Dracula

Summary

Dracula is told through journals, letters, phonograph diaries, telegrams and newspaper cuttings assembled by its characters. Jonathan Harker, a young English solicitor, travels to Transylvania to arrange the purchase of a London property, Carfax, for Count Dracula. In the castle he gradually realises he is a prisoner, sees the Count crawl head-first down the castle wall, is nearly seduced by three vampire women, and discovers Dracula lying gorged in a coffin. Dracula leaves for England with boxes of earth. The ship Demeter runs aground at Whitby in a storm with its crew vanished and its dead captain lashed to the wheel, and a great dog leaps ashore. In Whitby, Harker's fiancée Mina Murray is staying with her friend Lucy Westenra, who has three suitors: the asylum superintendent Dr John Seward, the American Quincey Morris and Arthur Holmwood, whom she accepts. Lucy sleepwalks, and Mina finds her on a churchyard bench with a dark figure bending over her. Lucy sickens, growing pale and anaemic with two small wounds on her throat. Seward calls in his old teacher, the Dutch physician and scholar Abraham Van Helsing, who gives Lucy a series of blood transfusions from Arthur, Seward, himself and Quincey, and surrounds her with garlic, but she dies. Meanwhile Seward observes his patient Renfield, who eats flies, spiders and birds to absorb their life and who seems to sense the Count's approach. Mina travels to Budapest, where Jonathan has been nursed through a brain fever, and they marry. After Lucy's death children are attacked on Hampstead Heath by a 'bloofer lady'; Van Helsing leads Arthur, Seward and Quincey to her tomb, where Arthur drives a stake through the undead Lucy's heart. Mina collects and types the documents, and the group realises Dracula is in London. They sterilise his boxes of earth with consecrated Host, but Dracula attacks Mina, forcing her to drink his blood from his breast, and a burn from a Host scars her forehead. Renfield, who has tried to protect Mina, is mortally injured by the Count. Under hypnosis Mina, now psychically linked to Dracula, reports his movements as he flees by sea to Transylvania. The hunters pursue him by train and boat; at sunset before his castle Jonathan and Quincey cut his throat and stab his heart, and he crumbles to dust. Quincey dies of a wound, Mina's scar vanishes, and a closing note seven years later records the birth of the Harkers' son, named after all the band but called Quincey.

Plot or Argument

• Harker in Transylvania (Ch. 1–4)

  Jonathan Harker's journey, imprisonment in Castle Dracula, the vampire women and his discovery of the Count in his coffin.

• Whitby (Ch. 5–9)

  Lucy's suitors, the wreck of the Demeter, Lucy's sleepwalking and the first attack; Renfield's growing excitement; Jonathan's brain fever and marriage to Mina in Budapest.

• Lucy's illness and death (Ch. 10–13)

  Van Helsing's diagnosis, repeated blood transfusions, garlic and the failure to save Lucy.

• The undead Lucy (Ch. 14–16)

  Attacks on children, the opening of the tomb and Arthur's staking of Lucy.

• The hunt in London (Ch. 17–24)

  Mina's compilation of the documents, the search for the boxes, Dracula's attack on Mina, and Renfield's death.

• Pursuit and destruction (Ch. 25–27 and Note)

  Mina's hypnotic reports, the chase to Transylvania and the killing of Dracula; Quincey's death and the closing note.

Characters

• Count Dracula, antagonist

  Ancient Transylvanian nobleman and vampire who seeks to extend his dominion to London.

• Jonathan Harker, solicitor, narrator

  Young Englishman imprisoned at Castle Dracula who later helps destroy the Count.

• Mina Harker (née Murray), narrator

  Intelligent schoolmistress who organises the documents and is bitten and psychically linked to Dracula.

• Lucy Westenra, Mina's friend

  Charming young woman who becomes Dracula's first English victim and an undead vampire.

• Abraham Van Helsing, physician and scholar

  Dutch professor of medicine, philosophy and folklore who leads the fight against Dracula.

