Chapter 1
The first chapter of Dracula begins with the journal of Jonathan Harker, an English solicitor who travels to Transylvania to help a nobleman, Count Dracula, buy a property in London, England.
To reach him, he travels through Eastern Europe and writing in shorthand, he describes everything he sees on the way. He writes about the landscape, the food he tried and the recipes he will ask for – for his fiancée back in England, Mina Murray.
His first entry is dated 3rd May and he arrives to the town of Bistritz in Romania. There in the inn a letter from the Count is already awaiting him. Dracula welcomes him in the Carpathians and informs him that a diligence would be waiting for him the next day to take him to the Borgo Pass and from
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The man starts exploring the castle, notes the expensive decoration, furniture and the vast library, but is surprised not to meet any servants. He is alone in the castle.
When Dracula returns, they talk more to help the Count practice his English speech and Harker tells him about the estate he has bought, the Carfax mansion that only has an asylum and a chapel nearby, nothing else. They talk into the morning, but at the first light Dracula leaves his guest.
The following day Jonathan is shaving when the Count finds him and the man notices that the other has no reflection. He cuts himself by accident and Dracula’s reaction is immediate; he almost attacks the man, but draws back as soon as he touches the crucifix. After a warning against cutting himself, Dracula throws the mirror out the window and leaves Jonathan alone. Already suspicious, he notices that he has not seen the other eat or drink yet. His concern only grows when during further exploration of the castle, he realises that all the doors are locked and he is a
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A few days later Dracula instructs him to write three letters to Mina and his firm but to date them a month from that day. This alarms him and he sees his chance to escape when a group of gypsies arrive to the castle. He asks them to send a letter to Mina and they take it, but that night Dracula returns with it and burns it.
Jonathan is still a prisoner and he notices wooden boxes being brought to the castle in June while also discovering that some of his own clothes have disappeared and he sees Dracula wearing them as he crawls down the wall of his castle.
He witnesses a woman being killed by wolves when she appears at the castle, crying and looking for her child. Harker is desperately trying to escape, so he scales the wall to get into Dracula’s room. In there he only finds some gold and a staircase which he follows. There he finds the boxes, filled with earth while in one of them he discovers the Count himself, asleep. Seeing him, he runs back to his
The story begins at status quo. Jonathan Harker lived a normal Victorian lifestyle. His fiancé was a virtuous school mistress named Mina Murray. Harkers occupation as a solicitor was how he was called to his adventure. His firm sent him to Transylvania where he was to conclude on a real estate transaction with the foreign client Count Dracula. During his visit to Dracula's castle, Jonathan was made prisoner to the ruthless vampire. He received
The diary entries or notes used in ‘Dracula’ are fragmented and have an epistolary structure ‘Jonathon Harker’s Journal’. This emphasises each of the character’s feelings of isolation and loneliness, adding to the appeal of the reader. During the entries, Stok...
Once Jonathan arrives at the castle, he is met by the mysterious Count Dracula, a man described as strong and pale, with bright ruby lips and sharp white teeth. Although Jonathan is unaware of what Dracula truly is, he can already sense that something is amiss, and he gets worr...
into strange trances. Jonathon escapes from the castle but is not free of Draculas power,
The late nineteenth century Irish novelist, Bram Stoker is most famous for creating Dracula, one of the most popular and well-known vampire stories ever written. Dracula is a gothic, “horror novel about a vampire named Count Dracula who is looking to move from his native country of Transylvania to England” (Shmoop Editorial Team). Unbeknownst of Dracula’s plans, Jonathan Harker, a young English lawyer, traveled to Castle Dracula to help the count with his plans and talk to him about all his options. At first Jonathan was surprised by the Count’s knowledge, politeness, and overall hospitality. However, the longer Jonathan remained in the castle the more uneasy and suspicious he became as he began to realize just how strange and different Dracula was. As the story unfolded, Jonathan realized he is not just a guest, but a prisoner as well. The horror in the novel not only focuses on the “vampiric nature” (Soyokaze), but also on the fear and threat of female sexual expression and aggression in such a conservative Victorian society.
Stoker chooses to lay some clues out for the readers in order to help them interpret Dracula. The distinct warning presented on the page before the introduction saying the narrators wrote to the best of their knowledge the facts that they witnessed. Next is the chapter where Jonathan Harker openly questions the group’s interpretations of the unsettling events that occur from meeting Dracula, and the sanity of the whole. Several characters could be considered emotionally unstable. Senf suggests that Stoker made the central normal characters hunting Dracula ill-equipped to judge the extraordinary events with which they were faced. The central characters were made two dimensional and had no distinguishing characteristics other then the...
