What Manner of Dracula

Comparing two vampire novels

This is the non-fiction ‘Warthog Blog’ section of the Warthog Report, where I write about different subjects as they interest me. Today that subject is the dynamic between the novel Dracula and What Manner of Man, which will assume the reader has already read both works. I take no responsibility for those who haven’t read What Manner of Man being confused by this post, as you can read a draft of it for free online.

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What Manner of Man is a novel that is open about its inspiration from Dracula, beginning with a quotation from it (and another from the Bible) that provides the title. The intertextual relationship between the two is a nuanced one, far more creative and indirect than a mere retelling, which is why I want to take this time to explore it.

Rather than the entirety of Dracula, What Manner of Man draws specifically on the first part of the story for its own structure, Jonathan’s time at Castle Dracula. In essence it asks what if that section was expanded to be the whole story, focusing on the elements of homoeroticism between Jonathan and Dracula that both characters discard and forget after the first act for their own reasons.

Right away there is an immediate difference in how the stories approach their epistolary format. Dracula is a text that exists within its own narrative, but this is not revealed until late in the story, and the characters never publish it. What Manner of Man opens with a preface about how the documents composing the story were found and suppressed from public knowledge until the author was able to transcribe and publish them. 

Where Dracula started with a clerk’s assistant traveling by train to easten Europe to meet his aristocratic client Dracula, What Manner of Man begins the story proper with the priest Victor Ardelian traveling by boat to the strange island of Swallow’s Rest in order to perform an exorcism at the request of the mysterious Lord Vane. Both spend time with the locals before meeting their respective hosts in ancient crumbling residences, Castle Dracula and Whithern Hall respectively.

The differing scopes of the narratives can be seen in how even the more distinctive locals Jonathan meets are left unnamed, while Father Ardelian’s temporary hosts are characters in their own right, Danny and Sylvia. Jonathan is quickly concerned by the concern the locals all show him, while Father Ardelian’s willful blindness and denial can be seen in how it becomes obvious to readers that Danny and Sylvia are lesbians in a relationship while he remains oblivious to the reason they share a bed.

Despite many accusations of cluelessness, Jonathan Harker was incredibly observant on his journey to Castle Dracula. The only reason it feels obvious to readers that Dracula’s coachman is just Dracula in disguise is because Jonathan presented all his evidence for thinking that, but didn’t make the claim explicitly lest he be deemed a madman. Jonathan is an unreliable narrator in that he is highly concerned with how he comes off to others, he doesn’t want to look crazy, so he doesn’t assert any conclusion about Dracula until it is definitively proven. Which is why after the first act he only truly recovers when others read his account and believe him. 

Father Ardelian is quickly shown to be unreliable as a narrator in his own way, as the contrast between his letters to his sister Vera and private journal say much. He attempts to project confidence to Vera, while in his journal entries he goes into detail on his doubts, even then still clearly attempting to repress his own emotions and desires. Father Ardelian is a man who almost always lies about himself, especially to himself.

Deception is also a key part of how What Manner of Man makes its borrowed elements from Dracula feel fresh. At first it seems Danny and Sylvia are happy to let Father Ardelian go to see Lord Vane after an error with schedules, in contrast to how the people Jonathan meets do everything they can to stop him from seeing Dracula. Then as the story reaches its climax it turns out Father Ardelian’s arrival on the isle ahead of schedule had been orchestrated by Sylvia so she could gather information on him and try to deduce Lord Vane’s plan. The opening chapters are even more similar to Dracula than they appear on a first reading.

This also comes into play with how What Manner of Man approaches an iconic scene from Dracula’s first part, where Dracula sees a cut on Jonathan and tries to attack him, but is repelled by the crucifix Jonathan was given on his way to the castle. Notably Jonathan finds the crucifix idolatorous, it is not truly a symbol of his own faith, yet it still has power.

 As a work highly critical of Christianity (to put it lightly) such iconography fails Father Ardelian when he tries to use it against Lord Vane, despite his complete confidence in their effectiveness. However, Father Ardelian does have the experience of being saved by a religious icon he doesn’t believe in. The source of his ocassional power over Lord Vane, which mystifies both, is revealed to be the ring he wears, an ancient religious symbol of Swallow’s Rest that had been taken from the isle long ago, found by Father Ardelian as a child in the ruins of a Mithraeum.