• Dr John Seward, asylum superintendent, narrator

  Young psychiatrist who keeps a phonograph diary and treats Renfield.

• R. M. Renfield, Seward's patient

  Asylum inmate who eats living creatures to absorb their life and is drawn to Dracula.

• Arthur Holmwood (Lord Godalming), Lucy's fiancé

  Aristocrat who gives blood to Lucy and later stakes her.

• Quincey Morris, Texan adventurer

  Former suitor of Lucy who dies in the final battle.

Lessons

• Modern method against ancient evil

  The heroes defeat Dracula by pooling records, typing, phonographs, telegrams and medical science alongside folklore. The novel shows knowledge-sharing as power, while suggesting that science alone cannot explain everything.

  • Why does the novel present itself as a collection of documents?
  • How does Van Helsing combine science and superstition?
  • What does Mina's role as typist and archivist suggest?

• Anxieties about the body and contagion

  Vampirism spreads through blood, corrupts the healthy and comes from abroad. The novel channels late-Victorian fears of infection, degeneration and foreign invasion.

  • How does Lucy's illness resemble a medical case history?
  • What fears about immigration and empire does Dracula's invasion of London reflect?

• Gender and desire

  Lucy's transformation into a sensual predator and Mina's 'new woman' competence reveal anxieties about female sexuality and independence. The men's violent cure of Lucy can be read as an act of control.

  • How do Lucy and Mina differ in the men's eyes?
  • Is Mina a 'new woman' or a reassuring alternative to one?

Context

Dracula belongs to the late-Victorian fin de siècle, with its fascination with degeneration theory (Max Nordau, Cesare Lombroso, both cited in the novel), hypnotism and Charcot's studies of hysteria, the new technologies of typewriter and phonograph, and fears about reverse colonisation and immigration. Blood transfusion was a dangerous, little-understood procedure, since blood groups were not discovered until 1901.

Composition

Stoker worked on the novel for about seven years, from around 1890, researching Transylvanian folklore and geography in libraries and drawing on Emily Gerard's writings on Transylvanian superstitions and other sources. The name Dracula came from a book on Wallachia and Moldavia he read in Whitby in 1890. It was published by Archibald Constable in May 1897.

Reception

Reviews were generally positive but the novel was not a great financial success in Stoker's lifetime. Its fame grew through stage and film adaptations, including F. W. Murnau's unauthorised Nosferatu (1922) and the Universal film of 1931 starring Bela Lugosi. It has never been out of print.

Comparisons

• frankenstein

  Both epistolary Gothic novels anchor the horror in doctors and scientists; Shelley's science creates the monster, Stoker's medicine and asylum psychiatry defeat it.

• the-vampyre

  Polidori's aristocratic vampire Lord Ruthven, modelled on Byron, is the first literary vampire of the kind Dracula perfected.

• the-turn-of-the-screw-and-the-aspern-papers

  Both fin-de-siècle tales of the supernatural are told through documents whose reliability is questioned, and both turn on a threat to the innocent.

• heart-of-darkness

  Published two years apart, both journey from Western Europe to a 'primitive' interior and expose anxieties of empire and degeneration.

• the-call-of-cthulhu-and-other-weird-stories

  Lovecraft's assembled documents and fears of ancient contagion from abroad descend from Stoker's method and anxieties.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• The form of the novel: journals, letters, phonograph recordings, telegrams, a ship's log, and newspaper cuttings. Notice who is writing each document, what that person cannot know, and how Mina later gathers and types everything into one record.
• Jonathan Harker's slow realisation in Chapters 1 to 4 that he is a prisoner, including the moment he sees the Count crawl face down along the castle wall like a lizard.
• The repeated blood transfusions given to Lucy in Chapters 10 to 12 by Arthur, Seward, Van Helsing, and Quincey, and the way Van Helsing combines modern medicine with garlic and folk remedies.
• Renfield's behaviour in Dr Seward's asylum, especially his feeding on flies, spiders, and birds, and the way his excitement rises and falls with the Count's movements.
• The religious objects the hunters use: the crucifix, garlic, the consecrated Host used to make Dracula's boxes of earth useless to him, and the scar the Host burns on Mina's forehead after the Count's attack.

