Summary Chapter 1

Chapter I is taken from the May 3rd and May 4th entries in Jonathan Harker's journal. Harker is on a business trip in Eastern Europe, making his way across one of the most isolated regions of Europe. He is going to meet with a noble of Transylvania, Count Dracula. The heading to his journal entry tells us that Jonathan is writing in Bistritz, in what is now Romania. Two days ago, he was in Munich. One day ago, he was in Vienna. As he has moved farther east, the country has become wilder and less modern. Jonathan Harker records his observations of the people and the countryside, their costume and customs. He has been instructed to stay at an old fashioned hotel in Bistritz before setting out for the final leg of the journey to Dracula's castle. At Bistritz, a letter from Dracula is waiting for him. Jonathan is to rest before setting out the next day for the Borgo Pass, where the Count's coach will be waiting for him.

The landlord and his wife are visibly distressed by Jonathan's intentions to go to Dracula's castle. Although they cannot understand each other's languages and must communicate in German, the innkeeper passively tries to stop Jonathan by pretending not to understand his requests for a carriage to the Borgo Pass. The landlord's wife more aggressively tries to dissuade Jonathan, warning him that tomorrow is St. George's Day, and at midnight on St. George's Eve evil is at its strongest. When he insists that he must go, she gives him a crucifix‹Jonathan accepts the gift, even though, as an English Protestant, he considers crucifixes idolatrous.

Before Jonathan leaves, he notices that a number of the peasants are watching him with apprehension. Although he cannot understand much of their language, he can make out the words for devil, Satan, werewolf, and vampire. The peasants make motions at him to protect him from the evil eye. On the carriage ride, his fellow passengers, on learning where he is going, treat him with the same kind of concerned sympathy, giving him gifts and protecting him with charms. The ride is in wild and beautiful country. The carriage driver arrives at the Borgo Pass an hour early, and in bad German he then tries to convince Jonathan that Dracula's coachman might not come tonight, and Jonathan should come with the rest of them to Bukovina. At that moment, a fearsome-looking coachman arrives on a vehicle pulled by coal-black horses. One of the passengers whispers, "for He rebukes the carriage driver, and brings Jonathan onto the coach. The final part of the trip is terrifying. The moon is bright but is occasionally obscured by clouds, and strange blue fires and wolves appear along the way. On several occasions, the driver leaves the coach, at which point the wolves come closer and closer to the vehicle. Whenever the driver returns, the wolves flee‹the final time this phenomenon occurs, it seems that the wolves flee on the driver's command. The chapter ends with Dracula's castle coming into view, its crumbling battlements cutting a jagged line against the night sky.

Analysis Chapter 1

Dracula is an epistolary novel; this form allows Stoker to juxtapose the rational world of the English Victorian observer with the supernatural world of Count Dracula. English men and women of Stoker's time had a strong tradition of observation and letter writing; educated English people used journals and letters to set down artful and detailed observations of their world and lives. The nineteenth century was also a time in England that glorified the blossoming of science and reason. It was the century of Charles Darwin and a period of increasing industrialization and urbanization. London was the greatest and most modern city in the world, and England, in part through science and technology, had conquered much of the world. One of the novel's themes is the clash between the world of the supernatural and unknown with the scientific and rational world of Victorian England. Jonathan Harker is the model of a modern English businessman. His journal entries provide detailed descriptions of peasants he sees and dishes he eats. He notes the quaint superstitions of the Eastern Europeans, and subsumes all he observes to a framework of science and reason. Although he has ominous dreams at the hotel, he blames the nightmares on his dinner of the evening before. When the coachman's body seems to become translucent, Harker blames the phenomenon on a trick of the eyes. His description of the coachman‹incredibly strong, and with eyes that at times seem to glow red‹is without comment. It is as if Jonathan is too modern and "rational" to recognize what the reader realizes very quickly‹even when the wolves seem to obey the command of the coachman, Harker does not remark on the event beyond saying that it happened. He becomes uneasy and fearful, but he lacks the framework to reach conclusions about what he is seeing.

As Jonathan travels towards his goal, he writes: "The impression I had was that we were leaving the West and entering the East." Another theme is the contrast/clash between the modern West and the superstitious East. Here, we see that for all of their backwardness (Jonathan remarks that many of them are inflicted with goiter, and describes their outfits and superstitions with a kind of sympathetic condescension) the peasants know what Jonathan does not. When the coachman comes to collect Jonathan, the frightened carriage driver and the coachman have an exchange that makes it clear to the reader that the carriage driver was trying to trick (and save) Jonathan. He arrived an hour early and then tried to convince Jonathan to come to Bukovina‹all to get him away from Dracula's castle. The irony here is that Jonathan is ignorant of what is waiting for him at the castle; the quaint and uneducated peasant knows what the sophisticated and educated Englishman cannot seem to understand.

Summary Chapter 2

Taken from the May 5th, 7th, and 8th entries of Jonathan Harker's journal. Jonathan is dropped off at the great castle of Dracula, where, he is welcomed by the Count himself. The Count is a tall old man, with a white mustache, dressed all in black. Despite the Count's apparent age, during their handshake Jonathan notices that the Count's grip is unbelievably strong‹and that his hand is as cold as a corpse.

Jonathan is shown his room and then brought to a dining room where a fine dinner awaits him. The two men talk, although the Count eats nothing. Jonathan observes him carefully: his face is aquiline, with a high bridge, thin nose, and arched nostrils, a high and round forehead, large eyebrows, scarlet lips, and unusually sharp teeth. His ears are pointed and he is unbelievably pale. At one point, the Count leans in and touches Jonathan; the Englishman is then overcome by nausea, and he cannot explain the source of his revulsion. Dracula also seems to take strange delight in the sound of the howling wolves down in the valley. The two men are still awake at the coming of dawn, when Dracula leaves and tells Jonathan to sleep well and as long as he likes, as the Count must be away until late in the afternoon.

Jonathan sleeps very late into the day, awaking near evening time to take his breakfast. A full meal is waiting for him in the dining room. Dracula is nowhere to be found, but a note tells Jonathan to eat up and await the Count's return. The house seems to have peculiar shortcomings: there are no servants at all, although the extraordinary furniture and dining set shows that the Count is incredibly wealthy. There are also no mirrors anywhere in the house. Jonathan wanders into a vast library, where he finds many books in English. The Count finds him there, and he grills Jonathan with questions about England. He also desires to speak with Jonathan so that he can improve his English, which he has learned so far only through books; his desire is to be nothing less than fluent so that he can blend in amongst the English. Through the firm for which Jonathan works, the Count plans to purchase a grand English estate called Carfax. Carfax is a giant, castle-like house built of heavy stones on a large property. It is also near an insane asylum, although Jonathan, like a good businessman, points out that the asylum is not visible from the house. The two men also talk at dinner, during which the Count, once again, does not eat. After dinner, the two men continue to talk, Dracula asking endless questions about England, until once again dawn approaches and the Count ends the discussion and leaves.

Jonathan retires to his room but only sleeps for a few hours. He uses his own small mirror to shave, and when the Count approaches Jonathan from behind Jonathan realizes that the Count has no reflection. Startled, he cuts himself with the razor. He checks again to be sure, and still the Count's image is absent from the glass. On seeing the blood dripping from Jonathan's cut, the Count seems to become possessed, clutching Jonathan around the throat, growing calm again only when his hand touches the beads of Jonathan's crucifix. He cryptically warns Jonathan not to cut himself and then throws the mirror from the window. Jonathan expresses annoyance at the loss of the mirror, wondering how he is to shave without it.

He goes again to the dining room, where breakfast waits for him. The Count is absent. Jonathan wanders around the castle, and he learns that the castle is built on the edge of an enormous precipice. On the south side, the drop from the castle windows is at least a thousand feet. Jonathan keeps wandering, and then he realizes that all of the exits from the castle have been bolted‹he is a prisoner in Dracula's home.

Analysis Chapter 2

The novel's description of Dracula is fully in line with the superstitions surrounding the vampire: super-strong, cold to the touch, sharp-toothed, pointy-eared, shockingly pale. Jonathan also describes the more ordinary elements of Dracula's appearance‹Stoker was keenly interested in physiognomy, the pseudo-science that sought to classify personality types by features of the head and face. Later on in the novel, Dracula's physical appearance is used as proof that he has a "child-brain," the imperfectly developed mind of a criminal. The theme of the conflict between rationality and superstition, English thinking and Eastern world, continues. Although Jonathan is filled with an increasing sense of unease, he never once uses the word "vampire" in this chapter, nor is he able to make the leap to see Dracula for what he is. He takes comfort in the English books of the library, a little piece of home in this strange land, and he also takes comfort in discussing the specifics of real-estate deals with the Count.

Jonathan continues to have the same block: he observes remarkable phenomena, but he cannot put them together. Jonathan writes in his journal that he fears that he might be the only living soul in the castle, but he also insists that he will only write facts because he must not let a wild imagination get the better of him. The shaving incident seems the strongest example of Jonathan's cluelessness: Dracula has no reflection, lunges at the sight of blood, and retreats at the touch of a crucifix. Yet, rather than realize fully the danger that Dracula represents, Jonathan complains about the loss of his mirror! He continues to cling tenaciously to the supposedly rational and civilized world of England; this clinging is represented by his delight at finding the English books in the library. A bit of irony comes when the gift of the superstitious and ignorant peasant woman possibly saves Harker's life. As his supposed rationality renders him incapable of understanding the danger he is in, a bit of superstition (and an idolatrous bit, by the standards of enlightened English Protestants) is his only protection.

Summary Chapter 3

Taken from the May 8th, May 12th, May 15th, and May 16th entries of Jonathan Harker's journal. When Jonathan realizes he is trapped, he finally is able to realize the danger he is in. He resolves not to tell the Count, because the Count is clearly responsible. Jonathan spies on the Count, watching him make the bed and set the table for dinner. His suspicions that there are no servants are thus confirmed, and Jonathan wonders if the coachman was also Dracula in disguise. He fears the coachman's power to command the wolves, and the gifts from the peasants (crucifix, garlic, wild rose, and mountain ash) give him some small feeling of comfort.

That night, Dracula recounts the history of the country and of Dracula's family. There are tales of war and battle against the Turks, with the people of Transylvania united under one of Dracula's ancestors.

Later, the Count asks Jonathan questions about conducting business in England, particularly about how he could go about shipping goods between Transylvania and Carfax. He tells Jonathan that he must stay at the castle for another month to help the Count work take care of his business interests, and although Jonathan is terrified of the thought, he realizes he must comply. Not only is he a prisoner, but he still feels that he must follow through for the sake of his employer, Peter Hawkins. The Count tells Jonathan to write only of business in his letters home, making it clear that he is going to screen the letters. Jonathan decides to write on the provided paper for now, but to write full secret letters to his fiancée Mina and to his boss. To Mina, he will write in shorthand. He will try to find some way to send the letters secretly. At one point, when the Count leaves, Jonathan begins to snoop through the Count's correspondence. Before he can discover anything, the Count returns and warns him never to fall asleep in any room other than his bedroom. That night, Jonathan looks out into the vast open space on the south side of the castle. When he looks down, Jonathan sees the Count crawling down the side of the castle, face down.

On a later night, he observes the Count leave the castle this way. He takes the opportunity to explore the place, pushing his way through a broken door. He discovers a large and previously unexplored wing of the castle, ruined and full of moth-eaten and dilapidated furniture. Not heeding the Count's warning, he falls asleep. He has a dream‹which may not have been just a dream‹of three beautiful women who enter the room and talk of who will "kiss" him first. Jonathan is simultaneously full of fear and lust, and does not move but continues to watch the women through half-closed eyes. One of the women leans in and begins to bite at his neck, when the Count appears suddenly and forces the women back. Outraged, the Count tells the women that Harker belongs to him. He promises them that once he is through with Jonathan, the women can have him, and then he gives them a small bag that moves as if a child is inside of it. Horrified, Jonathan loses consciousness.

