Vlad Tepes, commonly known as Vlad the Impaler, lived and ruled during the fifteenth-century. Vlad who was a military hero protected Romainia from the Ottoman Empire and later became a Wallachian ruler. Vlad earned the title 'the Impaler' with due right. He was not considered a Vampire at the time but as a hero and ruler. Bram Stoker's Dracula, whom Vlad was the role model for, was portrayed as much diffrent from the Vlad of history. Vlad tortured his subjects for mear pleasure rather than for the maintaince of undead life. He would impale his subjects in public viewing outside of town, often eating dinner while watching the torture. "There were verious forms of impalement depending on age, rank, or sex..."(1) The victoms were imapaled in any possable way the body could be. "...from above-feet upwards; and impalement from below-head upwards; or through the heart or navel."(2) The impaled subjects were arranged in geometric shapes more often than not in a circle. The torture went on for hours and sometimes days, the torture did not end with the impalement, but the victoms probably stayed there during or were put upon after. "There were nails in peoples heads, maiming of limbs, binding, strangulation, burning, the cutting of noses and ears, and of sexual organs in the case of women, scalping and skinning, exposure to the elements or to the wild animals, and boiling alive."(3) Vlad's affiliation with stakes portrays him as less a Vampire and more of a Vampire Hunter. He did not just stake and torture captured armies or foriegn invaders but also his own domestic subjects.
The Vlad Tepes portrayed through Stoker's Dracula had everyting but the truth. The staking in Dracula lacked the horrific, sadistic, gore of history and took on a more erotic and appealing view. The novel had very little historical backing and in fact Stoker himself knew very little about Vlad. The name 'Dracula' or 'Dracul' is Wallachian for Devil, "...the Wallachians are accustomed to give it as a surname to any person who rendered himself conspicuous by courage, cruel actions or cunning."(4) Vlad was that. A sadistic military hero and ruler.
4:Our Vampires, Ourselves by Nina Auerbach
University of Chicago Press (1995) Pg.135