The version that I focused on for the sake of this essay was the book. I did watch eleven of the thirty-three Dracula movies that I own, so some references will be made to the movies. The book is told from the perspective of Jonathan Harker’s journal, with some letters to and from his girlfriend Mina. The purpose of his visit with Count Dracula is that Harker is selling a building to Dracula. Carfax Abby was in England where Dracula wanted to move. Harker went to Transylvania to assist Count Dracula in his move to England.
In act 2 scene 6 and act 3 scene 6 of the play ‘Dracula’, the
Stoker has rendered the reader to see the Count as physically strong and powerful, through Jonathan Harker and his confinement and Lucy Westenra and her failing health. Although the reader does not understand all the omniscient powers and control that Count Dracula possesses over people, they are brought to light through Dr Steward’s accounts of his patient R.M. Renfield. The ‘strange and sudden change’ (Stoker, 86), that has happened in Renfield evokes the reader to contemplate the Count’s influence over people. Dr Steward suggests it is as though a ‘religious mania has seized’ Renfield (Stoker, 87), and is controlling him. The reader is aware that Renfield can feel the Counts presence and that there is a connection between them. This eventually leads Van Helsing to recognize the bond between Mina Harker and the Count, which helps them to find Dracula and finally kill him. Dracula’s invasion over Renfield also reveals a weakness in the Counts power. Renfield, an obedient servant of Dracula, claims he is ‘here to do Your bidding, Master. I am Your slave’ (Stoker, 88). Renfield’s devotion is quickly reversed when he sees that the Count is taking life from Mina. It is his care for her that causes him to turn against Dracula and try to fight for her. Again Renfield’s actions mimic that of the other men as it becomes their goal to save Mina from the invasion running through her body. The key to this invasion is the blood.
He is on his way to Transylvania to complete a property transaction with Dracula at his decaying castle (Swan). Then Jonathan soon realizes he is a prisoner at the castle with Dracula and the three sisters who reveal themselves as vampires to Jonathan (Stoker). But there are differences between the novel and the film with the first being in the movie when Jonathan ask the Count why are you buying houses in these specific locations (Bram Stoker’s)? The movie never answers this question, but the novel explains the fifty boxes that have Transylvanian dirt in them need to be at these locations neighboring London, so Dracula could rest and rebuild his strength which must be in a coffin with his homelands dirt (Bram Stoker’s). Next are the variations of how he became to know the sisters of Dracula (Canby). The movie shows the sisters morphing up through his mattress while he is trying to sleep. Although the novel states he wanders into their room where he sits down to write in his journal when he becomes sleepy and they appear out of nowhere trying to feast on his neck (Canby). Next is the contrasting effect of Jonathans religion. In the novel, he is a devout religious God-fearing man praying and asking Him to help and keep him safe each step of his way while in the movie Jonathan wears the crucifix he received on his carriage ride to the
That morning he is to leave, a crowd is awaiting him and muttering strange things. Harker says, "I could hear a lot of words often repeated, queer words" (Stoker 6) to address his confusion about what was going on around him. He Count Dracula, a hermit who lives on a cliff, detached from society, strikes at night to find anyone alone--whom he considers easy prey. A prime example of one of these victims is Lucy Westenra, who ends up outside in the middle of the night after she sleeps walks to the town square. When Mina Murray finds her, she describes the discovery, “There was undoubtedly something, long and black, bending over the half-reclining white figure.”
Dracula by Bram Stoker is an authentic Gothic novel that manages to hit on every Gothic literature aspect. Gothic literature is usually set in an isolated setting and has a dark, mysterious, and evil tone. In this type of literature, there are usually dark castles, palaces, presences of supernatural beings, and religion. The book Dracula is about a Count from Transylvania that goes to London in search of new victims and a group of Victorian citizens who end up defeating him and his evil ways. The use of setting and atmosphere in Dracula is filled with a world full of mystery and fear. Bram Stoker manages to capture the Gothic element with his use of castles, symbols, and isolated setting.
Dracula’s peculiar actions begin when Johnathan Harker takes a Journey to help Dracula with some business. When Harker was getting
Dracula by Bram Stocker, has proven to be an interesting read. In the beginning of the book the readers are introduced to Jonathan, and to Count Dracula. Jonathan travels to the Count’s home to help him conduct business, per his boss’s request. Mina, who later becomes Jonathan’s wife, becomes worried about Jonathan and doesn’t know if he is okay. Jonathan returns to her in August and they wed. Throughout the book there are terrible events that occur to Lucy and to Jonathan because they become the victims of Dracula. Jonathan copes by not remembering anything that happened to him while he was with the Count, until Van Helsing visits him and believes what he is saying.
Jonathan Harker Jonathan Harker is a lawyer who live in London. First, he was Mina’s fiancé and later they got married in Budapest before they reach back to London. Part of his job is to find house in England for rich foreigner. He was send to Transylvania to do real estate transaction with Count Dracula. (Tarner, 2002) Personality.