Analysis Chapter 3

Finally, Jonathan can no longer deny the supernatural nature of what is happening in the castle‹although still, he does not use the word vampire, nor does he often name the events explicitly as supernatural. Still, the reader is always one step ahead of Jonathan. When Dracula enthusiastically recounts the military exploits of his ancestors, an observant reader might wonder if the immortal vampire is talking about his own military exploits. Jonathan still seems strangely out of touch with the extent of the danger he faces and the danger Dracula would be if he were to move to England. He also says that he must carry out the deal made by his employer, as if he does not fully understand that his life is in peril and that the deal, when considering Dracula's demonic status, is unethical. The use of shorthand to baffle the Count illustrates the theme of conflict between the East/West, supernatural/scientific, old/new, as a modern invention is an unbreakable code for the ancient vampire.

The scene with the three women is one of the novel's most famous moments. By making the women a trio, Stoker creates a resonance with established patterns in folklore and mythology. The motif of the three evil women alludes to the Weird Sisters in Macbeth, as well as to the three witch sisters in the Greek myth of Perseus. The use of a familiar motif imbues the vampires with the power of folklore and myth: Harker, a modern English businessman, is encountering an evil that is ancient and primal. A modern man is thrown into a world of stories and folklore. The scene also establishes the vampire's power as one that is extraordinarily sensual and sexual. The pairing of fear and desire is one of the central themes of the novel. Even as the vampire approaches his throat, Jonathan's terror is mixed with lust. He does not cease to feign sleep, nor does he try to escape. The scene reverses standard depictions of rape: this time, it is a passive (and eager) male who faces a female aggressor (Hindle xiii). To further the parallel between sexual acts and the vampire's bite, the act of draining Jonathan's blood is described by the female vampires as a "kiss." The scene conflates sin with sexuality, making the vampires creatures in whom evil and lust are united‹and thus making an implicit moralizing statement about sexual desire. But the scene also depicts the vampires' degraded status in a way that is erotically stimulating for readers, particularly the male Victorian reader. Although Stoker makes it clear that the vampires' lusts are decadent and evil, the allure of their erotic power has been one of the novel's selling points from its first publication to the present day.

Summary Chapter 4

Taken from the May 16th, May 18th, May 19th, May 28th, May 31st, June 17th, June 24th, June 25th, June 29th, and June 30th entries of Jonathan Harker's journal. Jonathan wakes up in his room. He searches the castle and finds the door he used to reach the hidden wing in which he saw the three women; the door is now bolted. He admits that his dream could not have been a dream. Later, the Count tells him to write three letters, dated June 12th, June 19th, and June 29th: the first will say that he is nearly done with his work, the second will say that he has left the castle, and third will say that he has arrived at Bistritz. Jonathan recognizes that the letters are meant to buy time for the Count, so that Jonathan's loved ones will take some time to become suspicious when he does not return home. Horrified, he complies because he sees no alternative.

Gypsies have encamped in the courtyard of the castle. In an attempt to communicate with Mina, Jonathan drops letters with a piece of gold outside his window, hoping that a gypsy will take it to a post. The gypsy instead takes it to Dracula. The Count brings the letters before Jonathan, clearly having read the one to Peter Hawkins. The letter to Mina is in shorthand, which the Count cannot understand. Enraged, he burns it as Jonathan watches. Days later, Jonathan wakes up to discover that his clothes and papers have all been stolen. Almost a month later, in mid-June, Jonathan watches through a window as large square boxes are dropped off in the courtyard and loaded into the castle. No one heeds his cries for help. A week later, he sees the Count crawling down the castle wall again, this time in Jonathan's clothes. Jonathan realizes that the Count, by appearing in Jonathan's clothes, will provide sightings of Jonathan all the way back to Bistritz so that the Englishman's disappearance will not be traced to Dracula's castle. Jonathan also notices that the Count is carrying the same sack that was used to deliver the child to the three female vampires. Hours later, looking down through a window that faces the courtyard, Jonathan sees a woman who comes beating on the doors of the castle. She is screaming frantically, and calls out, "Monster, give me my child!" Jonathan hears Dracula whispering something from a tower high above, and a pack of wolves swarms through the gates and devours the woman.

Desperate, Jonathan attempts to scale the castle wall. He successfully makes it down to the window into the Count's room. The room is empty except for a pile of ancient gold and jewelry. He wanders through hallways and down stairs, into the ruins of a chapel that has since been used as a burial ground. Jonathan finds the boxes that he earlier saw being delivered to the castle. The boxes are full of earth. In one of the boxes, on a pile of earth, the Count lies in a trance-like state. His eyes are open but he seems like one dead or asleep, and even though he does not move his eyes are fixed in an expression of hate. Jonathan flees and climbs back to his own room.

On June 29th, the date of the last false letter, the Count tells Jonathan that he is free to leave. He mockingly opens the door for Jonathan, but the courtyard outside is full of hungry wolves. Later that night, Jonathan hears the Count talking to the three vampire women; they are just outside of Jonathan's door. The Count promises the three women that Jonathan is to be theirs the very next night.

June 30th is Jonathan's final entry. He awakes just before dawn, only to discover that the exit from the castle will not budge. In a desperate search for the key, he scales the outside wall down into the Count's room and the ruined chapel again. There he sees Dracula sleeping in a coffin, as still as before. But the Count looks much younger: his hair is no longer gray, and his skin is glowing with youthful vigor. He looks as though he has been feasting on a significant amount of blood. Jonathan grabs a nearby shovel to destroy the vampire, but when he strikes, Dracula's head turns toward him and his hypnotic gaze makes Jonathan lose control, so that the shovel strikes far from the Count's body. He goes back up to the Count's room, and then hears the gypsies open a new entrance down in the vault, but as he tries to go down the stairs again, the door to the stairs is blown shut by a gust of wind. He hears the gypsies shutting all of the boxes (including the one in which Dracula sleeps) and carrying them off, to be transported all the way to England. Jonathan resolves to try and climb the wall down farther than he has ever attempted‹he must escape before night falls. Jonathan believes that it would be better to fall to his death while attempting escape than to remain as prey for the undead.

Analysis Chapter 4

Notice that part of Jonathan's immersion in the world of Dracula's castle was his adaptation to a nocturnal schedule. Jonathan was beginning to sleep during the days and wake for the nights‹his adaptation shows the signs of a kind of travel. Part of travel is adjusting to new time zones and schedules. Travel here involves adjusting for the "time zone difference" not only between England and Romania, but also between the living and the dead. For escape to be possible, Jonathan has to revert to the sleeping schedule of the living‹only daylight can provide him safe cover for escape, allowing him to return to the world of the living.

The scene in which the peasant woman is devoured by Dracula's wolves plays out a familiar theme of Gothic fiction: that of the wicked aristocracy preying on the common people. The heroes of the tale are in a range of professions, but are plucked mainly from the upwardly mobile middle class. The bourgeoisie defined themselves against the aristocracy in terms of codified virtue. What they lacked in blood, they tried to compensate for through self-regulation of behavior, particularly sexual behavior. In many Gothic novels, a decadent nobleman deflowers and abandons virtuous young maidens of lower social status; Dracula will obsessively pursue young women throughout the rest of the novel.

In this chapter, we learn some things about Dracula's strengths and weaknesses. Apparently, he must sleep on a pile of very particular soil‹hence the many boxes full of Transylvanian earth. Later, we learn from Van Helsing that it must be soil sacred to his family. The boxes will be an important target towards the end of the book. During the sleeping stage, he cannot move, but he is not helpless: Jonathan's attempt to kill him is thwarted by a glance, and when Jonathan tries to escape a gust of wind slams the door shut before him. With feeding, the Count grows younger and stronger; with the population of London to prey on, he will grow stronger still. Dracula's inability to comprehend shorthand foreshadows part of the way that he will be defeated: though clever and powerful, the modern code is unbreakable for him. One of his greatest limitations is that in many ways he is a creature of the past, and the heroes of the story will be able to mobilize modern gadgetry and science‹alongside superstition and Christian icons‹against him. Jonathan's diary, it is worth noting, is kept in shorthand. Although Jonathan's unimaginative nature made him unable to understand the true nature of Dracula, rationality, science, and modern sensibilities (when combined with a good crucifix and knowledge of vampire lore) are valuable tools in the battle against the vampire.

Note also that Dracula sleeps in the vicinity of a ruined chapel. In this and in many other ways, the Count represents a perversion of Christian belief. His diet of blood gruesomely parallels the Christian Eucharist, in which believers drink and eat the blood and body of Jesus Christ. In many ways, the vampire perversely parallels Christ himself: like Christ, he has died and been reborn, but his resurrection is a blasphemy and a reverse-miracle of evil. While Christ sheds his blood so that others might have eternal life, Dracula drinks the blood of others so that he himself might live eternally. His immortality is a mockery of life‹he is not truly immortal but "undead," a term that Bram Stoker coined.

After this chapter, Dracula will rarely appear in the actual narrative. The first few chapters give us a foundation for a sense of his character: his aristocratic bearing, his cunning, his ruthlessness. From this point forward, he dominates the novel as a more mysterious force, absent but still at the center of the action. Absent but dangerous, he terrorizes the English men and women‹whose perspective we adopt through their journals and letters. Like them, we do not see Dracula but know that he is out there; Dracula is all the more frightening because we cannot know when and where he will strike.

Summary Chapter 5

Taken from letters between Mina Murray and Lucy Westenra, dated May 9th, May 17th, May 24th; also from the April 25th entry of Dr. Seward's diary (kept in phonograph); a letter from Quincey P. Morris to Arthur Holmwood, dated May 25th; and a telegram from Arthur Holmwood to Quincey Morris, dated May 26th.

After the dark world of the first four chapters, Chapter 5 takes us back to England and the correspondence between two beautiful and charming young women. Mina Murray and Lucy Westenra are dear friends, and the first part of the chapter is in the form of letters between the two of them. Mina tells Lucy that she is interested in working at acquiring the skills of a lady journalist‹not for the sake of a career, but for her own betterment. She is going to keep a detailed journal, and she hopes to practice her powers of observation. She also reports that Jonathan will be returning home soon, according to a letter that she just received. This moment places a bit of dark dramatic irony into the bright world of the women. The reader knows, although Lucy and Mina do not, that Jonathan is actually in great danger and that the letter Mina received was a false one, extracted from her husband and sent by a monster.

Lucy reports that she received three marriage proposals in a day, although her heart truly belongs to Arthur Holmwood. Dr. John Seward, the director of a lunatic asylum, and Quincey Morris, a wealthy Texan adventurer, are both rejected by Lucy in favor of Arthur Holmwood, a handsome young man who has been friends with Lucy since they were both children.

Dr. Seward reports in his diary that he has been feeling low since his rejection by Lucy, but his work has been made more interesting by a madman named Renfield who is under his care. Quincey's letter to Arthur is one of congratulations, inviting him to join Quincey and Dr. Seward for a night of drinking. Arthur sends a telegram saying that he will be there.

Analysis Chapter 5

The return of the narrative to England is both a relief and cause for apprehension. The world of England is bright and full of normal human drama, but the reader knows that this world will soon be invaded by the destructive power of Dracula. Mina and Lucy will become two of the Count's targets: the two women are friends, but there are important differences between them. Mina is the more calm and less flirtatious of the two. Her desire to improve her powers of observation brings us back to that important theme of the conflict between modern England and the ancient East: in addition to lending her letters and journal entries added credibility, her goal provides the setup for observational skills becoming a tool of survival. Lucy is a good woman, but she is also far more flirtatious. She asks in her letter why it is that a woman should not be able to take three husbands‹although she withdraws from her own question with worry, seemingly sorry that she asked. Her more overt sexuality will make her more vulnerable to Dracula.

This chapter introduces the rest of the main characters, with the exception of the vampire hunter Van Helsing. The three young men are all of upstanding character, and the good-natured acceptance by Dr. Seward and Quincey Morris of Lucy's decision shows their basic decency and goodness. All three of the men are friends, and remain so even after Lucy agrees to wed Arthur. By showing us the decency and goodness of these characters, Bram Stoker is preparing us for a clear-cut battle between good and evil.

