A Potential Inspiration for Dracula's R. M. Renfield.

The article focuses on the potential real-world inspiration for the character of R. M. Renfield in Bram Stoker's "Dracula." The author suggests that character might have been influenced by the behavior of an actual psychiatric patient in St Patrick's Hospital in Dublin, Ireland. The patient's alternating periods of calm and violence, similar to Renfield's behavior, and Thornley's intimate knowledge of such cases provide intriguing connections between the asylum and the character's depiction.