Renfield

R. M. Renfield, aetat 59. Sanguine temperament, great physical strength, morbidly excitable, periods of gloom, ending in some fixed idea which I cannot make out.

Discussion

Ask a question about 'Renfield' Start a new discussion about 'Renfield' Answer questions from other users Full Discussion Forum

Encyclopedia

R. M. Renfield is a fictional character

Fictional character

A character is any person, persona, identity, or entity that exists in a The arts. The process of conveying information about characters in fiction is called characterisation....
 in the novel Dracula

Dracula

Dracula is an 1897 in literature novel by Irish people author Bram Stoker, featuring as its primary antagonist the vampire Count Dracula.Dracula has been attributed to many literary genres including vampire literature, horror fiction, the gothic novel and invasion literature....
 by Bram Stoker

Bram Stoker

Abraham "Bram" Stoker was an Ireland novelist and short story writer, best known today for his 1897 Horror fiction novel Dracula. During his lifetime, he was better known as the personal assistant of actor Henry Irving and business manager of the Lyceum Theatre, London in London, which Irving owned....
.

In the novel

A description of Renfield from the novel:

R. M. Renfield, aetat 59. Sanguine temperament, great physical strength, morbidly excitable, periods of gloom, ending in some fixed idea which I cannot make out. I presume that the sanguine temperament itself and the disturbing influence end in a mentally-accomplished finish, a possibly dangerous man, probably dangerous if unselfish. In selfish men, caution is as secure an armour for their foes as for themselves. What I think of on this point is, when self is the fixed point the centripetal force is balanced with the centrifugal. When duty, a cause, etc., is the fixed point, the latter force is paramount, and only accident or a series of accidents can balance it. - From Dr. John Seward

John Seward

Dr. John Seward is a fictional character appearing in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula....
's journal

He is an inmate at the lunatic asylum

Psychiatric hospital

A psychiatric hospital is a hospital specializing in the treatment of serious mental illness, usually for relatively long-term inpatients.Two rules usually govern whether someone should be placed in a psychiatric hospital: if someone is an immediate threat to harm themselves, or to harm other people....
 overseen by Dr. John Seward

John Seward

Dr. John Seward is a fictional character appearing in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula....
. He suffers from delusion

Delusion

A delusion is commonly defined as a fixed false belief and is used in everyday language to describe a belief that is either false, fanciful or derived from deception....
s that lead him to eat living creatures in the hope of obtaining their life-force for himself. Being confined to the asylum, and aware of the foolishness of taking on a full-sized hospital orderly, he starts by consuming flies

Fly

True flies are insects of the Order Diptera , possessing a single pair of insect wing on the mesothorax and a pair of halteres, derived from the hind wings, on the metathorax....
, then develops a scheme of feeding the flies to spider

Spider

Spiders are air-breathing chelicerate arthropods that have eight legs, and chelicerae modified into fangs that inject venom. In their bodies the usual arthropod segments are fused into two Tagma , the cephalothorax and abdomen, joined by a small, cylindrical pedicel....
s, and the spiders to bird

Bird

Birds are wing, Bipedalismal, endothermic , vertebrate animals that lay egg . There are around 10,000 living species, making them the most numerous tetrapod vertebrates....
s, in order to accumulate more and more life. When denied a cat

Cat

The cat , also known as the Domestication cat or house cat to distinguish it from other Felinae and Felidae, is a small predationy carnivore species of crepuscular mammal that is valued by humans for its companionship and its ability to hunt vermin, snakes, scorpions, and other unwanted household pests....
 to accommodate the birds, he eats the birds himself.

During the course of the novel it is discovered that he is under the influence of Count Dracula

Count Dracula

Count Dracula is a fictional character, the titular Antagonist of Bram Stoker's 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula. Some aspects of his character may have been inspired by the 15th century Romanians Prince, Vlad III the Impaler....
. The vampire

Vampire

Vampires are mythology or folklore Revenant who subsist by feeding on the blood of the living. In folkloric tales, the undead vampires often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deaths in the neighbourhoods they inhabited when they were alive....
, whose abilities include control over animals such as rat

Rat

Rats are various medium sized, long-tailed rodents of the Family Muroidea. "True rats" are members of the genus Rattus, the most important of which to humans are the black rat, Rattus rattus, and the brown rat, Rattus norvegicus....
s, bat

Bat

Bats are mammals in the order Chiroptera. The forelimbs of all bats are developed as wings, making them the only mammals naturally capable of sustained flight ....
s and spiders, comes to Renfield with an offer: if Renfield worships him, he will provide Renfield with an endless supply of food.

However, when confronted by Mina Harker

Mina Harker

Wilhelmina "Mina" Harker is a fictional character in Bram Stoker's horror novel Dracula....
, the object of Dracula's obsession, Renfield suffers an attack of conscience

Conscience

Conscience is an ability or a Power that distinguishes whether one's actions are right or wrong. It leads to feelings of remorse when one does things that go against his/her moral values, and to feelings of rectitude or integrity when one's actions conform to our moral values....
 and begs her to flee from his master's grasp. Enraged by this treachery, Dracula infiltrates Renfield's cell (in the form of fog

Fog

Fog is a cloud bank that is in contact with the ground. A cloud may be considered partly fog; for example, the part of a cloud that is suspended in the air above the ground is not considered fog, whereas the part of the cloud that comes in contact with higher ground is considered fog....
), and when Renfield lures the Count by assisting his entrance to the asylum, the base of Seward and his fellow vampire hunter

Vampire hunter

A vampire hunter or vampire slayer is someone who specializes in finding and destroying vampires. In dark fantasy fiction, they may sometimes also deal with other harmful supernatural creatures....
s, Dracula breaks his neck.