Summary Chapter 6

Taken from the July 24th and August 1st entries of Mina Murray's journal; the June 5th, June 18th, July 1st, July 8th, July 19th, July 20th; the July 26th, July 27th, and August 3rd, August 6th entries of Mina Murray's journal.

As Mina said she would, she keeps a diary during her visit to Lucy. The two women are in the quaint seaside town of Whitby, on the northeast coast of England. She describes the beauty of the area and it's quaint provincial history. There is a ruined abbey nearby that is supposedly haunted by a "white lady." The town church has a large graveyard, but the grounds are pleasant and the view is beautiful. Many townspeople go on strolls there during the day. Lucy and Mina become friends with a gruff, no-nonsense local named Mr. Swales. He is a grandfatherly figure, speaking in dialect and full of provincial wisdom. He knows a good deal of the local history, and Mina and Lucy spend long hours talking to him about the area. However, Mina sorely misses Jonathan. He is not yet home, nor has he written in a long time.

Dr. Seward reports on the strange behavior of Renfield. Renfield is fascinated by animals that devour each other. He catches flies and feeds them to spiders, and he also eats the insects himself. He catches some sparrows and begins feeding the spiders to them, and he eventually asks Dr. Seward if he can have a kitten. Dr. Seward refuses. The next day, the sparrows are gone. Dr. Seward asks where they went, and Renfield responds cryptically that they all "flew away," but there are feathers around the room and blood on Renfield's pillow. Later, he vomits up feathers. Seward invents a new classification for Renfield, calling him a "zoophagous" (life-eating) maniac. Renfield seeks to "absorb as many lives as he can." Dr. Seward's journal reveals a wish to experiment further on Renfield, although the idea seems to trouble him ethically. And he expresses a wistful envy for Renfield, because the madman has a purpose. Dr. Seward is still depressed about his rejection by Lucy, and is trying to throw himself into work.

In Whitby, Mina is growing more worried about Jonathan and Lucy. Jonathan has not written, and Lucy has returned to her old childhood habit of sleepwalking. Lucy encounters Mr. Swales while she is out on a walk, and the old man tells her that he senses his own death is nigh. At that moment, they see a great ship out at sea, moving as if no one were at the helm.

Analysis Chapter 6

Whitby, although full of history and ghost stories, provides a strong contrast to Transylvania, continuing to express the theme of contrast between England and the East. In Whitby, the ghosts are eerie but do little more than provide local color. The white lady of the abbey is seen occasionally through a window‹she does not walk the earth and prey on the living. Whitby has a quaint graveyard through which people stroll, as well as benign ghosts that frighten people only from a distance. The town is a far cry from Transylvania, where peasants live in constant fear of the undead, and, in Jonathan Harker's words, "where the devil and his children still walk with earthly feet."

Renfield's behavior parallels Dracula's need to absorb life. Renfield longs to be a being like Dracula, and later the madman will become Dracula's henchman. Dr. Seward's journal entry touches on the important theme of madness. Madness is a kind of creeping threat throughout the novel‹the heroes will plan their counterattack against Dracula within the walls of Dr. Seward's asylum, a place where madness, though contained, surrounds them (Hindle xxv-xxvii). Throughout the book, madness and the supernatural are always threatening to invade the order of sane, "natural" lives. Both forces threaten the stability of the characters' normal English lives, and Seward's strange envious comment about Renfield hints at the slippery nature of the divide between madness and sanity.

Summary Chapter 7

This chapter is taken from clippings in the local paper (pasted into Mina Murray's journal). The clippings include the log of the Demeter, the ship seen at the end of Chapter 6. Also taken from the August 8th entry of Mina's journal. The Russian ship Demeter is washed ashore by a terrible and sudden storm, and it is discovered that the entire crew was missing. The only body found is that of the captain, tied to the wheel and grasping a crucifix. A huge dog is seen running from the ship; the animal escapes into the woods. The ship's cargo, a great number of large wooden boxes, are handed over to a local solicitor. The log reveals an ill-fated journey: the ship started from the Russian port of the Varna, and ten days into the voyage a crew member disappeared without a trace. Another sailor claimed to have seen a tall man who was clearly not a member of the crew. The men searched the ship but could find no one, and a few days later another sailor disappeared. Sailors continued to vanish, one by one, and the first mate began to go mad. When they were within reach of England, an impenetrable fog enveloped the ship, causing the vessel to lose its way. Only four men were left by then, but the two sailors soon vanished and the first mate was driven completely mad. After an encounter with Dracula, he chose to die in the sea. The captain initially believed that the first mate was the murderer, but shortly afterward he saw the vampire and resolved to go down with the ship. He tied himself to the wheel and held on to a crucifix. He died long before the ship reached land. The people of Whitby who find the ship treat his body with reverence; they plan to give him a large funeral. The dog that ran from the ship is nowhere to be found, although a local dog has been found brutally killed by another animal.

In her journal Mina wonders about Jonathan's fate and reports the events of the day. On the day of the sea captain's funeral, Lucy is restless. She has been sleepwalking constantly, and is in a terrible state. Mr. Swales has been found dead, his neck broken, his face frozen in an expression of terror. At the funeral, the dog of one of the locals becomes furious and then terrified. Mina notes the strange behavior, and the effect it has on the sensitive Lucy‹who looks at the dog in "an agonized way."

Analysis Chapter 7

The terrifying events of the voyage form a story within a story, a frightening foretaste of what is to come and one of the novel's great successes. Dracula destroys the entire crew, allowing them to live only long enough to facilitate his voyage to England. The ship's name, Demeter, is an allusion to the Greek earth goddess whose sorrow for her missing daughter causes winter. The name fits the vessel, which transports the earth that Dracula needs for his sleep. The story of the goddess has certain parallels to what is to come: Demeter's daughter Persephone, a beautiful and virtuous young woman, was taken and forced to wed Hades, lord of the Underworld. Demeter's mourning for her daughter, who must spend a certain part of the year in the realm of the dead, is the cause of winter. Like Persephone, Lucy and Mina are two virtuous and beautiful young women. Like Persephone, they will be forced to enter a kind of marriage with a lord of the Underworld. And like Persephone, they will dwell partly in the world of the living and partly in the world of the dead. Note also that during the sea voyage, Dracula (or Stoker) operates in a way that is very conscious of hierarchy: he kills the sailors first, and leaves the first mate and captain for last. Dracula's method on the voyage is consistent with the contempt of peasants he expressed to Jonathan Harker‹he kills off the subordinates first, saving the higher-ups for last. On the other hand, rather than act as commentary on Dracula's predilections, the valorization of the captain and the one-dimensional victim status of the common sailors may say something about Stoker's conceptions of class and leadership.

We see more of the extent of Dracula's powers: he conjures the great fog and the storm that sends the ship ashore. He also is immune to the knife of the first mate, who tries to attack him. He apparently has the power to transform himself into animal form: note that the captain's log makes no mention of a dog on board the ship, and yet a dog is seen fleeing from the vessel.

Lucy's behavior indicates that she is already a victim. In her strange sleepwalking she seems to have a place where she wants to go, but she gives up peacefully if someone stops her. It is as if she wants to reach a place without being discovered. When she witnesses the incident with the frightened dog at the funeral, she seems to understand why the dog is behaving so strangely. One interpretation is that Lucy has already seen Dracula and that the dog, in both its fear and its very being, hints at things that Lucy cannot really (and would rather not) remember: Dracula is part of the time in dog or wolf shape, and these chapters at least suggest the idea of bestiality. At the very least, the lust the vampires feel and incite is animal-like. In the Francis Ford Coppola film version of Dracula, these suggestions of bestiality are made explicit in a scene where a werewolf-like Dracula copulates with a willing Lucy.

Summary Chapter 8

Taken from the August 8th, August 11th, August 12th, August 13th, August 14th, August 15th, and August 17th entries of Mina Murray's journal. Also includes correspondence between Samuel F. Billington and Son, Whitby solicitors, and Messrs. Carter, Patterson, and Company, of London, in business letters dated August 17th and August 21st. Taken again from the August 18th and August 19th entries of Mina Murray's journal. Also contains the letter from Sister Agatha to Mina Murray, dated August 12th. Closes with the August 19th entry of Dr. Seward's diary.

In the middle of the night, Mina wakes up with a sense of dread and finds Lucy's bed empty. Frantically Mina searches for him, first through the house and then outside. She goes to the Church, thinking that Lucy might be at their favorite seat in the graveyard. From a distance, Mina sees her there: Lucy is half-reclining, while a shadowy figure with red eyes bends over her. When Mina reaches her, Lucy is alone, asleep, and breathing with difficulty. Later, Mina discovers puncture wounds on Lucy's throat, but she believes the wounds were caused by her own clumsiness while fastening Lucy's shawl. The next few nights, Mina locks their door so that the sleepwalking Lucy cannot get out. One day, while the two women are out on a walk, Lucy murmurs, "His red eyes again! They are just the same." Looking out at the graveyard spot where Mina found Lucy, Mina thinks she sees a shadow with red glowing eyes, but after a moment it seems to be a trick of the light. That night, Mina comes home and from outside sees Lucy asleep at their window, sitting on the sill with the window wide open and something like a large bird sitting next to her. By the time Mina gets upstairs to their room, Lucy is sleepwalking back to bed, clutching at her own throat. Mina continues to worry: as the days pass, Lucy grows paler and weaker. Mina also learns that Lucy's mother is dying‹Mrs. Westenra reveals to Mina that her heart is weakening, but asks that Lucy not be told. Mina continues to find Lucy sitting on the sill at night, and the puncture wounds on Lucy's throat grow larger.

Letters between solicitors in London and Whitby reveal that the fifty boxes of earth are to be delivered to Carfax. They are to be placed in the old ruined chapel of the mansion.

In Mina's journal, she reports that Lucy grows more haggard, although her spirits are high. Lucy even speaks of the night that Mina found her in the graveyard, telling Mina that she had an out-of-body experience and a strange, blissful feeling. And finally, Mina hears news of Jonathan. Sister Agatha of the Hospital of St. Joseph and St. Mary in Budapest sends a letter to Mina, reporting that Jonathan has been found and has been terribly sick with brain fever. He made it to Budapest by train, but has been ill and has ranted constantly of demons and wolves. Mina goes to join Jonathan and to help him return to England.

Dr. Seward reports that Renfield's behavior has been even more bizarre. He speaks constantly of a coming "Master," in cryptic phrases that parallel many of the statements about Christ made in the New Testament. On a night when Dr. Seward, still depressed by Lucy's rejection of him, is contemplating taking chloral hydrate to help him sleep, Renfield escapes. He is found at nearby Carfax, pressed against the door of the ruined chapel, pledging allegiance to his Master. They return him to his cell after a vicious fight. Amazed by Renfield's ferocity and strength, Dr. Seward orders that he be chained and put in a straitjacket.

Analysis Chapter 8

Lucy's seduction by Dracula parallels sexual seduction. The virgin is ruined by the aristocratic vampire, in keeping with a common Gothic theme of the aristocracy preying on women of non-aristocratic blood. His penetration of her parallels the penetration of sex, and Lucy is unable or unwilling to save herself from him. Lucy is far more vulnerable than Mina to Dracula's seduction: because of her flirtatious nature, she is an easier target for the vampire. Although she is still basically innocent and pure, Dracula will eventually corrupt her. She describes her sensations in the graveyard as blissful, and during her out of body experience the imagery she employs continues the theme of penetration: she says that during her out-of-body experience she felt that the "West Lighthouse was right under me." Then she feels " a sort of agonizing feeling, as if I were in an earthquake." Intentional or not, the lighthouse is a powerful phallic symbol, and the earthquake could arguably symbolize female orgasm. Here again, we see the theme of desire coupled with fear. The vampires are a grave threat to female purity, and so they are a threat to Victorian culture and order. The graveyard as the site of the seduction foreshadows Lucy's future status as one of the undead.

