This stoker's novel shows how fragile human existence was, and weakened the beliefs of free will and immortal soul. Stoker relied on medical sciences as a physiology and used much of the novel in his characters, brain actions that cast doubt on such beliefs as trance and somnambulism, dramatizing a very common fear at the time of the novel, the Victorian era. It was well portrayed the fear that at that time humans were soulless animals and followed only their physiological and cerebral instincts. The soul and the mind were in conflict. It was the religious faith of the time against the effects considered "paranormal", portrayed in the novel.
sand is uncountable and school is countable.
In Shakespeare’s time people believed in witches. They were people who had made a pact with the Devil in exchange for supernatural powers. If your cow was ill, it was easy to decide it had been cursed. If there was plague in your village, it was because of a witch. If the beans didn’t grow, it was because of a witch. Witches might have a familiar – a pet, or a toad, or a bird – which was supposed to be a demon advisor. People accused of being witches tended to be old, poor, single women. It is at this time that the idea of witches riding around on broomsticks (a common household implement in Elizabethan England) becomes popular.
There are lots of ways to test for a witch. A common way was to use a ducking stool, or just to tie them up, and duck the accused under water in a pond or river. If she floated, she was a witch. If she didn’t, she was innocent. She probably drowned. Anyone who floated was then burnt at the stake. It was legal to kill witches because of the Witchcraft Act passed in 1563, which set out steps to take against witches who used spirits to kill people.
King James I became king in 1603. He was particularly superstitious about witches and even wrote a book on the subject. Shakespeare wrote Macbeth especially to appeal to James – it has witches and is set in Scotland, where he was already king. The three witches in Macbeth manipulate the characters into disaster, and cast spells to destroy lives. Other magic beings, the fairies, appear in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Elizabethans thought fairies played tricks on innocent people – just as they do in the play.
