In the gothic novel Dracula, Bram Stoker largely presents good and evil in stark contrast in a very simple way. This perhaps reflects the Victorian view of good and evil as opposite but inextricable, a rigorous view of right and wrong in a religious sense. But more interesting than this construct is the character of Renfield, the man who seems neutral, caught between the clearly righteous good and the evidently evil. Throughout the novel, he is immersed in a metaphorical gray area. Stoker uses Renfield to provoke deeper reflection on good and evil, and indeed wants the reader to fear this same gray area. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Stoker often tends to present fairly easily accessible interpretations of good and evil. For example, when Mina is fed and equally fed by Dracula in chapter twenty-one, the literary technique is not difficult to discover. Descriptions such as “dressed in white” and “dressed in black” are used to describe Mina and Dracula: the colors are obviously opposite but Stoker even went as far as changing the syntax of the adjectives to emphasize the opposing ideas. We also see Mina's "nightgown" which has been "smeared with blood" and therefore has connotations of loss of virginity, due to the Victorian belief that the exchange of blood and reproductive fluids are synonymous. It signifies a loss of innocence due to color imagery, a deflowering of Mina's character. There is also a clear contrast in terms of religious vocabulary from “God's mercy” to “the devil and his children”. So, in many ways (visual and metaphorical and with allusions to the Bible), Stoker presents good and evil as a very clear topic, something that doesn't require much thought. This raises the question: what about Renfield? Where does it fit in? He is generally an extremely ambiguous character. His initial interactions with Dracula are unclear in his exposition. It's not even clear why he is so sensitive to Dracula's movements. Another ambiguity is his strange and unnatural obsession with immortality. He is described as a "madman". No past, no personality. So we just have to rely exclusively on the text, but even the writing offers a very gray aspect. We are often confused about Renfield's distorted personality: he shows kindness and politeness (much like the Victorian bachelor ideal) by "tidying up" before Mina enters his cell and even says "let the lady in" only after he has finished cleaning. However, this only makes it more uncomfortable to see the character show signs of evil. As Seward says when Mina enters the cell, "I thought she might have some murderous intent." Much like the middle ground between horror and terror, gray, Renfield is an example of the abject. It's both good and bad. One of the manifestations of Renfield's possible evil is his strange habit of eating insects in his room. The flies and spiders sent by Dracula himself are obviously under his influence, as Harker says in the fourth chapter of the novel referring to Castle Dracula, supposedly a place where the Devil and the "Devil's children" live. Perhaps the insects are the “devil's children” in question, under the influence of the Count. The juxtaposition of the insects and Renfield makes him seem much more animalistic, provoking the Victorian fear of devolution and thus conveying the impression that he is evil. In chapter twenty-one, when Renfield is on his deathbed, he mentions the “Acherontia atropos of the Sphinx”. As Van Helsing says, this translates to the “Death's Head Moth”. The use of.