Danielle

Dracula - Bram Stoker

**Plot -** Jonathan Harker, a young English lawyer, travels to Castle Dracula in the Eastern European country of Transylvania to conclude a real estate transaction with a nobleman named Count Dracula. As he wends his way through the picturesque countryside, the local peasants warn him about his destination, giving him crucifixes and other charms against evil and uttering strange words that Jonathan later translates into “vampire.” Frightened but no less determined, Harker meets the count’s carriage as planned. The journey to the castle is harrowing, and the carriage is nearly attacked by angry wolves along the way. Upon arriving at the crumbling old castle, Harker finds that the elderly Dracula is a well educated and hospitable gentleman. After only a few days, however, Harker realizes that he is effectively a prisoner in the castle.

Born in Clontarf (near Dublin, Ireland) on November 8, 1847, Bram (Abraham) Stoker is recognized as one of the most prominent Gothic authors of the Victorian fin-de-siècle. An accomplished athlete, journalist, author, biographer, theatre critic and theatre manager, Stoker is best known for his Gothic masterpiece Dracula (1897). Like his immortal creation Count Dracula, Stoker's life is shrouded in mystery, from his rumored participation in occult circles, to his purported death from syphilis.
 * Author - **

**Dracula** He is the vampire who has been "Un-Dead" for several hundred years and keeps his vitality by sucking blood from live victims. He is the Transylvanian Count for whom the book is named. Despite the fact that he is actually seen on only a few of the approximately four hundred pages of the novel, his presence constantly pervades the entire work; of note is the fact that his desire to move from the barren and desolate Transylvania, which is sparsely populated, to the more populous England, is the initiating point of the novel since someone from England must make the trip to Castle Dracula to complete the transactions. In appearance, Count Dracula is described as being a "tall old man, clean shaven, save for a long white mustache and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of color about him anywhere." Contrary to popular understanding, Stoker has his Dracula sporting a large, bushy Victorian mustache and having a profuse head of dense, curly hair, massive eyebrows, and peculiarly sharp white teeth, especially the canine teeth. Dracula also possesses astonishing vitality, as is witnessed every time that he appears in a difficult situation. **Jonathan Harker** The young London solicitor who is sent to Transylvania to finalize the transfer of real estate in England to Count Dracula. His journals record the essential facts of his journey from Bistritz to the Borgo Pass, where he is met by Count Dracula's carriage, as well as recording the facts of his arrival and stay at the Castle Dracula. Harker is engaged to a young schoolmistress named Mina Murray. **Miss Mina** (Wilhelmina) Murray The fiancée of Jonathan Harker; she will become a "persecuted maiden" during the latter part of the story. She is quite young, and her job is that of an assistant schoolmistress. She is also an orphan. She will later become Mina Harker and will assist in tracking down Count Dracula. **Miss Lucy Westenra** Mina Murray's closest friend. She is a young woman of nineteen who becomes engaged to Arthur Holmwood. Her penchant for sleepwalking allows her to become Dracula's first victim, and after her "death," she will become one of the "Un-Dead." **Mrs. Westenra Lucy's mother**, who is dying of a heart ailment; she becomes another victim of the vampire. **Arthur Holmwood** A vigorous man, twenty-nine years old, the only son of Lord Godalming; Holmwood will later inherit this title after the death of his father. His engagement to Lucy and the necessity of driving a stake through Lucy's heart after she is one of the "Un-Dead" motivates Holmwood to join in tracking down and exterminating Dracula. **Dr. John Seward** The head of a lunatic asylum, Seward is roughly the same age as Holmwood and is one of Lucy Westenra's suitors. He is an intelligent and determined man. **Quincey P. Morris** Another of Lucy's suitors. Morris is an American from Texas. His great wealth allows him to pay many of the expenses incurred in tracking down Dracula. **Dr. Abraham Van Helsing An M.D., a Ph.D., and a D.Litt.**, as well as an attorney. He is a lonely, unmarried old bachelor who is both kindly and fatherly. He is from Amsterdam, and his profound knowledge of medicine, folklore, and the occult allows him to take complete charge of Lucy's illness, which he identifies immediately as vampirism. He is also chiefly in charge of the strategy of tracking down Count Dracula. **R. M. Renfield** A huge, lumbering, fifty-nine-year-old madman who is a patient of Dr. Seward; he also comes under the influence of Dracula. Mr. Swales An old man who befriends Lucy and Mina at Whitby, site of the landing of Count Dracula's ship. He is an archetypal figure, the one person who senses and articulates the approaching horror of Dracula, but, Cassandra-like, he is not believed.

