renfield is the extreme case of a man who wants to be a vampire even before he comes into contact with one. It seems that Dracula speaks to some need in the people to merge with the "other". Perhaps this is because the "other" is the uncanny, the familiar in a different form, that it speaks to the people. That discussion, however, is beyond the scope of this paper. In this novel, people seem to be astonishingly ready to open their veins and give their blood to another. Dracula, by his very appearance in England, promotes the mixing of blood, that is a reflection of the blood-mixing that he carries out. Blood carries the characteristics of nationality, gender, age etc. Thus Dracula embodies a principle of cultural contact and mixture, and not one of separation. ...