Briefly we see a dark side to Dr. Seward, who has been using the sedative chloral hydrate to aid his sleep. He resolves not to let the use of the drug grow into a habit. His conflict over the drug provides a glimpse of his character's darker side, and contributes to the ambiguous depiction of his asylum. The asylum is a place where darkness is contained and subjected to the analysis of science, but also where darkness surrounds and threatens the world of the sane. His anxiety over chloral hydrate hints at the threat of drug addiction and indicates the heavy toll his work takes on him. The asylum's proximity to Dracula's new estate also symbolizes the permeability of the barriers between the supernatural, the threat of madness, and the rational world of Victorian science and everyday life.

Renfield's ravings and his new position as Dracula's henchmen continue to develop the perverse parallels between Dracula and Christ. Much of Renfield's language borrows and reshapes scripture: "The bride-maidens rejoice the eyes that wait the coming of the bride; but when the bride draweth nigh, then the maidens shine not to the eyes that are filled." Renfield becomes an evil version of John the Baptist, one who prepares the way for a greater Lord. And at Carfax, as at Dracula's ancestral castle in Transylvania, the Count sleeps in a ruined chapel. He turns a Christian place of worship into a lair of evil, instating himself as the chapel's new Lord.

Summary Chapter 9

Taken from letters between Mina Harker and Lucy Westenra, dated August 24th and August 30th; the August 20th and August 23rd entries of Dr. Seward's diary; the August 24th and August 25th entries of Lucy Westenra's journal; letters and telegrams between Arthur Holmwood and Dr. Seward, dated August 31st, September 1st, and September 2nd; a letter from Abraham Van Helsing to Dr. Seward, dated September 2nd; a letter from Dr. Seward to Arthur Holmwood, dated September 3rd; the September 4th entry of Dr. Seward's diary; telegrams from Dr. Seward to Abraham Van Helsing, dated September 4th, 5th, and 6th.

Mina writes to Lucy, telling her that Jonathan can remember almost nothing of what happened to him Transylvania. He believes his journal contains the secret of the origins of his brain fever, but he is afraid to read it. He gives Mina the journal, giving her permission to read it but asking that she never tell him what is written there. Jonathan and Mina decide to marry immediately. Mina wraps Jonathan's journal, ties it, and seals the knot with wax, resolving to never read the book unless for Jonathan's sake or because of "some stern duty." Lucy sends a letter congratulating Mina and telling her that Arthur has joined her at Whitby.

In Dr. Seward's diary, we learn more about Renfield. Locked up, he continually murmurs to himself, "I can wait." He escapes again, and is found once more at the door of the chapel of Carfax. As the attendants try to subdue the enraged madman, Renfield grows suddenly calm at the sight of a giant bat flying across the sky.

Lucy begins to keep her own diary. She is back from Whitby, but her health is still failing. At night, her sleep is disturbed by the sound of something scratching at her window. Her throat hurts terribly.

Arthur writes to Dr. Seward, asking that he come and see Lucy. Her health is deteriorating, and Arthur is worried. Although concerned about his fiancée, he is suddenly called away to the side of his father, who is very ill. Dr. Seward goes to Lucy and reports to Arthur that he can find no cause of her illness. Dr. Seward writes a letter to his old mentor Abraham Van Helsing, a brilliant doctor with a vast knowledge of obscure diseases. Van Helsing makes a brief visit, unable to pinpoint the cause of Lucy's illness but visibly disturbed by Lucy's symptoms. He tells Dr. Seward to alert him to any changes in Lucy's condition.

Renfield is back to catching flies and eating them, using sugar as bait. But then he has a sudden change of heart, saying that he is sick of his old peculiar behaviors.

On September 4th and 5th, Dr. Seward sends telegrams saying that Lucy's condition is improving. On September 6th, he sends an urgent telegram saying that there has been a terrible change. He tells Van Helsing to come right away.

Analysis Chapter 9

For much of the novel, Stoker indulges the reader with dramatic irony, meaning that the reader knows the significance of events long before the characters do. When Mina seals Jonathan's journal, she does not realize that she is causing a costly delay in understanding the force that is attacking Lucy. Because of the structure of the epistolary novel, the reader is able to assemble all of the narrative fragments before the characters do, making the reader, along with Dracula, the only person who understands everything that is happening. The wounds on Lucy's neck, Jonathan's diary, the bat that swoops across the sky‹the novel is replete with objects and events of which the characters lack full understanding.

Jonathan's brain fever develops the theme of the threat of madness. Jonathan literally goes mad, raving incoherently and then unable to remember anything of his experience. The theme of the threat of madness plays itself out in different ways throughout the novel: anxieties about the possibility of madness at times make characters doubt their own senses or the senses of those they trust. Jonathan's madness might come in part from the shock of having everything he thought he knew thrown into question. In his case, real madness may have been a protection against what he had witnessed‹the idea of madness operates in the reverse direction later, when other characters use the possibility of madness to avoid the conclusion that the supernatural is at work.

The theme of madness fits well in a novel about vampires. Perhaps the greatest horror of the vampire is that it does not merely kill: its victims eventually lose themselves and become members of the undead. As in madness, there is a loss of self. In dealing with vampires and the insane, the greatest fear is not that you might be killed by a monster, but that you might become one.

Summary Chapter 10

Including a letter from Dr. Seward to Arthur Holmwood, dated September 6th; the September 7th, September 8th, and September 9th entries of Dr. Seward's diary; the September 9th entry of Lucy Westenra's diary; and the September 10th and September 11th entries of Dr. Seward's diary.

Dr. Van Helsing arrives and examines Lucy, who has grown even more haggard. He performs a blood transfusion from Arthur to Lucy, and then sends Arthur away. Van Helsing instructs Seward to stay up with Lucy, and then the older man returns to Amsterdam to retrieve some necessary books and supplies. The next day, Lucy is much refreshed. She writes in her diary that she feels as though Arthur's presence is with her at night, and that she feels safe in the presence of these men. Seward is exhausted from staying up with her the past two nights, and Lucy insists that she is well enough to sleep without his watch. Seward sleeps on a couch in a room adjacent to Lucy's. The next morning, the returned Van Helsing wakes Seward. The two men are horrified to discover that Lucy is worse than ever: she has lost an incredible amount of blood, and her gums have shrunken back from her teeth. Van Helsing performs another transfusion, this time using Seward as the donor. The next day, a package containing garlic flowers arrives for Van Helsing. He makes a wreath for Lucy to wear and hangs flowers all around the room, smearing them around all the exits. Lucy is allowed to sleep alone that night, but she instructed not to remove the wreath or open the door or window.

Analysis Chapter 10

Some critics have claimed that in Dracula, modern science is represented as useless against the vampire's primal evil, and that only the old knowledge of superstitions and folklore provide any kind of defense. But a close look at Van Helsing reveals this position to be an overstatement: although the Victorian mindsets of the characters makes it difficult for them to recognize that they are up against a vampire, science and rationality, when employed properly, become powerful weapons for fighting Dracula. Van Helsing is able to correctly diagnose Lucy's condition. In him, seemingly contradictory modes of knowledge‹Eastern and Western, ancient and modern‹are combined. He is a rational scientist, but he is also a student of the occult. His blood transfusions, the products of modern medicine, help to buy time for Lucy, and the methods of science‹observation, experiment, analysis‹are staples of Van Helsing's strategy. Combined with these tools, Van Helsing also uses the old superstitions and Christian faith. Seward, still unaware that a vampire has caused Lucy's illness, remarks that Van Helsing's use of the garlic is unlike anything from a medical book; Van Helsing is more than just a modern Western medical practitioner. Van Helsing's national origin is a symbol of this combination of different modes of thought: he is from Amsterdam, which is geographically located between England and Transylvania. The theme of East versus West rises again, with the science of the West and the superstition and folklore of the East playing themselves out as two different forms of knowledge. Van Helsing is a bridge between these two very different worlds.

Van Helsing's combination of modern science and superstition suggests a critique of an unimaginative scientific outlook that leaves no room for the spiritual. While science and rationality are useful and powerful tools, there is a place, suggests the novel, for older and non-rational forms of thinking. Christian symbols and faith will be mobilized as the most important weapons against the vampire. In these ways, the novel suggests that science and reason must be tempered by deep humility before the unknown and by respect for forces beyond man.

Summary Chapter 11

Includes the September 12th entry of Lucy Westenra's diary; the September 13th entry of Dr. Seward's diary; the September 17th entry of Lucy Westenra's diary; a September 18th article from the Pall Mall Gazette; the September 17th entry of Dr. Seward's diary; a telegram from Van Helsing to Dr. Seward, dated September 17th; the September 18th entry of Dr. Seward's diary; a memorandum left by Lucy Westenra, dated September 17th.

When Van Helsing and Seward arrive the next morning, they are greeted by Mrs. Westenra, who tells them cheerfully that she removed all of the flowers from the room, including the wreath around Lucy's neck, and opened the window to let in fresh air. Once Mrs. Westenra has left the room, Van Helsing breaks down‹the first time Seward has seen his old mentor lose control. Van Helsing regains his composure and the two men go into Lucy's room to find her horribly drained. This time, Van Helsing is the donor of the needed blood. He then warns Mrs. Westenra to never remove anything from the room, and he tells Dr. Seward that he himself will stay with Lucy for the next few nights. In her diary, Lucy reports feeling much better, even though she can hear the sound of something flapping angrily outside of her window.

The September 18th article in the Pall Mall Gazette reports that a large wolf has escaped from its cage and returned the next day, its head covered by broken glass.

Back at the asylum and awaiting word from Van Helsing, Seward is working in his office when he is attacked by Renfield. The lunatic bursts in and attacks him with a knife, cutting his wrist. Seward knocks him back with a punch, and at that point Renfield seems to lose interest in him. As the attendants rush in, Renfield is busying himself licking up the small pool of Seward's blood on the floor. Meanwhile, Van Helsing sends a telegram telling Seward to go to Hillingham and spend the night watching Lucy, as the older doctor needs to spend a day in Amsterdam. The telegram is delayed by a day, so Seward does not get the instructions on time.

Lucy has trouble sleeping, and her mother comes in to lie with her in bed. Suddenly, a wolf uses its head to smash through the window; only the animal's head breaks through the glass. Lucy's mother thrashes around fearfully, accidentally tearing away Lucy's garlic wreath. The old woman has a fatal heart attack. The wolf then withdraws its head and disappears, and Lucy loses consciousness. When she comes to, the four maids of the house come in. Terrified, they wrap Mrs. Westenra's body in a sheet and lay it on the bed. Lucy orders them to go to the kitchen and have a glass of wine to calm their nerves. She also lays all of the garlic flowers on her mother's body. When the maids don't come back, Lucy goes to the kitchen to find the four women unconscious; the wine smells like the drug laudanum. Lucy writes that the "air seems full of specks, floating and circling," and finishes her entry fearful that she will not survive the night.

Analysis Chapter 11

Van Helsing has very limited success in fighting Dracula. Mrs. Westenra unwittingly removes the garlic, dooming her daughter to another night of draining. Van Helsing tells no one of the thing that is responsible. When Lucy is revitalized by new blood, Seward is left doubting his own sanity, wondering if working at the asylum has incapacitated his mind‹here, as elsewhere in the novel, a character's casual comments play on the theme of slippage between madness and sanity.

Due to a delayed telegram, the vampire is given a window of opportunity, and here we see how cunning the Count can be. Although he is powerless to break through the entrance protected by garlic, he can use the wolf to smash through the glass. Note that Stoker places the newspaper article before the narrative of Lucy's memorandum, even though the dates show that the article came afterward. This move helps to create suspense, as the reader wonders about the significance of the escaped and returned wolf. Stoker's order also gives the events of the memorandum the climactic positioning in the chapter. The article reports that when the wolf returns, its head is covered in glass; this clue establishes that the wolf is the same animal Dracula uses to get to Lucy. In one move, Dracula causes the death of Mrs. Westenra, rids the room of the flowers (as Lucy covers her mother's body with them), and creates an opening through which he can enter. He uses the more common tactic of drugging the wine to put the maids out of the way.

