Barbora Faladová, 327377

                    The comparison of two characters: Dracula and Sweeney Todd

                                       London in Literature


                   For my final paper I’ve chosen a comparison of main characters of two movies I
had seen: the character of Dracula and the character of Sweeney Todd.  First I would like to
mention what kind of persons they were. In what way they were similar and in what they differed and
the thing I find the most interesting is the reason why they were killing people.

                   The main difference between Dracula and Sweeney Todd is in they own nature. In
contrast to Dracula, who is vampire – so-called dead body, Sweeney Todd, with his real name
Benjamin Barker, is ordinary living person, who used to work as barber at 186 Fleet Street, London,
next to St.Dunstan’s church. Sweeney Todd is actually very unhappy man who longs for revenge. He
used to have a beautiful wife but in present he lives alone in his barber shop, because he doesn’t
know about having a daughter. Dracula has on the other hand a lot of supernatural abilities. He is
able to change himself into animal like such as rat, a wolf, a fog or into a vapor. He also
controls the weather, he is stronger than twenty men and he is absolutely immune to attacks,
because he’s immortal. He is also able to change other people into the vampire. People can drive
him away only with the help of garlic, sacramental bread or with crucifixes. He can’t enter the
house if he’s not invited and can’t get too far from his castle in the Carpathian Mountains in
Transylvania so as to rest and recover his strength. He wears black clothes, he hates sunshine and
sleeps in the coffin such as true vampire. He lives in Transylvania with his three brides. They
differ in several points but they have also one important thing in common. They both kill people.
Why?

                      In my opinion Sweeney Todd actually kills people only because he is unhappy.
Before he lost his loved beautiful wife because of another man, he was perfectly satisfied man who
loved life. But when he lost his wife, his home, his job and was sentenced to hard work in
Australia, he became an angry, cruel man who wants to take vengeance on judge Turpin who was behind
all of it, simply because he was in love with beautiful Lucy – the wife of Todd. These are the
reasons why he is so miserable and full of sorrow.  He has to kill everyone who stands in his way
to kill judge Turpin the person who had destroyed his life. But he wouldn’t be able to do all those
murders only by himself, he has Mrs. Lovett who secretly loves him so she helps him with pleasure
to take care of dead bodies or to make some future plans. Todd kills people in his barber shop by
cutting their throats with his silver razors. He throws his victim from the barber chair into the
basement of his shop where is Mrs. Lovett well-prepared to use their meat to cook her meat pies
from.  Nevertheless, his desire for killing the judge Turpin is so big that he accidentally kills
his own wife, the insane beggar that he didn’t recognize before.

                    In contrast to Sweeney Todd, Dracula kills people from several reasons. The
most important reason is to survive. Dracula needs human blood for living. Unlike Todd, Dracula
doesn’t use a weapon such as razor. He is perfectly capable to kill his victim by himself. He bites
his victim in the neck and sucks his blood.  We can also find there Dracula’s desire for revenge
after he escapes from Van Helsing’s Piccadilly house.

                             The last thing I would like to compare is their death. As for Dracula,
who was followed by many people to be killed, he was killed by being cut through the throat by
special kind of knife and being stabbed in the heart. Finally he crumbled to dust. On the other
hand Sweeney Todd was killed by little boy who saw everything that Todd had done and he was dying
over his dead wife’s body which is actually quite poetic, or happy ending? To die with his wife in
his arms?

               I must admit it was not easy to compare those two similar characters, but I find
interesting to see what they have in common and in what they differ.