Bram Stroker’s Dracula is a first class horror, decades ahead of it’s time. Stroker brings out the complexity of the evil, insane, warped, and twisted. This is most apparent in R.M. Renfield’s case, a patient in a lunatic ward under the care of Dr. Seward, a psychologist. Through Stroker’s method of building the story consisting of multiple journals and written entries, one sees the ties between this lunatic and the main storyline involving Dracula himself. In fact, Renfield serves throughout the novel to foreshadow future events in the story through his actions, which often seem crazed at the time, but come to make more and more sense as further knowledge is revealed. Dr. Seward is confronted with much confusion when it comes to his most important patient. Renfield seems to act far different from any sort of classification that Seward knows of. He has incredible changes in mood and character which lead all to wonder his real state of mind. His actions are very contradicting, strange, and irrational, but there is a underlining factor that explains this. And that involves the horror of this novel, vampires. There are points to discuss whether Renfield has no normal thought process and is insane or he has a reasonable mind that is sane. It is never really made clear whether Renfield possesses a mind that is sane to our standards, or if he is just far different and more extreme than most others. The final decision is left up to the individual.
From the first introduction of Renfield, the man is portrayed as a very strange and mentally disturbed person. Firstly, Stroker dwells on Renfield’s strange acts toward living creatures. The main disturbance he brings is when he begins collecting flies in his cell. He gathers hundreds and hundreds of them in his room, luring them in with sugar. To Renfield’s dismay, Dr. Seward wouldn’t permit this, so Renfield found some spiders to eat the flies. Soon, there were many flies and spiders, so Renfield was told to get rid of those. After pleading for a little more time, Renfield lured some sparrows to come in his cell and eat the spiders and flies. After this, he wanted cats, but wasn’t allowed to have this much privilege. These actions show some sort of fascination with food chains and the survival and eating in animals. Secondly, Renfield displays his grotesqueness when he starts consuming living things. The first occasion witnessed by Seward took place when they were talking. Renfield caught a plump fly and popped it in his mouth, eating it. Despite the scoldings of Dr. Seward, Renfield maintained that, “it was life, strong life, and gave strength to him,” (Stroker 88). Another occasion came about when one day all of Renfield’s sparrows disappeared and later that night, he became sick and vomited feathers up. This carnivorous attitude he takes on animals is one that could certainly be thought of as insane. Renfield obviously had to put himself in some pain to eat sparrows, feathers and all, uncooked. Such self-harmful acts are clear signs of a very disturbed mind. Thirdly, he sometimes behaves as if he was not a human at all. Many times he is huddling like an animal or pacing his room. In one such example, an attendant saw him, “Get excited and sniff around like a dog does when setting,” (Stroker 124) which is very far from how a normal person should be acting. Finally, Renfield had seemed to be dedicated to another. At first, this was thought to be another disorder where he believes he is a god, but we learn that this is part of his connection to Dracula. Renfield broke out of the asylum twice to run over to the home of Dracula; he actually pulled off the window on one such occasion, and tricked the attendant the other. Both times he was enraged in a bestial fury, making it very difficult for many attendants to hold him. These strange acts and characteristics and habits indicate a very disturbed man as Dr. Seward suspected.
In contrast, Renfield also proved himself to have heart and a strong witty mind, causing one to question if he truly is insane. Mainly, he proves himself to be very good at behaving normally when the time comes, whether this is intentional or natural. Whenever it comes to his bug collecting, he always seems to find it absolutely natural. He doesn’t eat insects maliciously, rather he does it as if it as normal a hobby as reading. Always spreading sugar out and collecting flies in a box and keeping tabs on the numbers he has gotten every day with a happy look on his face makes him seem very innocent. Then, he can act very politely and respectfully which he often does. For example, Renfield makes sure to apologize after one of his fits he threw to Dr. Seward and meekly asks to be able to have more sugar. With such good behavior, he gets the treatment he wants from Seward, in this case, getting extra sugar. Again, when Renfield has found he suddenly needs to get out of the asylum, he asks Seward and the others, Quincy Morris, Van Helsing, and Arthur Godalming, very politely and respectfully that he be permitted to go to his home. Not only does he act with equality towards these people honored among the sane, but he displays a wide amount of knowledge concerning each. He mentions knowledge of Helsing’s work with brain tissue, talks about the Monroe Doctrine to Morris who is American, and gives his sympathy to Godalming for the death of his father. We can see that Renfield certainly is not the raving lunatic that would come to one’s mind, rather he is a thinker and uses logic or trickery to a good extent.
Furthermore, this “madman” does have a softer and more compassionate side. First, he shows regret to others. As earlier mentioned, he apologizes for his actions to Seward after one of his fits where he became violent. Another time, Renfield simply gave himself up to Seward after breaking out and complied with what he was told. Then, the fact that he doesn’t like the idea of taking away souls from the things he eats. When questioned on this matter by Dr. Seward, Renfield does not accept the idea that the souls of everything he has eaten plagues him. This means he doesn’t necessarily like the fact that he is murdering in the idea of giving himself more life. Finally, he cares about Seward and his friends. One occasion this is apparent comes when he warns the men that were planning on going to Dracula’s home to be careful, and asks them to let him go for their own good. It isn’t made clear if they should have let him go or not, but he claimed to be of good intention. His other time which proved to be most noble, happens when he stands up against Dracula. Renfield was letting Dracula into the same building that Mina Harker was staying because he obeyed him and worshipped him. But, Renfield, upon finding that Dracula was harming Mina and taking her blood, tried to stop Dracula. He physically fights with this beast and was doing favorable for a while, but lost. Renfield’s back was broken and his skull crushed because he tried to save Mina. The man has a strong will and a very compassionate side that shone through on several occasions. Certainly, this man tagged a “lunatic” has much more tenderness than most do that aren’t in institutions for mental problems.
The actions and words that Renfield always says play on the mind of the reader and the characters because they are clues to what is coming. Throughout the novel, he is the best help for the group hunting Dracula, even if it the importance isn’t clear to them. In the eyes of the reader, his strange behavior with animals foreshadows the actual horror of Dracula. Renfield’s belief is that by eating many lives, he gains the life for himself and becomes stronger. Of course, he also gets into this more and more as he works his way up larger and larger things. This sickening belief turns out to be the same practice as Dracula. To the characters, Renfield shed’s light on what they had found. He was aware of the time when Dracula first came and moved into the nearby house. Also, he gives away the hiding place of Dracula by running to his house and pounding on his doors, unfortunately, this wasn’t yet thought to be revenant. Most he did was unnoticed in connection to Dracula until after Renfield’s death. After his death, the pieces came together and the party had more knowledge of the vampire they sought. Because of this foreshadowing, fictional characters and readers alike find themselves thinking back with a typical thought like, “Oh, so that’s why....,”.
Overall, we can see Renfield is not one that fits into a definite category. He shows signs of being absolutely mentally disturbed. His actions can be horrifyingly grotesque and crazy. But, he is still quite a human. He can think like others and act like others and feel like others. So we must say he is something entirely different, which is, perhaps, what Stroker was making this character to be. He is another victim of the nosferatu, the vampire. His life may have been seriously turned inside out and upside down by the evil creature Dracula. Thus, making him in the same situation as the other characters that have suffered heavy losses or traumatic experience at the cost of Dracula’s appetite. And thus, Renfield is an innocent soul deep down. It shone through his insane state in his compassion and real sanity. This truly is an example of the depth that Stroker has brought all corners of the horror that occurs in Dracula.
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