Key terms and names

Carfax

The old estate near London that Harker arranges for the Count to buy, adjoining Dr Seward's asylum. It becomes Dracula's first English base and the place where his boxes of earth are stored.

Demeter

The Russian ship that carries Dracula and his boxes from Varna to Whitby. Its log, found with the dead captain lashed to the wheel, records crewmen vanishing one by one.

Undead

Van Helsing's term for the vampire, who has died but cannot rest. Lucy becomes one after her death, and the band must free her by staking her body in the tomb.

Zoöphagous maniac

The new classification Dr Seward invents in Chapter 6 for Renfield, who eats living creatures to absorb their life. The term shows Seward trying to fit the uncanny into the categories of asylum medicine.

Bloofer lady

The children's mispronunciation of beautiful lady, used in newspaper reports of the woman who lures children on Hampstead Heath. The reader realises before the characters do that she is the undead Lucy.

Consecrated Host

The wafer blessed for Holy Communion, which Van Helsing brings from Amsterdam. Placed in Dracula's boxes and pressed to Mina's forehead, it shows the power of sacred things over the Count.

Boxes of earth

The fifty boxes of soil from his homeland that Dracula ships to England because he must rest in his own earth. Hunting and sterilising them is the hunters' main strategy in the London chapters.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension What does Jonathan Harker discover about the castle and the Count during his stay in Transylvania, and in what condition does Mina find him afterwards in Budapest?
2. Comprehension What treatments does Van Helsing try in order to save Lucy, and why do they fail?
3. Comprehension How do the hunters learn where Dracula is going after he flees London, and how is he finally destroyed?
4. Interpretation The Count welcomes Harker by asking him to enter freely and of his own will, and vampires in the novel must be invited in. What does this rule suggest about the relationship between evil and human consent?
5. Interpretation Renfield cries out that the blood is the life. How does the novel use blood in medical, religious, and monstrous senses, from Lucy's transfusions to the Count forcing Mina to drink from his breast?
6. Interpretation Mina organises the documents that allow the men to understand Dracula, yet the men later try to protect her by leaving her out of their plans. What are the results of that decision, and what does the novel seem to think of it?
7. Interpretation Van Helsing is both a modern physician and a believer in folklore and the sacraments. Which of his tools actually defeat the Count: science, faith, or the fellowship of the band?
8. Big Question The hunters risk their lives, and Quincey gives his, to destroy an enemy most of the world does not believe exists. What makes a fight against evil worth undertaking when it cannot be proven to others?

Faith Connections

• Deuteronomy 12:23 (Scripture)

  The Law forbids eating blood because the blood is the life. Renfield's cry repeats these words exactly, and Dracula is the figure who does what the Law forbids, taking life by taking blood.

• John 6:53-56 (Scripture)

  Jesus says that whoever drinks his blood has eternal life and abides in him. Dracula's scene with Mina is a dark inversion of this promise: the Count makes her drink his blood to bind her to himself, and the hunters answer with the consecrated Host.

• Ephesians 6:10-18 (Scripture)

  Paul tells Christians that their struggle is against spiritual powers and urges them to take up the whole armour of God. The hunters' crucifixes, Host, and vows of mutual protection form a literal version of this armour in the London and Transylvania chapters.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: An ancient evil has entered the modern world, which no longer believes such things can exist. Modern tools such as medicine, the typewriter, the phonograph, and the railway are necessary to track it, but they cannot defeat it alone; Lucy dies despite the best transfusions. Only when modern knowledge is joined to old faith, sacramental objects, and a fellowship willing to sacrifice is the Count destroyed. Therefore a modern age that trusts only its own instruments is defenceless against evil.

Rhetorical device: asyndeton. In Chapter 2 Harker writes that he doubts, he fears, he thinks strange things he dare not confess. The short clauses separated only by semicolons, without connecting words, make the reader feel his mind racing in panic.

