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Dracula notes
Dracula may represent where society has got to- are humans attracted to danger/evil? Dracula
gets in touch with human’s dark side
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There is an attractive aspect of danger therefore
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Dracula journals- are they all 100% truthful? Or have they been changed/manipulated in case
someone reads them?
It is possible that the characters write in journal formation to let stuff out and see it as an entirely
private thing (to start with anyway)
Harker’s journal becomes increasingly dark- he records things that can’t be spoken about
Harker is using shorthand- a sense of new coming in- a new technique
Harker’s account appears reliable because it starts off for work- very methodical
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There is a slow build up in JH’s diary at the start which
creates tension
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It’s realistic and authentic
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He doesn’t mix his professional and social life so his
professional account are very concise
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It makes us on edge as we have a lack of
control
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We’re confused and disorientated
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‘I was not able to
light on any map or work giving the exact locality of the castle Dracula’
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A lack of maps makes it the unknown which is
insecure
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Use of animals​- animals have the 6th sense- use of dogs howling foreshadowing the darkness
to come
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Society divides us from our natural,
instinctive selves
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Very much ‘us and them’ feeling
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At this point he has drifted from a work
journal to more of a recording of his thoughts
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Points at which we are fearful for Harker at the start:
Villagers crossing themselves
Dracula’s comments on his ‘beautiful hands’
Dangerous journey to the castle
Locked doors
Why is Dracula so attracted towards owning property in England? Quite unnerving
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Dracula-​ they both research things a lot
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Why does Dracula want to be English? They’re
dissimilar in many ways though
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They’re opposite but the same then!
Writing style at the beginning (Dracula’s description)- list-like
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Lots of exclamations
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Very proud
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She
includes lots of detail- a dense build up to the storm
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‘Dead calm’- eerie and play on ‘dead’
‘The stillness of the air grew quite oppressive’
‘Barking of a dog’- again using animals picking up things using the sixth sense
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Narrative mystery- disappearance of the crew
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We don’t know that it’s a dog- could be a wolf
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Constant confusion as there is so much information, we don’t
know what is important and what isn’t
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Mina has run a long way very quickly to save lucy so she is very
practical
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Mina is brave and doesn’t hesitate to help lucy
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Lucy has managed to get up to the church in her
sleep so the lure/desire must have been strong
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Mina’s primary impulse seems to be to save Lucy from
the embarrassment of being in her nightie, not from a blood sucking demon
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Why does she try to cover up the pin pricks?

Suspicious? Maybe she knows what has happened and is trying to hide her sexual desire
because she sees it as a mark of shame
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Mina- ‘I shall never ask’ seals the book, and doesn’t read JH’s diary
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A man might have a past, but a woman doesn’t have the right to look into it
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Mina-’The idea of my being jealous about Jonathan’- mina overcame her feelings of jealousy
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There is a description of Dracula that reveals he is in England (definitely) and a connection
between him and wolves is established
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The wolf is the same one that broke through the window and terrified Lucy and her mother
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Her teeth look longer and
sharper
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Making a comment about women ‘becoming
themselves’ and getting rid of society’s facade, revealing sexual desire inside?