Summary Chapter 12

Includes the September 18th and September 19th entries of Dr. Seward's diary; an unopened letter from Mina Harker to Lucy Westenra, dated September 17th; a report from Patrick Hennessey, M.D., to Dr. Seward, dated September 20th; an unopened letter from Mina Harker to Lucy Westenra, dated September 18th; and the September 20th entry of Dr. Seward's diary.

The two doctors arrive the next day but all of the entrances are locked; they are forced to break in through a window. They find the four maids unconscious, Mrs. Westenra dead, and Lucy near death. Seward wakes three of the servants (the fourth is young and continues to sleep), who draw up a bath for Lucy. A messenger arrives from Arthur Holmwood, but Seward tells the maid to tell the messenger to wait; he then forgets about him. After giving the unconscious Lucy a warm bath, the two doctors are at a loss: Lucy needs another transfusion, and neither of them has enough blood to give one. At that moment, Quincey Morris appears‹he is the messenger from Arthur that Seward has kept waiting. He gives the blood. Van Helsing has found Lucy's memorandum, which describes last night's events. He gives it to Seward, who does not know what to make of it, but for Van Helsing the memorandum confirms his suspicions. Later, Quincey asks Seward how Lucy could possibly absorb so much blood‹his is the fourth transfusion, and her body is not big enough to carry so much. While Lucy sleeps, Van Helsing puts the memorandum back on her chest, where he found it. In her sleep, she tries to rip the memorandum to pieces, but Van Helsing manages to save the piece of paper. The next day, Seward reports that Lucy's teeth look much longer and sharper. Arthur Holmwood arrives. He is overcome with emotion by the tragic events. Seward writes that he doubts Lucy will survive another day.

Meanwhile, Mina writes (in an unopened letter) to tell Lucy that she and Jonathan have returned to England. Jonathan is now the junior partner in Hawkins' firm, and Jonathan and Mina have been made the heirs to Hawkins' fortune.

Seward's assistant Patrick Hennessey reports the latest news on Renfield. On seeing two men who are carrying boxes of earth to the Carfax estate, Renfield escapes and attacks them before he is subdued and brought back to the asylum.

Mina writes to tell Lucy that Mr. Hawkins has died, leaving the Harkers his whole estate. Jonathan is deeply troubled, in mourning and anxious about his new responsibilities.

Lucy is near death. In her sleep, she tears away the garlic wreath that Van Helsing lays on her throat, and her teeth, particularly her canines, are very sharp. Whenever she is awake, she pulls the flowers near her; when asleep, she pushes them away. Seward notices a bat flying around outside. On the morning of September 20th, the doctors discover that the wounds on her throat have completely disappeared. Van Helsing says gravely that the end is near, and they call in Arthur. Lucy asks Arthur to kiss her, "in a soft, voluptuous voice, such as I [Seward] had never heard from her lips." He is about to do so, when Van Helsing stops him. At first, Lucy is enraged, but after a moment and a short sleep she regains her old self. She calls Van Helsing her true friend, and asks him to protect Arthur and to give her peace. The old man solemnly swears that he will do both. Her eyes meet with Arthur's after he kisses her on the forehead instead of the lips, and she dies. She seems to regain her beauty in death, the color returning to her face.

Analysis Chapter 12

Renfield's licking of Seward's blood suggests why he has given up eating flies‹his desire to consume life has found a new model in the vampire. He seeks to serve his master and also to imitate him.

A series of tragedies hit all at once: Mrs. Westenra, Arthur's father, Mr. Hawkins, and Lucy all day within a few days of each other. (The death of Arthur's father is implied in the September 20th entry of Seward's diary.) Lucy's transformation is already under way. Her teeth sharpen, and while she sleeps she cannot bear the scent of garlic. She also attempts to destroy the evidence provided in her own memorandum. Her voice, when she asks Arthur for a kiss, is far more sexual than any voice Lucy has ever used. She is on her way to becoming a depraved sexual being, like the women in Dracula's castle. Her transformation is from a flirtatious but basically pure Victorian maiden to a sexually wanton member of the undead. She seems aware, in the end, of what is happening. She asks Van Helsing to protect Arthur and give her peace‹which will mean destroying the vampire that she is about to become.

Summary Chapter 13

From Dr. Seward's diary; the September 22nd entry of Mina Harker's journal; the September 22nd entry of Dr. Seward's diary; and two articles from the Westminster Gazette, dated September 25th.

Lucy and Mrs. Westenra are to be buried together. Van Helsing takes possession of Lucy's diary, and the two doctors deal with the logistics of the burial and the Westenras' papers. Lucy's body has been dressed and prepared by the undertaker and his staff, and if anything looks more beautiful than ever. Van Helsing seems disturbed by this phenomenon, and he puts garlic flowers around the bed and the body. He also puts a crucifix over Lucy's mouth. He tells Seward that the next day they are going to decapitate her and stuff her mouth with garlic. But the next morning, Van Helsing reports to Seward that the crucifix was stolen (although he retrieved it) and consequently they will have to wait before doing anything. Seward cannot understand Van Helsing's actions, but he trusts him. Arthur Holmwood (Lord Godalming now that his father is dead) is the beneficiary of the Westenras' estate. When he arrives, heartbroken and in deep pain, Van Helsing and he affirm that they are friends. Van Helsing asks to read Lucy's diary, and Arthur gives his permission.

Mina and Jonathan are in London when Jonathan sees the Count. Suddenly he seems to remember something‹he is horrified, saying that the Count is here and is now grown young, but he is so upset that he passes out and on waking can remember nothing. Disturbed by these bouts of forgetfulness, Mina resolves to open Jonathan's diary and read it for his own sake. But that night, they arrive home to find a telegram informing them of the deaths of Lucy and Mrs. Westenra. Meanwhile, as Seward reports in what he believes will be his last diary entry, Lucy is buried and Van Helsing is going to Amsterdam for a brief visit.

Newspaper reports show that a number of children have temporarily gone missing in the same area where Lucy was buried. The children claim to have played with a "bloofer lady." They return with small bite wounds on their necks.

Analysis Chapter 13

Stoker continues to establish, even under tragic conditions, the stalwart manhood of his band of heroes. Van Helsing and Arthur affirm that they are friends, and Arthur, though crushed, is comforted by the steady gentleness of Quincey Morris and Dr. Seward.

Lucy has now become a victimizer of children. Her attacks against children are a perversion of motherly behavior, and they also parallel the crimes of a pedophile. The sexual nature of the vampire's attacks is already well-established, and the "bloofer lady" always lures the children away with innocent-sounding invitations. Like the vampires in the castle, she now preys on the young and helpless. But there is an element of seduction in it that makes the children willingly go with her: later, in Chapter XV, one of her victims wakes in the hospital and ask immediately if he can go "play with the Œbloofer lady.'"

Summary Chapter 14

Includes the September 23rd and September 24th entries of Mina Harker's journal; a letter from Van Helsing to Mina Harker, dated September 24th; a telegram from Mrs. Harker to Van Helsing, dated September 25th; letters between Van Helsing and Mrs. Harker, dated September 25th; the September 26th entry of Jonathan Harker's journal; and the September 26th entry of Dr. Seward's diary.

Mina reads Jonathan's journal, and is troubled by the contents. She believes that the writings in the journal may have been influenced by the brain fever, but she is not sure. She decides to transcribe it (it is in shorthand), so that it might be made intelligible to others if the need arises. Van Helsing, who has read Mina's letters to Lucy, visits Mina to ask questions about the events leading up to Lucy's death. Mina is impressed by the doctor, and she gives him Jonathan's journal. Van Helsing reads it and comes to see the Harkers the next day. Jonathan's spirits are restored by Van Helsing's belief in him, and he is regaining his memories of the horrible events in Transylvania. Van Helsing praises Mina, her mind and her virtue, and he pledges friendship with Jonathan. He wants to ask questions to Jonathan about Transylvania at some point in the near future. As he is leaving by train, he sees the newspaper article on the "bloofer lady" and is horrified by how quickly the attacks have begun.

Dr. Seward has reopened his diary. He reports that Renfield is back to his old business of flies and spiders. He meets with Van Helsing, who shows him the article about the wounded children and insinuates a connection between Lucy's death and the recent attacks. Seward is skeptical. Van Helsing launches into a long speech about the many unexplained phenomena in the world, urging him to open his mind. Seward guesses that whatever thing caused Lucy's death is now attacking children, which Van Helsing sadly denies. He tells Seward that the attacks were made by Lucy herself.

Analysis Chapter 14

Note how little conflict there is between the heroes of the novel. All are united by virtue, pledges of friendship, and love. With the group on its way to being assembled into a full team, and with Jonathan's journal in the hands of Van Helsing, the novel has reached a major turning point. Van Helsing now knows more about what he is up against, and soon the whole group will be united in the fight against Dracula. The theme of friendship, particularly between men, is important. Many scenes have men pledging friendship with one another or pledging their loyalty to Mina. Their unity will be an indispensable asset.

The coincidence of Dracula attacking Lucy, who happened to be Mina's best friend, is an argument that fate or providence has a strong hand in the novel's events. The theme of fate or God's hand in events is touched on throughout the novel. Van Helsing later states that Mina was fashioned by God for some great purpose, and the great coincidence of Jonathan's connection to Lucy seems too unlikely to be pure chance. Later, Mina wonders aloud if God chose them to suffer and do his work. Dracula is thwarted because he chooses a victim with a connection to Jonathan, a victim who is friends with a friend of Van Helsing‹these forces combine to make his attempted "invasion" of England impossible. Harker was somehow able to survive his escape from the castle, and Van Helsing's arrival on the scene will be vital for the vampire's defeat. Fate seems to have a hand in bringing together the right people to bring about Dracula's defeat.

Dr. Seward's reopening of his journal, which he though he had finished, parallels the unfinished nature of Lucy's death. What should have been the end, as Van Helsing cryptically says, is only the beginning.

Summary Chapter 15

Includes the September 26th and September 27th entries of Seward's diary; a note left by Van Helsing for Seward (not delivered), dated September 27th; and the September 28th and September 29th entries of Seward's diary.

Seward is doubtful of Van Helsing's theory, but he agrees to accompany him to examine one of the child victims. The wounds are nearly identical to the ones Lucy had, and the doctor tells them that the child asked, on waking, if he could go and "play with the Œbloofer lady.'" That night, Seward and Van Helsing break into the Westenra family vault. Lucy's coffin is empty, but Seward remains unconvinced. They wait outside. Just before daybreak, a white figure is seen moving across the graveyard. Van Helsing finds a small child. They leave the child on a pathway for a policeman to find; the two men wait in the bushes until they are sure the child is safe. The next day, they break into the vault and find Lucy's body in the coffin. If anything, she looks more beautiful and radiant than ever. Van Helsing finally reveals to Seward, in explicit terms, that her death was caused by a vampire and she is now one of the undead. Although he wants to kill her now, he thinks it is best that Arthur learn of what has happened. He will use garlic and crucifix to keep Lucy in her tomb. After a night's sleep, Seward begins to doubt Van Helsing again. That day, Van Helsing tells Quincey and Arthur that they most go to the Westenra vault and open Lucy's tomb. He tells them that Lucy is now undead, and that he will have to decapitate her. Arthur is initially outraged, and refuses consent, but after an impassioned plea for trust from Van Helsing, he agrees to at least go to the tomb.

Analysis Chapter 15

Even after all that he has seen Seward finds it difficult to accept Van Helsing's theory. He wonders if Van Helsing has gone mad. Part of the horror of the vampire is that it leads one to question his sanity and the sanity of others: the threat of madness is one that seems to affect Seward heavily and constantly. He questions his own sanity and the sanity of his mentor. Remember also that Jonathan Harker's encounter with the supernatural literally drove him mad. In this chapter, the theme of madness and its threat plays itself out as a fear of being able to trust one's own judgement or the judgement of others. The possibility of madness threatens the legitimacy of reason and scientific method. Everything is thrown into doubt, including evidence provided by the senses and the conclusions reached through one's judgement.

