In many of the Dracula-based films it is R. M. Renfield who is quite literally the loony in the asylum, a fact that makes him one of the more intriguing characters in Stoker's novel. He's initially described by Dr. Seward as fifty-nine years of age, with a “sanguine temperament, great physical strength, morbidly excitable, periods of gloom, ending in some fixed idea which I cannot make out.” Seward later mentions that his “homicidal maniac is of a peculiar kind” and that he must invent a new classification for him — a “zoophagous” for his life-eating propensities, including spiders, flies, and small birds. What is made obvious is that as soon as Dracula arrives in London, Renfield becomes more engaged in helping “the master,” and thus acts as a conduit by which Dracula's hunting party can learn more about the fiend and by which he can ultimately gain access to the asylum. The importance of Renfield is the obvious parallel between his mortal lust for taking lives and Dracula's immortal lust for doing the same.