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Van Helsing character profile
Who?
● Professor Abraham Van Helsing is an eccentric Dutch philosopher, doctor and
scientist
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As a highly educated man, and
Seward’s former teacher, Van Helsing is called from Amsterdam to assess
her condition
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Seward as ​“Professor Van Helsing, of Amsterdam who
knows as much about obscure diseases as anyone in the world”
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In this sense, he combines a
reverence for tradition with the progressiveness of science meaning that he
somewhat bridges the gap between old and new in the novel
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This juxtaposes Victorian cynicism, and often downright
racism, about those with a strong foreign accent
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However because Van Helsing is from the Netherlands, as
opposed to Eastern Europe where Dracula originates, he may not be subject
to such biases
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In contrast, Van Helsing’s experience and willingness to explore
supernatural causes makes him the hero of the novel
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This portrays him as a logical thinker and the hero who will save “the
damsel in distress”
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This contrasts his
position of a high status man who is well known within scientific circles
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However, he is a dominant and managerial force and
expects everyone to follow his lead (and not question his expertise)
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● Dracula embraces the narrative of unyielding religious beliefs and uses Van
Helsing as a Christian god-like figure to drive this narrative
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Seward’s Phonograph Diary Spoken by Van Helsing,” is
actually told by his voice
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He also has a propensity to
laugh at particularly grim moments
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● However, Van Helsing is also prone to the odd emotional breakdown making
him a tonic to the “stiff upper-lip” mentality of the Englishmen
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Appearances in the novel
● Mina fully describes Van Helsing in Chapter 14: “​a man of medium height,
strongly built, with his shoulders set back over a broad, deep chest and a
neck well balanced on the trunk as the head is on the neck
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The head is
noble, well-sized, broad, and large behind the ears
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The forehead is
broad and fine, rising at first almost straight and then sloping back above two
bumps or ridges wide apart, such a forehead that the reddish hair cannot
possibly tumble over it, but falls naturally back and to the sides
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”
● He is also described by Dr Seward, his former student, in Chapter 9:​ “he is a
seemingly arbitrary man, this is because he knows what he is talking about
better than anyone else
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This, with an iron nerve, a temper of the ice-brook, and
indomitable resolution, self-command, and toleration exalted from virtues to
blessings, and the kindliest and truest heart that beats, these form his
equipment for the noble work that he is doing for mankind, work both in theory
and practice, for his views are as wide as his all-embracing sympathy
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● Van Helsing coins the phrase ​“un-dead”​ and devises the method for
eliminating Dracula
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● He is also the driving force behind the decision to kill Lucy
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● Alongside the rest of the Crew of Light, Van Helsing enters Dracula’s estate at
Carfax
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Upon her request, he then
hypnotises Mina multiple times allowing Van Helsing to deduce - through
telepathy - that Dracula is fleeing back to his castle
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This comes in useful when Van
Helsing must seal Mina in a cave in order to fight Dracula
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