‘She makes a very beautiful corpse’ (chapter 13)- trying to preserve her as a sort of object even
though she’s dying
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Mina- ‘I suppose I was hysterical, for I threw myself on my knees’- women are emotionally weak,
men are comforters
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Idea of knowledge being weapons
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Mina learns shorthand, the train timetable, prepares food all for her husband
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Women are responsible for the next generation- ‘good women, whose lives and whose truths
may make good lesson for the children that are to be’
VH makes Jonathan more of a man- recognises Jonathan as not being mad, restoring him
because JH has lost sense of himself and has found it
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Lucy in her coffin pg 210
Dr Seward’s narrative seems reliable due to his professionalism- ‘i had expected a rush of gas’very scientific
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Bottom of pg 211- ‘white streak’- fast moving, unpredictable, very brief, unclear
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This section (212-213) shows the scientist struggling to accept the irrational
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‘Trance’- victimises her,
as it is not her fault
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Brutal mutilation of her body
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Violence of
the description- ‘stimulating and bracing’ ‘heavy hammer’ OR is she evil that needs to be driven
out- ‘the whole carnal and spiritual appearance, seeming like a devilish mockery of Lucy’s sweet
purity’
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When the body wakes up again, it is made out to be truly evil- ‘writhing’ ‘the mouth was
smeared by crimson foam’
‘The thing in the coffin’- really has removed any humanity from the description of Lucy
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VH is open minded, a blend of reason and emotion
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Religion
219-221
‘I want your permission to do what I think good this night’ (VH)
‘Honor as a gentleman/christian’
‘If it be anything in which… my faith as a christian is concerned’ (Arthur)
‘Desecration of the grave’ (Arthur) will not disrespect the dead- sacred ground
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‘Duty to do in protecting her grave from outrage’- male christianity- muscular christianity
Using the holy wafers middle of 224 to protect/deter the vampire
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She recoiled from
it, and, with a suddenly distorted face, full of rage, dashed past him as if to enter the tomb’
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But whilst the men are away,
Dracula attacks Mina therefore Stoker may be condemning male qualities by showing that they
don’t work- clear ideas of gender roles coming from the men to assert their masculinity in the
fact of the ‘new woman’
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The men are
putting themselves against the dangerous threat
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Suggests Masculine competence and expertise
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‘She was so sound
asleep that for a few seconds she did not recognise me’
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Mina’s awareness that they’re keeping secrets from her mixed with her sleep and dreams
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Women’s physical weakness has nothing to do with it- men are equally as vulnerable as women
in the face of dracula
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Fears of disease- ‘It was as if corruption had itself become corrupt’
Men’s need to work together- Jonathan has copied maps, Arthur comes with his dogs
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This chapter is an exploration of how society works
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They can afford things and can use their status to get information
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Do men actually care about
men or is it all just business driven?

Jonathan is weak before sexual temptation, which threatens his facade of the victorian
gentleman
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Old European man, intellectual
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Decay- ‘dry miasma’ presence of nasty substance/disease
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Why? Fear of disease, STDs? Corruption is evil, corruption
manifests itself physically as decay
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Fears that desire would corrupt pure white victorian society (sexual desire for different races)
Chapter 22​ becomes more ‘heroic’- muscular christianity
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Men vs Dracula in chapter 23​ is quite cartoon-like
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They have God on their side
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Possession of the
men, not actually love- the men are angry because it’s their possessions
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: ‘swept’ ‘unhuman’ ‘snarl’ ‘lion-like’
‘panther-like’ ‘eye-teeth’(canine) He’s diseased with ‘pallid skin’
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Journeys
Dracula highlights the dangers of nature
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Talks
about the mountains and shadows as he plunges into the unknown
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Sleep and dreams
Harker confuses dreams and reality in the castle with the female vampires
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He is a product of his class and upbringing
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He is honest (he says he wanted to kiss the female vampires even though he knew
mina could read it), rational and organised (research and the maps)
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He is dismissive of the
‘superstitions’ of the people- he thinks it’s just their culture to believe in ghosts- he is a solid
rational man
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Bravery- ‘Death would be better than facing the count’- ideas about the
immortal soul and strong men in christianity being loyal to their religion
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Men’s attitudes to women
Very detailed observations of the 3 female vampires
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Poetic language- ‘teeth like pearls’ ‘Silvery musical laugh’
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Is this detail a comment of
Jonathan? Sense of desire and fear at the same time?
The gothic deals with things that can’t be overly stated- this side of his sexuality- the fear of
harm makes the sex more exciting
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Chapter 19- why do the men withhold information from Mina?
