The Balkan state of Transylvania is a site of racial degeneration referred to in the text as the “whirlpool of European races.” Its inhabitants are “infected” with Turkish bloodlines. The theme of racial pollution, as noted earlier, is a central part of the story, and the vampire’s cannibalism is a symbol of the threat of miscegenation. Stoker, an Irish Protestant, was, like many of his compatriots, fixated on the dangers posed by Irish Catholics:

DEFINE: Frames Dracula's cannibalism as a symbol for miscegenation and racial pollution fears. XREF: Connects the vampire's racial threat to the broader British/Irish anxieties of the Victorian era.

Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imag…, loc. 535