He appeared to have sudden moments where he was aware of his insanity and kept it in check, admitting to Mina things about Dracula willingly. He dies in a state of sanity.

In other media

Film adaptation

Film adaptation

Film adaptation is the transfer of a written work to a feature film. It is a type of derivative work.A common form of film adaptation is the use of a novel as the basis of a film, but film adaptation includes the use of non-fiction , autobiography, comic book, scripture, Play , and even other films....
s of the novel, if they include Renfield, have a tendency to expand his role, making him a long-standing servant of the vampire Count, often depicting his mania

Mania

Mania is a severe medical condition characterized by extremely elevated mood, energy, unusual thought patterns and sometimes psychosis. There are several possible causes for mania including drug abuse and brain tumours, but it is most often associated with bipolar disorder, where episodes of mania may cyclically alternate with episodes of ma...
 as a result of falling under Dracula's influence, rather than as a pre-existing condition that made him vulnerable to it. Tod Browning

Tod Browning

Tod Browning was an United States film actor, film director and screenwriter.Browning's career spanned the silent film and sound film eras. Best-known as the director of Dracula , the cult classic Freaks , and classic silent film collaborations with Lon Chaney, Sr., Browning directed many movies in a wide range of genres....
's 1931 film

Dracula (1931 film)

Dracula is a classic horror film directed by Tod Browning and starring B?la Lugosi as the title character. The film was produced by Universal Studios and is based on the Dracula by Hamilton Deane and John L....
, for example, conflates the character with that of Jonathan Harker

Jonathan Harker

colour =#DEDEE2| colour text =#000| name=Jonathan Harker| series =Dracula| image =| caption =| first =| last=...
, making Renfield (played by Dwight Frye

Dwight Frye

Dwight Iliff Frye was an United States stage and screen actor, noted for his appearances in the classic horror films Dracula , Frankenstein , Bride of Frankenstein, and The Invisible Man ....
) the real estate

Real estate

Real estate is a law term that encompasses land along with anything permanently affixed to the land, such as buildings, specifically property that is fixed in location. agent who is sent to Transylvania

Transylvania

Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountains, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term frequently encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical regions of Crisana, Maramures, and Banat....
 and falls under Dracula's (Bela Lugosi

Béla Lugosi

B?la Lugosi was a Hungarians-born United States actor of theatre and film, well known for playing Count Dracula in the Dracula and subsequent Dracula ....
) power. The 1922 silent film Nosferatu presents Alexander Granach

Alexander Granach

Alexander Granach was a popular Germany actor in the 1920s and 1930s....
 as a Renfield similar to that of the novel, but gives him the name Knock, and in a deviation from the novel, survives only to be caught and trapped in prison where he is unable to help Count Orlok

Count Orlok

Count Orlok is a fictional character portrayed by Max Schreck in the silent movie Nosferatu. He was based on Bram Stoker's character, Count Dracula....
-his master

Master

Master or Masters may refer to:...
 escape the morning sunlight.

In Count Dracula, Klaus Kinski

Klaus Kinski

Klaus Kinski was a German actor, famous for his ability to project onscreen intensity, and for his explosive temperament. He acted in over 130 films....
 (who portrayed a Count Orlok

Count Orlok

Count Orlok is a fictional character portrayed by Max Schreck in the silent movie Nosferatu. He was based on Bram Stoker's character, Count Dracula....
-style Dracula in Nosferatu the Vampyre) played Renfield as mute

Mute

Mute may refer to:* Muteness, a speech disorder in which a person lacks the power of articulate speech* Mute, a silent letter in phonology* Mute a 2005 film...
. Francis Ford Coppola

Francis Ford Coppola

Francis Ford "Frank" Coppola is a five-time Academy Award-winning United States film director, Film producer and screenwriter. Away from showbusiness, Coppola is also a vintner, publisher and Hotel manager....
's 1992 film Bram Stoker's Dracula

Bram Stoker's Dracula

Dracula is a 1992 in film Horror film-romance film produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, based on the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker....
 suggests that Renfield (portrayed by Tom Waits

Tom Waits

Thomas Alan Waits is an United Statesn singer-songwriter, composer and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of Bourbon whiskey, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car." With this trademark growl, his incorpo...
) was Harker's predecessor as Count Dracula's agent in London

London

London is the capital of both England and the United Kingdom, and the most populous municipality in the European Union. An important settlement for two millennia, History of London goes back to its founding by the Roman Empire....
; it is implied that this is the reason for his present madness.

In the videogame Metal Gear Solid 3, during the course of the game you end up in a cell after being beaten by the main antagonist. If you save, the person who saves your data (code named "Paramedic") will tell the main protagonist about Renfield being rescued from the prison by Dracula. This ends up giving the main protagonist a bad dream when you come back to play the game, and the main protagonist has nightmares about Dracula anytime he is brought up.

In the Dresden files, Renfields are people who have been enslaved to a Black Court vampire by raw, psychic strength. Renfields are left with little mind and are aggressive, murderous, raving lunatics who die within a year or two of having their psyche ripped to shreds.

In the PC game Dracula: Origin Renfield is the guardian of Godalming Manor, Dracula's castle in London. In order to succeed him, the player must throw him a bottle with flies inside. As he sees it, he starts eating them and Van Helsing can go through the room.