It’s Monster Season
It’s that spook-a-licious time of year, when kids dress up in scary costumes and monster movies make us jump out of our seats.
Do you love scary stories? This week, The Mini Page looks at the origins of two of our most famous monsters: Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster.
Bram’s book
In 1897, an Irish author named Bram Stoker wrote a book called “Dracula.” The Dracula story is based on folk tales about vampires.* The story is also based on legends about a real-life ruler named Vlad Dracula, who lived more than 500 years ago. Dracula was a cruel prince who killed and tortured many people in his home country of
Romania.
Vampire legends
Like Stoker’s Dracula, legendary vampires:
• cast no reflection in mirrors;
• never cast a shadow;
• are able to change into a bat, a wolf or even a foggy mist;
• sleep during the day in a coffin;
• can be frightened away by garlic, or by a religious symbol such as a cross;
• can be killed by a stake thrust through the heart. Most vampires can also be killed by the rays of the sun.
Shelley’s monster
The creator of another famous fictional monster was the author Mary Shelley. The story goes that Mary and her husband, Percy, along with poet Lord Byron, were sheltering from a bad storm in Switzerland one night. They decided to tell horror stories to amuse each other.
The stories gave Mary Shelley the idea to write a book about a scientist named Victor Frankenstein who built a man out of parts of people who had died. In the book, Dr. Frankenstein zapped his creation with electricity to make it come to life.
When Dr. Frankenstein first brings his creature to life, the monster doesn’t want to hurt anyone. But people are mean to him because they think he is so ugly. The monster becomes lonely and angry at the way he is treated, and he starts attacking people.