Bram Stoker’s Reflections on the American Character

This article explores Stoker’s assessment of the American character, a subject on which he wrote throughout a long career and his experience traveling across the United States for the Lyceum Theatre. That Quincey Morris, the only American character in Dracula, dies in the fight against the vampire has led some to conclude Stoker was hostile to Americans. However, Stoker’s favorable treatment of other American characters, especially women, in his other fiction and his profound respect for real Americans (Lincoln and Roosevelt) suggests a more nuanced view of both Stoker and his best-known novel. It is evident from reading a number of Stoker works that he was not hostile to Americans in general but that he was extremely interested in the place that the former British colony would take on the world stage.