32. Dracula's Influence

From the words of Stephen King, "...but none of them could match Bram Stoker's novel of old horrors colliding with modern technology and investigative techniques. That one was in a class by itself." In the introduction to 'Salem's Lot, Stephen King makes it quite clear that Bram Stoker's, Dracula, is at the top of his favorites list when it comes to vampire fiction. It is no surprise that we can see Stoker's influence in Stephen King's, 'Salem's Lot.

The first thing that I noticed that resembled Stoker's novel was the way Stephen King formatted his novel. Dracula is set up in journal entries. Similarly, 'Salem's Lot is set up by each character's personal story. Stephen King mimics the journal entry set up but he uses his own voice to describe each character instead of each character writing his or her own entry.

I also noticed a similarity between Dracula's, Van Helsing and 'Salem's Lot's Matt Burke. Both men exemplify scholarly researchers who look at the facts and try to come up with a solution. I also see a similarity between the main character Ben Mears and Dracula's, Jonathan Harker. First of all, both of them are men and second, both of them have experienced evil on a traumatic personal level. For example, Jonathan Harker meets Dracula himself and Ben Mears sees Hubert Marsten hanging from the attic of the Marsten House.

And last but not least, Stephen King goes as far as actually mentioning a line from Dracula in his book:

pg. 365

"We must go through bitter waters before we reach the sweet."

There's definitely no denying that Stephen King admires Bram Stoker. We see it throughout the whole book. I think Stephen King actually just attempted to take Dracula right out of Bram Stoker's novel and put him into an American small town called, 'Salem's Lot.