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The novel consists of several instances that can be related to certain themes like technology, religion, faith and science. This paper will succinctly look into detailed analysis of the novel with regards to the existing relationship between science and technology and faith and religion. There are several instances in the novel where religion and science have been portrayed in a side by side style. For instance, in the first chapter of the novel when Harker feels very uncomfortable with the lodgings he stays at as well as Dracula, his host.
Harker says, “Unless my senses deceive me, the old centuries had, and have, powers of their own which mere ‘modernity’ cannot kill” (Stoker 8). In this context, Harker decided to voice one of the central and fundamental concerns of the Victorian era. This is an implication that the end of the 19th century was accompanied by several drastic changes that forced almost the entire English society to think about and question about the then existing belief systems that had governed it for centuries.
The first example is the Theory of Charles Darwin that questioned a lot and evidently the beliefs on the sacred religious beliefs in the European world. Likewise Industrial revolution in the England brought about profound social and economic change to the previously dominant agrarian England. Analyzed, this concept reveals some relationship between religion and faith and science and technology. . Revolution was based on various scientific principles. Therefore, both religion and science are related in a manner that they both explain the phenomena behind the existence of human beings on earth.
Another example of the existing relationship between faith and science is Dr. Helsing’s explanation and stand on the solution to the problems brought about by the monster to the people. Most of the people in the villages are portrayed to have immense faith on the existence of the monster. When Lucy falls a victim of Dracula’s spell, neither Dr.Steward nor Mina, who are both modern advancement devotees are equipped enough to provide enough and convincing explanation or guess at the actual cause of the girl’s predicaments.
This is revealed in the seventeenth chapter of the novel when V. Helsing takes time to warn Steward that, “to rid the earth of this terrible monster, we must have all the knowledge and all the help which we can get” (Stoker 44). In the excerpt, Helsing provides a literal meaning of his utterances which is mainly centralized on the issue of knowledge. He not only works to comprehend the modern Western methods but also to ensure incorporation of the foreign as well as ancient schools of thoughts that most of the modern Westerners dismiss as primitivism, in the making.
“it is the fault of our science, that it wants to explain all; and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain.” In his case, Helsing elaborates on the obvious dire consequences that arise due to subscriptions only made to contemporary thoughts which are also always current or conventional in nature. From this, it can be deducted from Helsing’s quotes and remarks that the author of the novel has employed two diverse methods of
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