Summary Chapter 16

Includes the September 29th morning and night entries of Dr. Seward's diary.

That night, Van Helsing, Dr. Seward, Arthur, and Quincey Morris go to Lucy's tomb. As Van Helsing promised, it is empty. Van Helsing seals the Westenra vault with communion wafers and the four men hide and wait. After a while, a figure in white carrying a child appears. In the moonlight, it is unmistakably Lucy‹although far more cruel and wantonly sexual than she was in life. At Van Helsing's signal, the four men surround her. She urges Arthur to come to her, calling him "my husband," and Arthur begins to move toward her as if under a spell. Van Helsing, crucifix in hand, intercedes. Lucy tries to enter her tomb but cannot. Van Helsing asks Arthur if he can proceed with what must be done, and Arthur grants him permission. Van Helsing then removes the Host from the vault door, after which Lucy slips through the tiny opening back into her tomb. The child is hurt but still alive, and as before, they leave him on a path for a policeman.

The next day, they return. After they open the tomb, Van Helsing promises that if Lucy is killed, her soul will be free and with God. He also explains that anyone who dies as the hands of the undead become vampires themselves. Arthur takes the stake and hammer, and he stakes Lucy through the heart. As it happens, the body writhes and screams. After the deed is done, Lucy once again looks as she did in life. The sharp teeth are gone, and her face shows she is at peace. Arthur and Quincey leave the vault, and the two doctors decapitate Lucy and stuff her mouth with garlic. Van Helsing then urges the three men to help him: he wants to track down Dracula himself and destroy him. All four men swear solemnly to work together until Dracula is no more.

Analysis Chapter 16

The death scene of the vampire Lucy resonates with overtones of penetration and sexuality. Until this moment, Lucy has only been penetrated by Dracula‹the staking is, in a way, her fiancé's first chance at his nuptial rights. Note that Arthur does the deed, even though it might make more sense for a more detached man to drive home the stake. As with Lucy's description of her out-of-body experience, the imagery of the phallus, penetration, and the orgasm are the three dominant shapers of the scene. Arthur plunges his stake into Lucy's body, driving deeper and deeper with a ferocity that surprises the other men, while the vampire Lucy screams and quivers. Seward records that the body "Shook and quivered and twisted in wild contortions," and afterward Arthur is exhausted from the effort.

One of the novel's important themes is Christian redemption. Even the vampires, hellish servants of evil, achieve peace and salvation when they die. Lucy is not condemned for her attacks on the children, but rather is returned to her former state of innocence when the stake is driven through her heart. Van Helsing promises that any vampire that is destroyed returns to God‹even agents of evil are not beyond the Christian God's saving grace. After she is staked, the look of peace on Lucy's face confirms the truth of Van Helsing's promise.

Summary Chapter 17

Taken from the September 29th entry of Dr. Seward's diary and the September 29th entry of Mina Harker's journal, interspersed; the September 30th entry of Dr, Seward's diary; the September 29th entry of Jonathan Harker's journal;

The Harkers come to stay with Seward at the asylum. Mina listens to Seward's diary and transcribes it (she is very impressed by the idea of a diary kept on phonograph), and Seward, in turn, reads the journals of Jonathan and Mina Harker. In reading Jonathan Harker's journal, he realizes that the Count's new estate is at nearby Carfax, and that Renfield's behavior might be connected to the vampire's arrival. Jonathan attempts to track down the boxes of earth and learns that all fifty of them were delivered to Carfax, but he fears that some may have been moved. He and Mina put all of the journal entries, letters, and newspaper clippings in order.

The next day, Arthur and Quincey Morris arrive. Mina gives them the papers for study. Arthur is still overcome by grief. Although he and Mina have never met, he opens his heart to her, crying bitterly while she comforts him. A little later, Mina offers the same comfort to the more restrained Quincey Morris.

Analysis Chapter 17

Mina's fascination with the phonograph reflects a more general fascination that the novel has with gadgetry. The book is full of the latest inventions: phonographs, shorthand, electric lanterns. Part of the arsenal the group wields against Dracula is this knowledge of scientific method, reason, and the latest inventions‹which are the fruits of modern science.

The group is beginning to work together. With the packet of papers assembled by Mina and Jonathan, the group has valuable information at their disposal. Mina and the men are also united by affection for Lucy and a desire to see her avenged. Finally, the characters of the novel have all of the information that the reader has had all along, and they know exactly what they are up against. The dramatic irony that was such a large structural part of all the previous chapters comes to an end here.

Mina's comforting of Quincey and Arthur shows the incredible reserves of strength she has at her disposal. She, too, has suffered great tragedies: she has lost her best friend, as well as Hawkins, who was the closest thing to a father she ever knew. She also has had to care for her recovering husband. Yet she has worked tirelessly at transcribing and compiling the papers, and she is the one that has provided a strong shoulder for the men to cry upon.

Summary Chapter 18

Includes the September 30th entry of Seward's diary; the September 30th entry of Mina Harker's journal; and the October 1st entry of Seward's diary.

Mina wishes to see Renfield, and is persuasive enough so that Seward allows it. Before she enters, Renfield swallows all of his flies and spiders. He treats her with extreme courtesy, and his speech becomes suddenly coherent and articulate. He even spouts philosophy and diagnoses his own former condition‹former, that is, according to him.

Van Helsing arrives. On learning that the journals, letters, and articles have been compiled at Mina's suggestion, he praises her virtues and her intellect but warns Seward that the men must shield her from the difficult business of destroying the vampire. The whole group meets after reading the compiled papers, and Van Helsing warns them about the monster they face. To fail is to become a vampire and to be eternally damned, but they must not shirk from their duty. He lists the vampire's powers: he has unbelievable physical strength; he can see in the dark; he can vanish and reappear; he can change his shape at will, to mist or wolf or bat or elemental dust; he can summon animals to do his bidding; and he can control the weather near him. But he is stopped by garlic, crucifixes, and the wafers of the Host; a sacred bullet, decapitation, and a stake through the heart can kill him; he loses his power at sunrise and must return to his coffin to rest; only in unholy places can he change his shape at will (otherwise he can only change at sunrise, sunset, or at noon); he can only cross running water at low or full tide; and he can only enter a place if he is invited‹though, once invited, he can come and go at will. At this point, they are all shocked by a gun shot‹Quincey Morris, who has just gone outside, has shot at a bat. The men decide to go to Carfax to see if all of the boxes of earth are present. Just as they are about to leave, an attendant tells Seward that Renfield wants to see all of the men. Speaking like a sane and very articulate man, he begs to be released‹eventually begging even to be released still chained, as long as he is out of the asylum. He warns the men that there will be dire consequences if he is not released‹not as a threat, but as the words of a man who does not wish to be guilty of something. When Seward refuses, Renfield asks Dr. Seward to remember that Renfield tried his best to convince him.

Analysis Chapter 18

Van Helsing praises Mina by saying that she is a good combination, a woman's heart and a gifted man's brain. God, according to Van Helsing, fashioned her for a great purpose. Mina's gifts are evidence of the hand of God, and the theme of fate is brought in once again. Mina is the focus of the second half of the novel, as Dracula turns his predatory attention on her. Although Van Helsing is Dracula's antagonist in one sense, Mina is the vampire's antagonist in the more vital spiritual sense. The struggle will be between Dracula's seductive powers and Mina's Victorian purity.

Some critics have argued that Mina's combination of a man's brain and woman's heart was a subtle fictional defense of "inversion," the nineteenth-century medical category for homosexuality. Dracula was published shortly after Oscar Wilde's trial, and scholars have convincingly argued that Stoker himself may have had strong homoerotic impulses‹as indicated by his relationship to the actor Henry Irving and his long correspondence with Walt Whitman. If Mina's attributes are a kind of accommodation of inversion, it may have been meant to articulate a position to himself rather than make a defense that was legible to the reader.

Van Helsing's speech to the group shows the mixed strategy they will take in hunting Dracula: Van Helsing argues for the use of the implements of Christian faith, but he also speaks of the advantages provided by science and reason. One of the book's themes is the contrast between East and West, and part of that contrast is the opposition between what might seem to be two mutually exclusive forms of knowledge. But the novel and the approach taken by Van Helsing present an argument for syncretism. The lessons and wisdom of Eastern European folklore will be combined with rationality and Western science.

The bat outside the window and Renfield's plea foreshadow the trouble the heroes might have. Although they are finally united, their enemy is resourceful and dangerous.

Summary Chapter 19

Includes the October 1st entries of Jonathan Harker's journal, Dr. Seward's diary, and Mina Harker's journal; as well as the October 2nd entry of Mina Harker's journal.

Armed with crucifixes, garlic, holy communion wafers, electric lamps, knives, and revolvers, the men go to investigate Carfax. The break into the house, and, after they find some keys, Jonathan, having seen the plans to the place, is able to lead them to the chapel. The chapel is full of a nauseating smell, and the men investigate to find that twenty-one of the boxes are missing. A few of the men think that they see Dracula's face outside the window, but dismiss it after a moment as a trick of the light. The room then becomes overrun by thousands of rats. Arthur takes the keys and throws open a chapel door to the outside. He blows a whistle and his dogs, which he has brought to Seward's house, come to the rescue. Although initially timid at the chapel's threshold, once encouraged the dogs send the rats running. The men return, having accounted for only twenty-nine boxes but having survived a crucial first step. Jonathan remarks before going to bed that Mina looks paler than usual. The next morning, Van Helsing asks Seward for permission to see Renfield. The interview is short‹Renfield insults Van Helsing and tells him to leave, which he does.

Mina reports bad dreams. The night the men go to Carfax, a mist creeps over the lawn outside her window. She can hear Renfield screaming, but he is silenced by the asylum attendants. In a state of half-sleep, she has a dream that mist is pouring into her room. In the mist, she can see two red eyes, and later, she sees a white face bending towards her. The next night, she sleeps but does not dream. She wakes feeling unrefreshed. Renfield asks to see her, and when she does he kisses her hand and asks God to bless her. Later, she asks Seward for a drug to help her sleep, which he provides, but she goes to bed feeling a sudden fear that she might want the power to wake.

Analysis Chapter 19

The electric lanterns, a relatively new invention at the time, are combined with the more traditional weapons for fighting vampires. The men also carry revolvers. The synthesis of old and new continues, and helps the men to have some success on their first foray into Dracula's domain. Van Helsing also learns that although Dracula can control animals, they are still only animals‹as shown by the rats, which were driven back by Arthur's dogs.

The reader immediately realizes that Mina is Dracula's new victim. Mina's failure to realize what is happening is perhaps a failure in the novel's verisimilitude, especially considering that she has read Lucy's accounts of what happened. Perhaps Dracula's power to hypnotize his victims is able to convince her to interpret her experiences as a dream. The reader knows more than the characters, but the dramatic irony is no longer built structurally into the novel. Mina has as much information at her disposal as the reader; her failure is one of interpretation.

Summary Chapter 20

Includes the October 1st and October 2nd entries of Jonathan Harker's journal; the October 1st entry of Seward's diary; a letter from Mitchell, Sons and Candy to Lord Godalming, dated October 1st; and the October 2nd entry of Seward's diary.

Jonathan tracks down the destinations of the missing boxes, which have been deposited in houses in different places in and around London. Twelve boxes have been put into two houses in different parts of London, and the last nine boxes are in a house in Picadilly, a London suburb. The men wonder how they will break into houses in populated areas.

Seward speaks with Renfield some more. Renfield seems more articulate, but his ideas are still bizarre. He seems torn by the need to consume life, but he is fearful of consuming souls. Reports of Renfield's behavior show a man in deep conflict; he is at times articulate and at time seems as if he is consumed by a deep remorse.

