New Historicism views a story form a historical context, in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, there is little to define a specific time period to relate the novel to a historical context. The most obvious way to define new historicism in Dracula is with the castle of Count Dracula himself. The castle is located on the border of Transylvania where the Count is the only one who resides there.
This does fit into the historical context of the novel; however the fact that Dracula is the only one who resides in the castle does not necessarily fit. The fact that Stoker does indicate that Dracula’s castle is not maintained at all does make us aware that the castle is virtually abandoned. In reality however, a castle that size would most likely be maintained, and have a large staff, for maintenance. In this way I do not think that the “condition” of the castle would be plausible in the story.
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Without being too blatant in providing historical context, Stoker does give the reader several clues that allow us to narrow down the historical setting of the novel. For instance there are mentions of both phonographs and typewriters which are used to represent the idea of modernity within the novel. However, these inventions also provide us with a historical context that places the novel in the decades after 1855(the year in which the typewriter was created).
Well, I think Stoker specifically made us aware that there were no servants or anyone else to accompany him in the castle to make the reader further realize how abnormal things were. In the first chapter, it is made clear that no one would ever visit Count Dracula so why would people be around?! As for the time period, apart from Sean's proofs (which I think are great by the way), I think this is where New Historicism may provide a clue. From that theoretical perspective, It is likely that the story takes place during the late 19th century, the time when the book was written. In this way, we can draw more inferences from the story to explain the experiences and times Stoker actually grew up with and lived in.
I believe that there were great details in describing the location and time period of this novel. Also, Count Dracula's character was already set up to be a strange and horrific creature from the beginning so having no servants around or having the Castle empty didn't seem too out of place for his character.
i believe the abadond, no care attitude of the caslte represents what dracula himself is like, pale on the outside empty on the inside and no one truly cares for him. At nights it's dark a spooky, can only be seen by the moonlight like Dracula himself who saw him climbing the walls of the caslte. So in a sense the cslte is sort of a representation of who Dracula is.
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