DRACULA
..., he’s still willing to risk his life to kill Lucy’s murderer, all out of love for her. Dr. Abraham Van Helsing is a dutch doctor and friend and mentor of Dr. Seward. He’s more or less the leader of the group on their mission to kill Count Dracula. He makes all the plans and knows how to deal with vampires. Everyone relies on him. Arthur Holmwood is one of Lucy’s admirers and right before her death, they got married. After the death of his lovely wife, Arthur wants nothing more but sweet revenge. Quincey Morris is a rich man from Texas, who had also lost his heart to Lucy and he also wants to kill Dracula. Patient Renfield is one of Dr Seward’s mental patients and he’s very interested in animals. He catches flies and then eats them. His periods of excitement correspond with Dracula’s coming and goings. He refers to Dracula as his Lord and Master. He gets killed by Dracula. The point-of–view shifts among the first-person perspectives of several characters. Dracula is told through a collection of journal entries, letters, and telegrams written or recorded by its main characters: Jonathan Harker, Mina Murray, Dr. John Seward, Lucy Westenra, and Dr. Van Helsing. Structure: The story is divided into chapters and it has many flashbacks. Motifs: Blood- Its first mention is in Chapter III, when the count tells Harker that "blood is too precious a thing in these days of dishonorable peace, and the glories of the great races are as a tale that is told." In this scene, the count proudly talks about his family history, relating blood to his ancesters, to the "great races" that in Dracula's view is withered. The count fortells the coming of a war between lineages: between the East and the West, the ancient and the modern, and the evil and the good. Blood also suggests the exchange of bodily fluids associated with sexual intercourse: Lucy is "drained" to the point of nearly passing out after the count penetrates her. Dracula drinks actual human blood in order to extend his physical, but soulless life. Science and Superstition – The atmosphere changes into a modern one almost immediately when the focus shifts to England. Dr. Seward records his diary on a phonograph, Mina Murray practices typewriting on a newfangled machine, and so on. While the peasants of Transylvania busily bless one another against the evil eye at their roadside homes. Mr. Swales, the poor Englishman whom Lucy and Mina meet in the Whitby cemetery, has no patience for superstitions as ghosts and monsters. Advances in science have caused the English to forget the reality of the very superstitions, such as Dracula, that want to destroy their society. Genre: Gothic novel This story had gloomy castles and other symbols of the same sort which shows that it’s a gothic novel. B. Interpretation: Vampire legends have been a part of popular folklore in many parts of the world since ancient times which means that he wrote the book to explain his point of view on the whole thing. In the way he writes you can notice that he’s fascinated by the count and the way he moves. The book is titled “Dracula” because it’s about a count named Dracula, who lives in a castle in Transylvania .There is no real connection between the title and the theme to me. C. personal evaluation: Although it was written in old English, it was very easy to read. The book was a connation of letters and telegrams and diaries of the main characters and each letter would continue the facts of the story. It was a nice book and I enjoyed reading it. It is a Gothic novel, but not in every meaning of the word, because the story is also a little situated in the “century of romance”. There are several aspects of that time in the story: death, the supernatural, love, nature, religion, dreams and graves to mention a few. D. Summary Jonathan Harker goes to Transylvania to meet with a client of his, Count Dracula, who’s interested in buying a couple of houses in England. At first the count seems nice, but after a while Jonathan starts to get suspicious: the count never eats with him, he never sees him during the day and he doesn’t have a reflection in the mirror. Then one night while Jonathan wonders around in the castle, he enters an old dusty room and lies on the bed. That’s where he meets the three voluptuous lady vampires who try to seduce him and then try to bite him. But all of a sudden Dracula enters the room, chases the three shameless women away and starts laughing. From that moment on, Jonathan realizes that he is no longer Dracula’s guest, but his prisoner. While he desperately tries to escape, the count leaves on a ship for England. Meanwhile Jonathan’s fiancée, Mina, is staying with her friend Lucy in England. She’s very worried about Jonathan, because she hasn’t heard from him in a while. When finally a message arrives from a nunnery where Jonathan has been found, Mina goes to Transylvania and there they get married. Back in England strange thin...