Dracula Blog

Through the first few difficult pages, I was able to gather that Bram Stoker's Dracula would be another difficult read but still further in was able to conclude that it would be more gothic than our previous read, Wuthering Heights, which had the writing style of a gothic but not so much other aspects excluding the ghost story intertwined.

By the end of the first chapter of Draula, we are already dealing with religion and Catholic skepticism through the first character we meet, Jonathan Harker. This is first pointed out when Harker's landlord's wife comes to him and implores that he not go on his trip of business with Coutn Dracula over purchasing an estate. She warns him of the night when "all the evil things in the world will have full sway," (pg. 9) and offers him a crucifix to protect him. Though hestiant due to the "idolatrous" nature of the request, accepts it anyways.

The gothic increases from here, emphasizing the abnormal through a strange carriage ride to the count's castle followed by an even stranger stay at the castle where Harker notices his host "arriving" back at the castle only at night, not eating or drinking, not having a reflection in Harker's shaving mirror, and jumping towards Harker after he cuts his throat shaving, only to fall back when noticing the crucifix hanging around his neck.

The gentle gothic doesn't take long to turn to a tale of escape as the count has now held Harker prisoner. This, for me so far, has become the most intense writing of the gothic novels we have read. From three women all hungry for Harker, to Dracula intercepting Harker's letters to his wife, to allowing Harker to leave only to a pack of wolves waiting by the front entrance. While Harker wishes he could rid himself of Dracula with perhaps a gun, he notes that "no weapon wrought alone by man's hand would have any effect on him," (pg. 55).

The book doesn't follow traditional literary style, for after Jonathan Harker's diary passages, we enter letters exchanged from two other characters, Mina and Lucy, and then into Mina's diary. Following Mina and a doctor named John Seward, we follow even more enigmas and horrors such as Mina's missing husband experienced. Mina and Lucy have met up in a town supposedly haunted and Lucy begins to sleepwalk. Mina doesn't take much notice to it (as she is informed by Lucy's mother that her father suffered the same) until Mina herself begins to lose sleep over it and notices the Lucy is practically "watching her" as she sleep walks. This, along with Dr. Seward's newest patient with a tendency to eat living creatures, has begun to capture my interest even more than Jonathan's portion of the story with Dracula. I think this may be due to the fact that I am not familiar so much with these stories over the one of Dracula himself and with that, I cannot predict how this will yet tie into the story later on.

The further into this book I get, the more difficult it is to climb out. It's no question that Frankenstein is a classic and it's easy to see why. I'm a reader, no doubt, disliking few contemporary novels of late, and have found it a task to get into classic literature, but this novel is not such a case. This is due to many things but one of the main factors to my increasing interest that I've been able to realize is that of the character development. Few times before have I been drawn to a character like I am drawn to the monster Victor Frankenstein has created. It says something about an author when they are able to make the reader sympathize with a character that is considered deformed and feared by the characters around it, including our protagonist, Dr. Frankenstein, himself.

It's hard at first to understand if this is a character who you would like to understand and care for when it's introduced as such a poor sight but yet already shows signs of human nature coming through, for instance at the beginning of the novel when Victor wakes and sees the monster at his bedside, "while a grin wrinkled his cheeks," (35). Thinking of the nature of the mind only highlights the nature aspect in this book as a whole.

While Frankenstein's monster becomes more and more human via the nature of his origins, it is also stressed that Victor is one to respect nature, often venturing paths and finding beauty in the simplest things. After the murder of his youngest brother, William, and the execution of the number one suspect, Justine (an old friend to the Frankenstein family) as an extension of that, Victor veers himself away from society, bringing himself to a state of complete emotional sobriety. He consoles his hidden troubles by walking and observing the world around him, bringing a slight happiness, but not enough to cure his near-suicidal thought process. As the world around him seems brighter, though, he is again confronted by the monster at a glacier at the summit of Montanvert. From here, the monster has proved his worthiness of entrance into the world that continues to refuse him access. He has learned languages, how to understand and control senses, and what life should mean no matter the hardships, telling Victor "Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it," (66).

The monster then further proves his right to be just as much a part of this world as his neighbors by moving into a hut and observing a foreign village and again beginning to understand their language, their lifestyles, their history, etc.

Watching the monster not necessarily mature but grow into something more and more comparable to a human being brings me closer to him, making me feel for this character more than many contemporary books can. Mary Shelley's ability to combine topics on worldly nature and draw parallels to human nature has given me feelings for a character who in real life it would be a challenge to feel for.