Dracula by Bram Stoker

Dracula by Bram Stoker

1. Characters

   • Jonathan Harker: the main character. He is a young lawyer who will eventually work for Count Dracula, organizing his legal affairs after buying a house. He is engaged to Mina, but before they get married he has to go to Transylvania to see the Count. Judging by his behaviour, he belongs to a wealthy family, and is completely oblivious to the count’s nature.
   • Count Dracula: Jonathan’s host, a hospitable and very pale man with red lips and pointed white teeth. He smells like death, and people are afraid of him. He usually talks at night and sleeps through the day, not having lunch or dinner with Jonathan any time.
   • The three women: Dracula’s wives, hidden by the count in the castle. The first time Jonathan meets them, he realises the castle is inhabited by vampires due to Dracula feeding them with a child.
   • Mina Murray: Jonathan’s fiancé. She is in vacation in Whitby with her friend Lucy when she is bitten by a vampire. She takes care of Lucy, but when Jonathan returns home, her friend is growing paler and weaker. Dr Seward examines her and calls Professor van Helsing. Mina is attacked by Dracula too towards the end of the book. Her bite becomes a connection between her and the count, and so she starts dreaming of the places Dracula visits. Once the group gets the count and Van Helsing kills him, Mina is saved.
   • Lucy: Mina’s friend. During her holidays at Whitby, she gets bitten by a vampire and becomes the linking element between count Dracula and Van Helsing. Her progress and the attempts to cure her help us understand characters like the doctor or the professor. She finally dies and then turns into a vampire.
   • Professor Van Helsing: A medicine professor from Amsterdam. He is called to help with Lucy’s case, and he seems to be very versed on vampire matters. He is the first one to discover her condition. Once he finally kills her with the help of Dr Seward and Arthur, her fiancé, Van Helsing is determined to find the vampire who bit her.

2. Dracula reflects the 1800s’ conception and ideas regarding vampires. Although these creatures had already been present in literature since medieval times, the idea gained a lot of popularity during the Enlightenment, becoming one of the most popular monsters in folk literature.

3. Paragraph 2

   • Dracula tells the story of a young lawyer who has to work for a count from Transylvania. During his stay in Dracula’s castle, Jonathan realises there is something going on, and tries to escape. However, by the time he reaches London, he is deeply traumatized. While he is in Dracula’s home, he reveals his fiancé and her friend’s location, which leads the count to attack Lucy and turn her into a vampire. This develops the appearance and investigation of Professor Van Helsing, whose interest in vampires ends up saving everyone and killing Dracula.
   • The story takes place in London and Transylvania alternatively, during the last years of the 19 th century.
   • Dracula is a mildly terrifying tale whose course of action definitely kept me at the edge of my seat.

4. Paragraph 3

   • The writing is clear and quick. It helps the action develop faster and avoids the reader’s boredom.
   • The narrative is very entertaining, and the characters are very well structured. However, I feel like this edition is too summarised for my liking and it feels like the action is extremely sudden.
   • I believe this novel might have made people in the 1890s concerned about the existence of vampires, as well as terrifying readers.
   • Vampires are generally portrayed as blood-craving monsters devoid of all humanity in them, so I enjoyed the fact that the vampire characters in the book were not romanticised.
   • The tale of Dracula is very interesting, although there are some moments in the book that were a bit boring. Especially, the process of healing Lucy.

5. Paragraph 4

   • I found Dracula to be an extremely interesting novel with a kind of superstitious message, but that did not fail to entertain me.
   • The characters were my favourite part, as all of them were very round and well-constructed. The ending, however, was too sudden for me. I would have liked some more conflict regarding the killing of Dracula.
   • This novel is considered a classic for many reasons, including its literary quality and the popularity it had during the period it was writing. Nevertheless, I believe it has only perpetuated the people’s fright regarding vampires and the witch hunt there was due to these stereotypes. Nowadays, it might only be considered a gothic novel whose aim is to entertain.
   • I consider the historical context in which the book was written to be incredibly interesting. The sources Stoker has used and the influences we can see in the narrative from folk traditions are a great way of understanding the portrayal of vampires and the worries of the characters during the 19 th century.