An Initial Reaction: Aura and Dracula?

While in the process of reading Aura, I was certainly taken aback and intrigued by the oddities of the style in which Fuentes wrote, but my strongest feeling throughout the text was a sense of déjà vu, which seemed somewhat mysterious to me. I knew for certain that I had never read this text before, or anything else with this particular and curious style – I think I would have remembered if I had. It wasn't until I had actually finished the book before I understood. My strange feelings of familiarity weren't stemming from the narrative style of the text, but from its structure and tone. Dracula. In the presentation of the conflict and description,Carlos Fuentes' Aura strongly resembled the first part of Bram Stoker's Dracula.

There are a few obvious similarities. The house is repeatedly described as Gothic and in a state of complete disrepair, imitating at the mental and moral degradation that its inhabitants either have already experienced or will experience. Despite their misgivings, both male protagonists nonetheless enter into the house, and in many ways are unable to or prevented from leaving. The protagonist is limited, in almost a claustrophobic sense, in his movement around the setting (Johnathan Harper, the initial narrator of Dracula, is given free roam throughout the castle, but almost all of its many doors are locked or barred). Thirdly, just the presence of and interaction with the other inhabitants of the house force the protagonists to question both their sanity and their previous assumptions about perceptions and reality.

There are more comparisons that could be made, dealing with the subject matter and focus of the two books (I think the combination of strength and complete dependency that both Dracula and Consuelo share is fascinating), but I would like to discuss the themes of Aura in a little more detail before drawing my own conclusions. Nonetheless, I feel a very strong comparison here, in ways more critical than simple descriptive similarity. Throughout our discussions, I think I will be focusing very closely on the themes that these two novels share.