arker also notices another inhuman aspect in the Count, which is, "there were hairs in the center of his (Dracula's) palm" (Stoker 1971: 25) This fact about the vampires are very confusing and enlightening at the same time because in the parallel belief of the werewolf, the hair in the palm is the sign of the wolf and folklore tells that on death a werewolf will become a vampire. An important ability of a vampire, especially of Dracula is the ability to control some animals namely. bats, rats and wolves. The importance of the wolf in a vampire story is not limited solely to control but the vampire, being a shape-shifter. can transform into a wolf as Dracula does. The transformation is generally limited to two animals, wolf and bat. These two animals are nocturnal and very much feared by the peasants in the Balkans. They also provide a means of transport to the vampire who can not travel by daylight and uses the precious darkness for feeding, thus the swift movements of the animal form gives the vampire the speed. the elements of surprise and the element of terrorization he needs.

The transformation into a wolf is especially peculiar because of its shamanist imagery. In various cultures, especially in the Central Asian Turkish and Mongol cultures, the holy man of the clan, the shaman, performs the magic rites or sooth saying by wearing the fur of the totem animal of the clan, thus the shaman transforms into an animal. As it is well-known, some of the animals like wolf and bear are sacred animals of the old Turkish clans and it is also well-known that some of these clans like the Huns and the Pechenecs settled in Moldavia. Transylvania and Wallachia so a cultural trade between the clans and the natives of the Balkans may have created the transformation story and gave rise to werewolf legends

The novel Dracula is naturally a follower of the Gothic tradition using a well worn method of narration which is the epistolary form. The story is told through the letters of Jonathan Hacker to his wife Mina. or by using various diaries. These diaries are used to reflect the opinion of the people involved in the hunt for the Count. These people form the main body of the characterization. Dracula is not the central character of the book as it is imagined. He appears briefly in the beginning and for about two hundred pages he disappears and his movements and intentions are followed through the diaries. Dracula is not a prototype of popular monster that is hidden behind every door.

Bram Stoker was deeply interested in the supernatural before writing Dracula. He was a performing member of the famous occult coven, the Golden Dawn whose leader was the perverted Alaistair Crowley. Also in the coven was Montague Summers who was deeply interested in the vampire. His book The Vampire: His Kith and Kin is a main reference book on the subject. There are various reasons for Stoker's writing the book. As Florescu tells it in his book, Dracula: A Biography of Wad the Impaler, it is due to the stories Stoker heard from Arminius Vamberg, the Hungarian scholar (Florescu 1973: 151) and Stoker's discussions with Sir Richard Burton who was a famous anthropologist studying the Indian supernatural stories and legends (Florescu 1973: 149). Another interesting connection is that the book was written at the time of Jack-the-Ripper. The bloody murders of the Ripper might have affected Stoker.

After the first encounter with Dracula, Jonathan Harker has a strange experience with three vampire women who try to seduce and drink Jonathan's blood. This point is very strange and Victorian at the same time because in Dracula and in the other early vampire fiction, the undead are asexual. The sexuality of Dracula as a vampire owes its fame to the cinema versions of the novel. The sexually attractive vampire is created to draw large audiences. The Count's dominance over women is due to the hypnotic power he possesses. This power brings forth an element of dominance of the vampire on the mortals. It is not necessary for a vampire to drink the blood of the opposite sex. Although the vampires of old were asexual, today's vampires can easily be considered as oversexed. The heroes of Anne Rice, mainly Lestat and Louise, take the sexuality to a new, homosexual frontier. It is a new thing in vampire fiction to have bisexual or homosexual or even sexual undead. However, this new point is widely used by cheap paperback horror writers as soft porno which ruins the reputation of the true vampire.

Dracula is not a simple horror novel, it contains different layers of symbolism such as the vampire being of blue blood and of Slavonic origin. The rise of the working class and global conflicts play parts in the novel deciding on the situation of the villain. Even Dracula's buying estates and using Englishmen as servants in England can be considered as a sign of growing hatred against the foreigners and against aristocracy also.

In the end of the book Dracula is destroyed by Dr. Van destroyed Helsing, his eternal enemy. It might easily be comprehended as the forces of light destroying the instrument of darkness, but it will be too simple a statement to consider. Also. it is not a symbolic fight between God and Devil. It is simply a fight, between the fear of dying and immortality. In religions only God or Gods are immortals and mortals are insects compared to Gods and all the struggles the heroes went through in the past and the doctors today who are trying to find cures for deadly diseases are in fact looking for immortality. Gilgamesh. Lokman Hekim Achillies are losers on this quest. Where all the heroes failed Dracula succeeds to become immortal. Is he evil? In the context of his survival or the survival of the other vampires he is not, he is only tying to continue his undead situation. The conditions that made him a vampire are not important. As a living being Dr. Van Helsing is naturally opposed to Dracula, who is everything he wants to be. When the blood is spilled. it is death for the mortal but life for the immortal. Dracula does not yearn for his living days but every human being craves for immortality. Jealousy is the key word here, not evil. If it is for the sake of religion or vengeance the vendetta with evil can not be solved with Kukri or Bowic knives. If the hatred is taken down to the simples revenge or what was done to Lucy or Jonathan, such a chase would be unnecessary. The hunters of the unnatural being which can become a bat or a wolf know that they try to kill an inhuman, supernatural creature which has no right to live among the normal. Was it not so with Frankenstein, or Prometheus?