"SHORT" CREATIVE STORY: <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> =** “I swear to you by all that I hold sacred that I have not removed nor touched her. What happened was this…” I took no notice of what he was saying after that. I was too distracted by looking around, seeing things out the corner of my eye. I could hear rustling, wolves howling. Never did tombs look as eerie as they did now. Once I realized that no one was speaking, I chimed back into reality. I looked up, and saw that all the men were frozen solid. “S-s-s-s!” one of them said, and pointed ahead. At the end of the avenue of yews, emerged a figure, a dim, white figure, advancing with something held against its chest. **= = = =** Frozen in fear, I felt a knot emerge in my stomach. Clutching onto it, I stepped back and used my other hand to try and find something to grasp, to keep myself from falling over in horror. The figure stopped, and in that moment, a ray of moonlight shined between the dark masses of clouds and revealed a dark-haired woman, wrapped in cerements of the grave. I couldn’t make out the face, as it was bent over to what I saw was a child with light colored hair. We hid behind a yew-tree, waiting until the white figure moved forward again. We could see her more clearly now, and as my stomach dropped and what felt like my throat close up I heard Arthur gasp as we recognized that the woman was Lucy Westenra. When she noticed us, she snarled and hissed back, as a cat does when startled. Her face white, crimson lips, covered with blood made me feel ill. Her eyes unclean and filled with hell-fire, unlike the soft, pure, gentle ones we knew once before. It made me shudder. Carelessly, she flung the child she once had in her arms to the floor. The child started to cry, moaning in pain. I scuttled over, picking up the child in my arms, and fell to the back of the group once again. Lucy reached out her hands to Arthur, which made him fall to his knees and hide his face behind his hands. She still advanced however. With a death-like yet soothing grace, she said, “Come to me Arthur. Leave these others and come to me. My arms are hungry for you. Come, and we can rest together. Come, my husband, come!” Arthur, looking like he was in some sort of trance, removed his hands from his face and opened them wide, staring at her with large, hypnotised eyes. She leapt for him, when Van Helsing sprung in front of him with his tiny golden crucifix. She hissed, and recoiled demonically, she scrambled past him, as to return back to her coffin, still hissing in pain. I covered the little girls ears that I was still holding close, trying to calm down. Lucy was so close to the door when she halted with great force. When she turned, I saw something that I will not forget until I die. Her mouth, full of blood, her brows wrinkled, her eyes, oh her eyes, red, looking like they were on fire. Van Helsing was still standing strong, crucifix in hand, his nerves as strong as iron. It felt like we were in a photograph. No one moved a muscle for a full minute. Van Helsing broke the silence by asking Arthur, “Answer me, oh my friend! Am I to proceed in my work?” Arthur threw himself on his knees, hid his face in his hands and answered, “Do as you will, my friend! Do as you will! There can be no horror like this anymore!” Quincey and Seward grabbed his arms and lifted him up. **= =** 29th September – night – the next night we all went back down to Lucy’s grave. She was there, lying still. Pointed teeth, bloodstained mouth. Van Helsing began taking various items out of his bag. First he took out a soldering iron and some plumbing solder, and then a small oil lamp, which gave off fierce heat from the corner of the tomb, then some operating knives, then and a hammer. **= =** “A stake. Hurry.” He looked up at me and directed me to go and get one. I nodded and headed out the tomb. When I finally found one, I hurried back to Lucy’s grave. “Here.” I said to Van Helsing when I got back. He took it from me and thanked me, nodding. **= =** “Before we do anything, let me tell you this; it is out of the lord and experience of the ancients and for all those who have studied the powers of the Un-Dead. When they become such, there comes with the change the curse of immortality; they cannot die, but must go on age after age adding new victims and multiplying the evils of the world; for all that die from the preying of the Un-Dead become themselves Un-Dead, and prey on their own kind.” He turned to Arthur. “So that, my friend, it should be a blessed hand for her that shall strike the blow that sets her free. Tell me if there be such a one among us.” We all faced and looked at Arthur. He stepped forward, his face as white as a ghost. “Tell me what I have to do.” **= = = =** Van Helsing handed him the stake. “This stake must be driven through her heart. Take this stake in you left hand and place it over her heart. I shall prey, and at the right moment you must strike in God’s name.” Arthur took the stake and hammer, and placed it over her heart. Van Helsing started reading, and when the time came, Arthur struck with all his might. I turned away. Lucy, or whatever she is now, screamed a blood-curdling scream. I heard blood splatter and splash. I turned back around to see that Arthur hadn’t trembled or lost the fight in his eyes. He kept hitting the hammer with full force, going deeper and deeper into the thing in the coffin. Slowly, the thing reduced its quivering and twitching, until it became no more. It finally laid still. It was finally over. **= <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
 * 28 September 1893, night - It was around 12 when I got called by Abraham Van Helsing to come down to the grave of Lucy Westenra. The night was cool and dark, but every now and then the moon would show itself between the heavy waves of clouds that took over the sky. When I got down to the tombs, I saw Van Helsing, Quincey Morris, Arthur Holmwood and John Seward. They were crowded around Lucy’s coffin. I scrambled down the stairs and stood behind them. Van Helsing turned around to see me standing there. He nodded and faced back to her coffin. He forced the coffin open, and everyone looked in and withdrew, gasping. The coffin was empty! Quincey Morris broke the silence – to what seemed like an eternity –. “Professor,” He said, “I answered for you. Your word is all I want. I wouldn’t ask such a thing ordinarily – I wouldn’t so dishonor you as to imply a doubt; but this mystery that goes beyond any honor or dishonor. Is this your doing?” **