Debate: Resolved: In Dracula, faith rather than modern science defeats the Count.

Memory Work

The blood is the life! The blood is the life

Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own will

Writing Prompts

Essay: Dracula is assembled from documents written by many hands and finally typed and ordered by Mina. Argue how this form shapes the novel's view of knowledge: what can a single witness know, and what becomes possible only when the testimonies are gathered together?

Comparison with Frankenstein: Both Frankenstein and Dracula are told through letters and journals, and both put a man of medicine at the centre of a struggle with a monster. Victor Frankenstein works alone and in secret, while Van Helsing works with a band. Compare how each novel judges the solitary and the communal pursuit of knowledge.

Medical Lens

A novel saturated with late-Victorian medicine. Dr Seward runs a private lunatic asylum, keeps case notes by phonograph and treats Renfield, whose 'zoophagous' mania is described in the language of contemporary alienists. Seward also self-medicates with chloral hydrate after Lucy rejects him and worries about forming a habit, a striking glimpse of a common sedative of the period. Van Helsing's treatment of Lucy with four direct transfusions, years before Landsteiner's discovery of blood groups (1901), reflects the experimental state of transfusion medicine; modern readers often note that incompatible transfusions would themselves have endangered her. Lucy's sleepwalking, Jonathan's 'brain fever' in Budapest nursed by nuns, Van Helsing's references to Charcot and hypnotism, Mina's hypnotic trances, Renfield's head injury and the attempted trephining, and the invocation of Lombroso and Nordau's degeneration theory to define Dracula's 'criminal' brain all make the book a rich source.

• Ch. 5–6, 8–9 (Seward's diary)

  Seward's observations of Renfield: flies, spiders, sparrows, and his classification as a zoophagous maniac; Renfield's escape attempts toward Carfax.

  Madness PsychosisAsylum InstitutionObsession Monomania
• Ch. 8 (Seward's diary)

  Sleepless and dejected, Seward considers taking chloral hydrate and resolves not to let it become a habit.

  Pharmacology PoisonsSleep Insomnia
• Ch. 6–8 (Mina's journal)

  Lucy's sleepwalking in Whitby and the night Mina finds her on the churchyard bench.

  Sleep InsomniaAltered States
• Ch. 8–9

  Sister Agatha writes from Budapest that Jonathan has been suffering from a violent brain fever.

  Fever InfectionPhysicians Doctors
• Ch. 10–12

  Van Helsing performs successive blood transfusions on Lucy from Arthur, Seward, himself and Quincey, and treats her with garlic and opiates.

  Vampirism BloodSurgeryPhysicians DoctorsPharmacology Poisons
• Ch. 14

  Van Helsing invokes Charcot and hypnotism to persuade Seward to open his mind to the inexplicable.

  HysteriaPhysicians DoctorsAltered States
• Ch. 21

  Renfield is found with a broken back and depressed skull fracture; Van Helsing operates (trephining) to relieve pressure so that he can speak before he dies.

  SurgeryPhysicians Doctors
• Ch. 23–26

  Van Helsing hypnotises Mina at sunrise and sunset to track Dracula through her psychic link.

  Altered StatesHysteria
• Ch. 25

  Mina and Van Helsing describe Dracula as a criminal type in the terms of Nordau and Lombroso.

  Heredity Degeneration

Creative Prompts

• Essay

  Read Lucy Westenra's illness as a medical case history. How would a modern haematologist interpret Van Helsing's four transfusions?

• Fiction

  Write Renfield's own case notes on Dr Seward.

• Classroom

  Map the documents of the novel: who writes what, with which technology, and why does it matter that Mina types them all?

• Dialogue

  Stage a case conference between Van Helsing, Seward and Charcot on Mina's trances.

Further Reading

• Frankenstein, Mary Shelley

• Carmilla, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

  Female vampire novella (1872) that influenced Stoker.

• Degeneration, Max Nordau

  Cited in the novel.

• Nosferatu, F. W. Murnau (director)