The assumption that she doesn’t have the emotional capacity to deal with it all
The fear of Mina being seduced/ unthinkingly preventing her from doing it because she gives
into temptation more easily
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Elements of the storm foreshadow himpower, fear, darkness and evil, danger, control of animals
‘The whole aspect of nature at once became convulsed’
‘The lately glassey sea was like a roaring and devouring monster’
‘White crested waves beat madly’
Personification of nature
The sublime-nature as a force- scary and beautiful
The danger of nature on humans
‘White, wet clouds, which swept by in a ghostly fashion’- gothic description of mist
Events in nature often mark/signify a moment in the plot
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‘Strength of 20 men’- threat to masculinity
Unnatural and has an advantage over humans
Threat to Dracula is God (crucifix, holy wafer)
Women
Mina is an example of a new woman
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Sleepwalking
may be an addiction to Dracula as she can’t help herself? Is being manipulated
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Lucy is ‘too supersensitive a
nature to go through the world without trouble’
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‘We had a capital severe tea at robin hood’s bay’
‘I believe we should have shocked the new woman with our appetites’
They’re more independent
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Mina herself
isn’t going to act, but she’s thinking how nice it would be to happen in the future
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The fact that she writes this in her journal
but doesn’t actually say anything shows she is subtly having a go at the men, in the hope that
they will read it, but doesn’t entirely reveal her feelings in an aggressive way
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Idea of Dracula taking the women/seducing them- ‘I will make all your women mine’- fears of
women owning power
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May choose not to marry
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All
takes away masculine ‘exclusivity’
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There
seems to be a lot of worrying about female independence
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She does have an active role though
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She gathers
information, and reaches valuable conclusions which is more than any of the men do!
Hypnosis- is this taking advantage of her? Not very fair
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Seward sees himself as revolutionary as he is really surprised that talking to
Renfield makes any difference at all
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Pg 258● ‘Far more rational in his speech and manner than I had ever seen him’
● ‘There was an unusual understanding of himself’- maybe he’s just normal but a victim of
dracula?
● Renfield knows a lot about the 4 men that visit him- he’s very intelligent and seems to be
on top of everything
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● Seward is very surprised when VH talks to R as an equal
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He has proved himself- he has a fight with
Dracula
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Not very
fair at all
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At the coming of the day’
● Things that afflict him: ‘garlic’ ‘things sacred’ ‘The branch of a wild rose on his coffin keep
him that he move not from it’
● ‘A sacred bullet fired into the coffin kill him so that he be true dead; and as for the stake
through him, we already know of its peace; or the cut-off head that giveth rest’
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● Giving into temptation- this is why they’re seductive as well as being vile
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This is good for the plot as it emphasises his suffering and makes it
tastier
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Very curious about things- researches Transylvania and tries to arm himself with knowledge
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Chapter 14- after losing his masculinity, he regains it because he has found himself again, and
knows that he is not mad- ‘it seems to have made a new man out of me’ ‘but now that I know, I
am not afraid- not even of the count’
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Does he feel that he has to
be defined by his job therefore?
Count Dracula
Makes us reassess what a monster is
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Domed forehead- intelligent
Strong face- high up
Hairy palms, ‘cruel looking’ mouth, pointed ears, sharp white teeth- all slightly funny, animalistic
descriptions
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Still in the human
in the 1st paragraph, then he is made out as a noble man
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Vivid red colour of lips is symbolic of blood
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59
Lucy
Gets 3 proposals
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Why do we feel she must be condemned? It is implied that she must be a flirt for 3 men to
propose to her
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‘I sympathise with poor Desdemona
when she had such a dangerous stream poured in her ear’- Lucy commenting on how women
are easily seduced?
‘Why can’t they let a woman marry three men or as many as want her?’- she shows sexual
desire which is a big no no for women at the time
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She shows emotion but does not act on it
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She is an impure woman
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Dr Seward
● Intellectual, middle class
● Rational and reasonable
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● He is admired by others
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● He uses work to distract himself- ‘I must only wait on and work’
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Excitable, enthusiastic but also deep
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He becomes Lord Holmwood
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● These 3 men represent 3 different types of manhood
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Does this say positive things about lucy or is it just society’s protection of
women?
Mina
● Her submission to dracula in chapter 21
‘A child forcing a kitten’s nose into a saucer of milk’ -kitten is innocent like mina
● Very rape-y
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She’s being punished by dracula for her helping the
men
● Rape language- Jonathan is in a trance, Mina is being seduced
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is disabled,
Mina is more helpless
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● Dracula’s ‘eyes flamed with red devilish passion’- sexual connotations
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● ‘Shuddered till the bed beneath me shook’
● ‘All the man in him awake at the need for instant exertion’
● Pg 373 is Mina’s lightbulb moment that ultimately leads to success
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Van Helsing
● Represents the old world- he tries to rein back scientific progress
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His experience of life has led him to remain open minded
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This is what he represents- proper learning through experience, not books

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