The men try to plan an assault that will destroy all fifty boxes in one day, between sunrise and sunset. Van Helsing researches magical defenses and cures to use against the vampire. Seward characteristically wonders if they have all gone mad, and will wake up in straitjackets. The chapter ends with a report from an attendant that Renfield has had a terrible accident. Dr. Seward goes to investigate. . .

Analysis Chapter 20

While Dracula preys on the neglected Mina, the men plan to assault Dracula at his weak spots. Jonathan is able to use his training to track down the boxes, and all will be wiped away in a day. Renfield's ravings, for the perceptive reader, hint at the role he has had in Mina's victimization. His fear of consuming souls reveals guilt he feels over enabling Mina's damnation.

Notice that Seward is once again wondering about their sanity. Even though his musing is rhetorical, his comments continue to play on the theme of madness and its threat‹and are particularly weighted in a chapter that spends so much time dealing with Renfield's madness and crisis of conscience.

Summary Chapter 21

The October 3rd entry of Dr. Seward's diary.

Renfield's face is bashed and bleeding and his back is broken. The attendant wonders how the straitjacketed Renfield could have injured himself this way: if his back was broken, he wouldn't have been able to beat his own face against the floor, and if he mangled his face before throwing himself off the bed, blood would have been left where he landed. Seward sends an attendant to fetch Van Helsing. Van Helsing performs an emergency operation to relieve the pressure brought on by the skull injuries, so that Renfield can tell them what happened. The dying Renfield tells them that on the night the men went to investigate Carfax, Dracula appeared and offered him countless lives to feast on if Renfield would fall down and worship him. The madman gave the vampire the invitation he needed to enter the asylum; after that, the vampire did not give Renfield any of the promised lives. Two days later, Renfield saw Mina and realized that she had been drained. So tonight, when Dracula entered, Renfield tried to fight with him. The vampire's eyes burned him and deprived him of his strength, and Dracula flung him across the room.

The men rush upstairs to the Harkers' room. They find it locked and are forced to break down the door. When they enter, they see Jonathan Harker unconscious and Mina Harker being forced to drink blood from a cut on Dracula's chest. The vampire throws Mina aside and prepares to attack, but Van Helsing brandishes a holy wafer, and the men advance with their crucifixes. Dracula draws back, and the room is enveloped in darkness as a cloud obscures the moon. He becomes mist and escapes. Mina screams with horror and despair. They wake Jonathan, who is terribly confused, and Mina keeps crying that she has been made unclean. Arthur and Quincey, who left to pursue Dracula, return to report that the vampire destroyed the study‹including the papers compiled by Mina and Jonathan. Fortunately, another copy is hidden in the safe. The two men went to Renfield's room and found him dead. Quincey reports that he saw a bat flying from Renfield's window, though not back in the direction of Carfax.

Mina tells the men that she woke to see Dracula standing there, her unconscious husband beside him; he threatened to kill her husband if she screamed for help. Assuring her that it was not the first time he had drained her, he then drank from her throat. Dracula then promised that she would be "flesh of my flesh" and "blood of my blood," telling her that she would soon become his companion and helper. When he calls, she will have no choice but to come. He then forced her to drink the blood from a wound he made in his chest.

Analysis Chapter 21

Now, the reasons for Renfield's request for release are clear, as is the cause of his anxiety about consuming souls. He has provided the invitation Dracula needed to enter the asylum, and Mina has consequently been violated. Dracula's attack against Mina has obvious sexual overtones: he forces her to drink from a wound on his bare chest, and speaks with glee about being rewarded for his exertions. When he promises that she will be "flesh of my flesh" and "blood of my blood," his language suggests both sexual union and the sacrament of the Eucharist. Both things are perversely distorted by the vampire, who becomes an evil counterpart to Mina's husband and her God. This attack fits the pattern of the old Gothic themes: Gothic novels often feature decadent aristocracy preying on vulnerable women of the lower classes. Remember that Mina was an orphan, and by her own words she had a very humble upbringing. She has now been horribly violated. In drinking his blood, Mina has been polluted by the vampire. Her cherished purity is at risk.

Summary Chapter 22

From Jonathan Harker's journal, the October 3rd entry. The group plans their attack. All of the houses must be raided in one day, with all of the boxes sterilized and made unfit for Dracula's habitation. First, they will raid and destroy the lair at Carfax. Then, all of the men should go to the house in Picadilly, where the two doctors and Jonathan will remain while Quincey and Arthur go to the houses in Walworth and Mile End. Before they leave, Van Helsing protects Mina's room with communion wafers, but when he lays one on her forehead, the Host burns her, leaving a terrible scar. She has been polluted by Dracula, and holy objects now harm her.

The men go to Carfax and place a communion wafer in each box. They then move on to Picadilly, where Arthur and Quincey secure a locksmith to help them break into the house. After a thorough search, they conclude that only eight of the nine expected boxes are there. They find keys to the other two houses, and Arthur and Quincey rush off to destroy the lairs there.

Analysis Chapter 22

The mark on Mina's forehead drives home the urgency of their quest. Mina will grow more and more like a vampire with time, unless the men find Dracula and destroy him. The battle will be not just for Mina's life, but for her soul. The group has great success on this day, sterilizing all but one of the boxes, but the missing box is all of the space that Dracula needs to survive.

Summary Chapter 23

Includes the October 3rd entry of Dr. Seward's diary; and the October 3rd/4th and October 4th entries of Jonathan Harker's journal.

While waiting for Quincey and Arthur to return, Van Helsing tries to use wise words and compassionate advice to sooth an increasingly angry and wild Harker. The three men receive an ugent message from Mina: Dracula, in human form (it is daytime, and he is without his powers) has left Carfax and is headed their way. A half hour later, Quincey and Arthur return and report that they have sterilized the twelve boxes at the other two houses. Van Helsing reasons that Dracula has not been expecting them to move so quickly, and that he left Carfax to go to other houses in London. Once he sees those lairs have been rendered useless, he will come to them in Picadilly.

The Count enters the house, and although he is now only a mortal man, he is still exceptionally strong and quick. He manages to evade all of them, and escapes through a window. Before fleeing, he taunts them, promising that all of them will be his servants with time‹through their women. The men are unable to track him, and they must return home in disappointment.

When they return, Mina thanks them for their efforts, and reminds them that Dracula, too, has a soul. In killing him, they must remember to do so not out of hate. By destroying him, they will be doing an act of mercy. Harker reacts with anger, and Mina reminds him that one day she might need the pity of those she has victimized. That night, Mina wakes suddenly and asks Jonathan to get Professor Van Helsing at once. She asks Van Helsing to hypnotize her now, while it is still dark. She believes that the connection between her and Dracula will allow her to see where he is hiding. Van Helsing does as she asks, and they learn that Dracula is asleep in one of his boxes on board a ship at sea. Van Helsing is determined to find out where the ship is headed. Mina asks why they must find him now that he is fleeing, and Van Helsing responds that Dracula is immortal while she is only mortal. He confirms that if they do not hunt the vampire down and destroy him, when Mina dies, even if it is years from now and no more attacks have taken place, she will become one of the undead.

Analysis Chapter 23

Dracula's escape shows that he is still formidable and cunning, even during the hours of daylight. Without his powers, he is still able to escape from a room of armed men. But his flight shows also that he is afraid; he boards a ship because he is being hunted and London is no longer safe for him.

Jonathan Harker is a changed man. He has a burning hatred for Dracula, and he thirsts for revenge. His anger is so extreme because he was made incapable of protecting his wife at the crucial moment; his hatred comes in part from his own failure. Part of Dracula's fearsomeness‹and his ability to excite so much hatred from the men‹is his sexual power (Hindle xxvii). He does not merely violate and conquer women: in transforming them into lustful vampires, he makes his female victims eventually enjoy their sensuality in a way that bourgeois Victorian husbands cannot (Weissman 76). In conquering these women, he is also indirectly conquering their husbands. It is significant that when Dracula escapes and taunts the men, he tells them that he will conquer them all by conquering their women first‹this is true in two ways. First, through their wives and lovers the men will be transformed into vampires and be conquered indirectly by Dracula. Second, in conquering their wives Dracula has already conquered the men. The parallels to sexual union provide reason for Jonathan's anger. As her husband, Jonathan should be the one who is "flesh of Mina's flesh." The vampire, in a way, has cuckolded him. His attack has endangered Mina's soul as well as Jonathan's masculinity.

Mina, on the other hand, continues to show that she is the model of Victorian purity and Christian forgiveness. She asks the men to remember that Dracula has a soul, and that they are to be the instruments of God's mercy. In insisting on mercy even for Dracula, she remains true to her Christian faith. It is an important victory for her‹and inspiration for all of the men. Additionally, the inventiveness of her intellect is proven when she suggests the method for discovering the vampire's whereabouts.

Summary Chapter 24

Includes a message left for Jonathan Harker by Van Helsing on Dr. Seward's phonograph; the October 4th entry of Jonathan Harker's journal; the October 5th entry of Mina Harker's journal; the October 5th entries of Dr. Seward's diary; and the October 5th and October 6th entries of Jonathan Harker's journal.

The group learns that the Count and his box are en route to Varna, the port on the Black Sea from which he left Eastern Europe. Van Helsing, invigorated and determined to hunt Dracula down, plans to travel by land and intercept the box at port. Quincey Morris suggests that they bring Winchester rifles to help deal with wolves, and Van Helsing agrees. The old professor believes that the vampire's retreat is not permanent. Now that the Count has tasted London, with its vast population of potential prey, he will want to return. The vampire can afford to bide his time, but the group cannot. They must go East, like "the old knights of the Cross," and hunt the monster down.

Van Helsing confides in Seward that time is running out. Mina is already changing; her teeth grow ever sharper, and at times there is a hardness in her eyes that was never there before. The scar left by the holy wafer is still there, a constant reminder to the men of what is at stake. Van Helsing also worries that Mina's spiritual connection to Dracula will work against them; just as Van Helsing was able to use hypnotism to see Dracula's plans, perhaps Dracula can use Mina to learn everything she knows. Van Helsing proposes that they keep her ignorant of their plans from now on. Independently, Mina excuses herself from the meetings with the group, and she asks Jonathan to keep her in ignorance of what the men plan. But later, she also asks that she be allowed to go with the men. She reasons that she can be of use, since Van Helsing can hypnotize her. More importantly, she must go because if left on her own with no one to guard her, she must go to the Count if he summons her.

Analysis Chapter 24

The idea of the East is an interesting and complex theme that plays itself out in different ways throughout the novel. While Van Helsing might be said to use a synthesis of Eastern and Western knowledge, and many of the weapons used to combat the vampire are from Eastern lore, there is still something sinister and dark about the "East." Especially considering that here, the East means anything to the east of Austria, the East seems to symbolize all that is unknown or unfamiliar. When Van Helsing compares the heroes to the Crusaders, and says that like them, they must journey "towards the sunrise" (i.e. towards the east), he is likening them to a group of Western invaders who must attack an Eastern foe. He is characterizing the invaders of the West as holy warriors (he is uncritical of their aggressive actions against the Moslem world) who traveled to a world that held both dangerous evils and sacred truths. The atmosphere Stoker creates in the chapters set in the East is often fairly dark: grim peasants, demons that walk the earth, wolves, dramatic moonlit forests. At the same time, the landscape is beautiful and many of the peasants are depicted in a sympathetic manner‹even if Stoker and his characters are at times condescending to the "quaint" peasants of the East.

