Why are we fascinated by our fears?

Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula and Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde are arguably three of the most enduring scary literary characters of all time. Over the 200 years since each of these characters were originally written, they have been adapted and used as inspiration again and again in literature, on the stage and on the screen, to voice our fears.  

The question is, why have these characters stood the test of time so well? One of the reasons for their longevity is their ability to evolve with society. Dracula, in particular, has become a vessel for the fears of humanity, representing whatever scares people the most at that time. At the time of Dracula’s publication, one of the main anxieties in society was over the idea of the ‘foreign’. For many readers, that is what the figure of the vampire came to represent. In the 1958 film adaptation, Dracula was perceived as an embodiment of the current American fears of communism during the Cold War years.

Frankenstein represents the limits of human power and our fear over whether science can go too far…

Moving forward in time, today’s vampires, such as those in Twilight and HBO’s True Blood, explore our twenty-first century fears of hidden evil in a cosmetically perfect world. Due to the adaptability of the figure, Bram Stoker’s Dracula (a vampire who desires to move to England to find blood and spread his curse of the undead) is one of literature’s most well-known figures. Since the publication of Stoker’s novel in 1897, Count Dracula has appeared on stage and screen more times than any other fictional character – apart from Sherlock Holmes – and certainly has a huge part to play in modern day pop culture’s vampire obsession.

Turning to Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein, Frankenstein’s monster represents the limits of human power and our fear over whether science can go too far. This is a question that is even more relevant in today’s technological age. The horrific tale of a scientist’s creation of life, which turns into a monster, was first adapted from book to screen by Thomas Edison in a 16-minute silent film, almost a hundred years after the novel’s release. Since then, the character of Frankenstein’s monster has almost never been off the big screen. Over time the portrayal of the character has varied widely; from the purely grotesque in Stephen King’s It to the more sympathetic and psychologically complex depiction in Danny Boyle’s 2011 stage adaptation.  

 The split personalities of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, from Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 novella, have also remained popular right up to today. The tale of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde exposes the duality of human nature, forcing readers to confront their repressed selves. Last year, the dual character appeared in four high profile TV programmes including Once Upon a Time and The Flash, while the adapted musical version has been successfully running since 1990. Interestingly, adaptations of Stevenson’s work over time have tended to focus on the title character, even emitting the narrator entirely, which suggests an ever-increasing intrigue into the idea of us all having an evil side to ourselves.

Two centuries on we are still fascinated by these characters of horror and will probably continue to be terrified in many years to come…

 It may seem paradoxical that anyone would want to face what they fear, but perhaps in characterising these societal tensions we are given a safe place to explore what scares us most, and that is why these figures continue to scare us time and time again. The endurance of these characters lies in the fact that they are all simultaneously monstrous yet recognisably human. Freud’s theory of the ‘uncanny’ suggests that we are both drawn to and made uncomfortable by that which is strangely familiar. We can see this in Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula and Mr Hyde as they all have a humanistic agency but it is one that is horrifyingly warped.  Two centuries on from the first appearance of these books, we are still fascinated by these characters of horror, and will no doubt continue to be terrified for many more years to come.