While the crucifix is a gift Jonathan receives from a stranger that quickly and clearly is proven effective, the ring is something Father Ardelian brings with him as a symbol of his past, and thus is deeply tied to his character. For that reason the true nature of the ring and its history with Father Ardelian, and role in the history of Swallow’s Rest, is hidden until after everything has fallen apart and Father Ardelian stops lying to himself.

This withholding and delaying of information is a key part of how What Manner of Man builds on Dracula’s first part, since to expand an opening act into a full story requires a much slower pace. There are no London and chase segments of the story to take the narrative away from Whithern Hall or to set up. 

There is one notable scene in What Manner of Man where its counterpart within Dracula is immediately evident on a first reading, the ritual scene in What Manner of Man, which corresponds to Jonathan’s encounter with the three vampire women.

Both are sexual scenes where the vampires prey on the human protagonist, who experiences a mix of fear and pleasure and later tries to deny that the scene even happened. A key difference is that in Dracula it is the vampire women who try to assault Jonathan rather than Dracula, while Lord Vane assaults Father Ardelian himself.

These scenes also bring the protagonist closer to the main vampire in highly different ways. Jonathan is horrified that he must cling to Dracula for protection from even worse monsters, it’s a deeper connection in purely negative ways. Lord Vane intended to kill Father Ardelian in that moment, but couldn’t bring himself to, setting his decay that drives the final act of the plot in motion, because he too can love.

To move on from comparing specific plot elements, I will now shift to listing what I believe are some of the equivalencies between the casts of Dracula and What Manner of Man. But I don’t think the idea that Father Ardelian and Lord Vane are the counterparts of Jonathan and Dracula needs any further explanation.

Vera = Mina: This one is both the most obvious and interesting, because Vera is based on Mina as presented in part one Dracula of: Mina as the distant figure Jonathan write to, not Mina the composer of the narrative whose assault by Dracula fuels the final act of the narrative. What Vera takes is being a distant recipient of letters who has a history with the main narrator. 

Vera’s own name, meaning truth, also relates to how Father Ardelian eventually addresses an unsent letter to her coming to terms with himself, which has parallels in Mina reading and sharing Jonathan’s account of Castle Dracula, which is vital for Jonathan regaining confidence that what he experienced was not the delusion of a madman. 

Lord Vane = Mina: Not only is Lord Vane the clear Dracula stand in, but the final act of What Manner of Man revolves around the threat of Lord Vane’s further degeneration into a monster to his own sanity and self, similar to how the final act of Dracula is driven by the threat of Mina becoming a vampire. And like Jonathan with Mina, Father Ardelian is all too willing to sacrifice himself for Lord Vane when it would solve nothing. As the main love interest it only makes sense Lord Vane would take from Mina as well.

Sylvia = the normal coachman: Sylvia is the one who manipulates the time of Father Ardelian’s arrival, similar to how Jonathan’s coachman attempted to make Jonathan miss his meeting with Dracula.

Sylvia = Abraham van Helsing: In addition to the above, Sylvia is also the character who knows the most about the nature of main vampire, yet initially withholds her knowledge due to trust issues, and after becomes one of the main organizers of action against the vampire. This is similar to Helsing’s role in Dracula.

Danny = Quincy: This one is much looser, but both are the more blunt and straightforward members of the anti vampire group in each story And both are responsible for a decisive blow in the final battle with dramatic consequences, the difference being that Danny’s is less lethal.

Notably, several key Dracula characters such as Lucy or Renfield lack a clear counterpart in What Manner of Man, owing to how different the narrative ends up being. A conversation is only interesting when between two different parties, for all that it draws on Dracula, What Manner of Man is a text that can be appreciated and even analyzed without once bringing up Dracula.

In writing this I led myself to several revelations about the relationship about Dracula and What Manner of Man. For example I didn’t think about comparing Lord Vane to Mina until I was in the process of writing the character comparison section, so I don’t believe this is a definitive or exhaustive look at the matter.

But I hope this inspires others to give their own perspective on the dynamic between these two vampire stories, or to think about how they may go about writing works that have a similar relationship to another text, something beyond devout worship or imitation.

Perhaps one of the highest praises I can give What Manner of Man is that the author mentioning plans for a novel with a similar relationship to Frankenstein makes me excited to reread Frankenstein and prepare to analyze this upcoming novel in relation to it.