According to some interpretations, Stoker's novel has strong strains of xenophobia and imperialism‹the story, after all, can be read as the tale of a very bad immigrant. Dracula is a foreigner from the East who attempts to "invade" London, and his primary targets are virtuous Victorian women. Racist and xenophobic fantasies often include anxieties about miscegenation (interracial/interethnic coupling). A commonly expressed fear (in bigoted anti-immigrant tracts of all eras, including our own‹consider the xenophobic complaint of conservative American politicians that by 2050, the "white race" will be a minority in the United States) is that the native stock will be out-bred, becoming minorities in their own homeland. The vampires make an excellent metaphor for this process. Every person killed by a vampire, under the right conditions, becomes a vampire. It is easy to imagine normal humans quickly becoming outnumbered by the undead‹and this process parallels the xenophobe's paranoid fantasies about immigration and miscegenation. In the novel, the remedy is for a band of Western heroes to drive Dracula out of England, track him down, and destroy him in their own "invasion" of his homeland. Dracula's xenophobia is also apparent in Stoker's depiction of gypsies. Significantly, the gypsies are Dracula's allies, although it is unclear if they know that the Count is a vampire at the start of the novel, or if they are transporting a vampire at the end of the novel. Gypsies were migrant peoples of Eastern European origin who traveled all throughout Europe. They were one of the most hated minority groups in England‹constantly defamed in both journalism and literature as dangerous criminals and savages, or merely as an uncivilized ethnic nuisance. In continental Europe, they were later targeted as an "undesirable" group during the Holocaust. In the novel, the gypsies are servants of Dracula, although there is ambiguous evidence regarding their knowledge of his true nature. When analyzing the xenophobia of the text, another element worth considering is Stoker's fascination with physiognomy. Physiognomy was a nineteenth and early twentieth century pseudo-science that tried to correlate personality traits and attributes to skull and face measurements/proportions. There were deeply racial concerns throughout the pseudo-science's development‹for certain scientists in the field, the emphasis was on establishing empirical proof, through skull shape, that the white race inherently possessed the traits necessary for progress and achievement. At a few points, Van Helsing draws on physiognomy when he classifies the Count as one with "a child's brain"‹cunning, but with serious blocks in its development. Although this summary has tended to emphasize more positive readings of Stoker's text (synthesis of opposing forms of knowledge, rather than subjection to scientific and pseudo-scientific discourse; Christian virtue, rather than Victorian repression; Victorian sexual anxiety, rather than xenophobic paranoia), no general analysis would be adequate without mentioning these important and compelling readings. These interpretations remind us that Stoker and his text are products of a specific time and place; their more critical stance helps to put Dracula in the context of imperialism and emerging nineteenth century discourses on race and ethnicity. Most importantly, these readings make us aware of the politically problematic assumptions and fantasies at work even in seemingly "innocent" texts, whether those texts were produced in past centuries or our own.

Summary Chapter 25

Includes the October 11th entry of Dr. Seward's diary; the October 15th, October 16th, October 17th, and October 24th entries of Jonathan Harker's journal; telegram from Rufus Smith of Lloyd's in London to Lord Godalming, dated October 24th; the October 25th, 26th, and 27th entries of Dr. Seward's diary; telegram from Rufus Smith to Lord Godalming, dated October 28th; the October 28th entry of Dr. Seward's diary.

Mina makes the five men promise that if she becomes a vampire, they will kill her rather than allow her to be damned. She also asks her husband to read the burial service for her now, in case it should come to the worst. The heroes secure passage on the Orient Express from Paris to Varna, arriving there early to await the Count. Hypnotism of Mina brings the same news constantly: the sound of waves, masts, the movement of a ship at sea. Finally, they receive news that the ship has boarded at Galatz instead of Varna.

The group takes the setback grimly, but they board the next available train to Galatz‹knowing that they now may have to face Dracula on land. Van Helsing believes that the Count's unholy connection with Mina may have allowed him to discover their plans. He is optimistic, however, that the Count will not expect them to track him into his own country. A change comes over Mina, and Van Helsing believes that Dracula has released some of his hold over her spirit. The clue is in Dracula's past, which Mina and Van Helsing analyze together: back when he was a mortal warrior invading Turkey, when the invasion failed he fled home and left his army to be cut to pieces. In the same way, he now thinks only of escape and has cut himself off from Mina‹not realizing that because she has tasted his blood, Van Helsing can still hypnotize her and learn of Dracula's whereabouts.

Analysis Chapter 25

Although the Count is able to elude them at Varna, he makes a critical error when he cuts himself off from Mina (note, however, that Mina is still not free from the threat of becoming a vampire). He assumes that he is safe in his castle, and he does not understand that Van Helsing's hypnotism, combined with Mina's connection to the vampire, will give Dracula's enemies a critical edge over him. Van Helsing and Mina both use the terms of physiognomy in this chapter, referring again and again to the Count's "child brain." He is a criminal "type" (Mina even refers to two renowned physiognomists to back up her classification of the Count), and thus he has predictable limitations. He is selfish (he thinks of escape at all costs), and he uses the same strategy whether he is a mortal invading/escaping Turkey or an undead invading/escaping England. Here is another example of the heroes' use of science as a weapon against the Count. It must be remembered that many intelligent people took physiognomy very seriously during Stoker's time, and that for Stoker physiognomy was a viable tool for understanding and classifying human nature. Its racist/classist biases and unscientific methods are much easier to see in hindsight.

Summary Chapter 26

Includes the October 29th and October 30th entries of Dr. Seward's diary; the Ocotber 30th entries of Mina Harker's journal; the October 30th entry of Jonathan Harker's journal; the October 30th (later) entries of Mina Harker's journal; Mina Harker's memorandum (entered in her journal); the October 30th (night), October 31st, November 1st, and November 2nd entries of Jonathan Harker's journal; the November 2nd, November 3rd, and November 4th entries of Dr. Seward's diary; and the October 31st entries of Mina Harker's journal.

Mina's latest trance allows the group to learn that Dracula is still near the water‹from the signs of it, river water. Van Helsing believes that Dracula may have great difficulty being transported back to his castle, as running water and daylight are both dangerous for him, and an inspection of his coffin's contents will undo him. The old professor hopes that the group can reach Galatz before the box departs. Seward notes that it is growing more difficult for Van Helsing to hypnotize Mina.

When they arrive in Galatz, they learn that the box was passed off to Immanuel Hildesheim. The ship's skipper informs them that his "superstitious" Romanian crew wanted to destroy the box instead. The friends find the businessman and question him, to learn that he passed the box on to Petrof Skinsky, a trader who deals with the Slovaks who trade down the river to the port. Petrof is found shortly afterward in a cemetery, his throat ripped open. At a loss over their next step, the men retire to the hotel and try to figure out what to do. Mina takes the maps and all of the facts at her disposal and makes a thorough analysis of the situation, until she correctly reasons the most likely route for the Count's escape. He is going to take the river Sereth up to the river Bistritza , which makes a loop up near the Borgo Pass. The men plan: Arthur and Jonathan will take a steamboat upriver, Quincey and Dr. Seward will take horses and follow the river, and Van Helsing and Mina will cut straight through to the castle, where the professor will sterilize Dracula's home. Jonathan protests at being separated from Mina, and he hates the idea of Mina going to the castle. But Van Helsing needs to use hypnotism to track down the places that he will need to sterilize; otherwise, if Dracula escapes, he can sleep for centuries. Funded by Quincey and Arthur, the group arm themselves to the teeth and part ways. From Jonathan, Dr. Seward, and Mina, we read accounts of the early part of the journey into the country. Van Helsing buys a carriage and horses, so that he and Mina can make the seventy-mile trek. Arthur and Jonathan are detained by an accident when they try to make it up a very turbulent part of the river. No sign of the box yet.

Analysis Chapter 26

Dracula must sleep in special soil, sacred to his family. This need is one of his greatest weaknesses. The group is now able to exploit this weakness, using the wealth of Quincey and Arthur to fund their expedition as they hunt the now-helpless Dracula across the Eastern European wilderness. Mina's brains prove vital to the group once more when she figures out the Count's route‹her brilliance makes it possible for the journey to continue, and this feat is just at the time when it seems that Dracula may have eluded the heroes permanently. Her initiative salvages the situation.

Summary Chapter 27

Includes the November 1st and November 2nd entries of Mina Harker's journal; a memorandum by Van Helsing, dated November 4th and November 5th; the November 4th entry of Jonathan Harker's journal; the November 5th entry of Dr. Seward's diary; the November 5th entry of Van Helsing's memorandum; the November 6th entry of Mina Harker's journal; and a final note by Jonathan Harker.

Mina begins to sleep more and more during the day, and she loses her appetite. Van Helsing can no longer hypnotize her, and he is worried about her changing habits. The two friends make it up through the Borgo Pass, using Jonathan's journal for guidance. When Mina and Van Helsing are drawing closer to the mountains on November 4th, Van Helsing makes camp as night falls and makes a circle of crushed holy wafer around Mina. He asks her to move out of the circle, and she cannot; Van Helsing is overjoyed. What Mina cannot do, the vampires will be unable to do. The three women appear that night, calling Mina "sister" and asking her to join them. But Mina does not go outside the circle. Van Helsing stays within the protective circle as well, but the horses are not so lucky‹they die of fright.

Van Helsing makes his way to the castle, entering and using his hammer to destroy the doors so that he cannot be locked in. He finds the tombs of the three vampire women. He is conflicted about his task: their beauty and sensuality affects him, even in their sleep, and he is able to make himself go on only by thinking of Mina's peril. He also finds Dracula's great tomb, which he renders useless with a wafer. He then uses the hammer and stake to kill all three of the vampire women, whose bodies turn to dust immediately after the moment of death‹the decay that should have taken place centuries ago happens in an instant. At the moment of death, there is a look of peace on each of their faces. Before leaving, he uses the holy wafer to block all of the entrances to the castle. On foot, they go east to meet the others. Snow is falling heavily, and the sound of wolves is terrifying. As sunset nears on November 6th, they come upon a cart driven by gypsies. On the cart is the last box. Van Helsing makes a protective circle around Mina and prepares for battle. Quincey and Seward are galloping up the road from the south, and Arthur and Jonathan are coming from the north. The cart is surrounded, but if Dracula is not destroyed quickly, he will be in full possession of all of his powers in a matter of minutes. There is a fierce fight, but the gypsies are overpowered. Jonathan flings the coffin to the ground, and he and Quincey pry open the lid. They then kill Dracula just as the sun drops below the horizon, Jonathan's knife across the throat, Quincey's bowie knife into the heart. Mina notes that even Dracula, at the very end, has a look of peace on his face. The gypsies flee in terror. Quincey has been mortally wounded in the fight against the gypsies. Mina rushes to him, now able to pass through the barrier of holy wafers, and Quincey tells her that his death was worth it. He points out that the scar on Mina's forehead has vanished, signifying that the mark of the undead is gone from her, and then he dies, "a gallant gentleman."

In a final note, Jonathan says that seven years have passed since the events of the novel. The Harkers have a son that they have named Quincey, and both Seward and Arthur are married. Their writings have all been compiled, but even those who wrote them seem at times unable to believe them.

Analysis Chapter 27

As the heroes journey farther into the wilderness, the land of the East itself, rather than Dracula, provides all of the dangers and obstacles. Dangerous rapids, wolves, snow, gypsies, and the three vampire women all combine to make for a treacherous journey. Mina reports at one point that the natives seem simple and strong, but they seem to exist at odds with their land, in constant fear of the evils that walk there.

This last chapter drives home the theme of Christian redemption, which is possible for all. Although not exactly redemption in the strongest spiritual sense, Jonathan makes up for his earlier failure by being the fiercest in fighting the gypsies; he also is one of the men who deliver the killing blow against Dracula. Mina's full purity is restored. The three vampire women, before they die, have a look of peace on their faces. Even Dracula is allowed to know peace at the end. The heroes have not only ended the threat posed to England and Mina; they have also brought peace to Dracula's soul. Christian redemption awaits all, and Mina's earlier statement that perhaps these heroes were brought together to do God's will seems to have been accurate. The final coda ensures the reader that all the characters have lived happily ever after, while preserving, at the very end, the illusion that the reader has just read a factual account.

• Biography of Bram Stoker
• About Dracula
• Character List
• Short Summary
• Full Summary and Analysis
• Summary and Analysis of Chapter 1-5
• Summary and Analysis of Chapter 6-10
• Summary and Analysis of Chapter 11-15
• Summary and Analysis of Chapter 16-20
• Summary and Analysis of Chapter 21-24
• Summary and Analysis of Chapter 25-27
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