"Dracula" by Bram Stoker

Frank:

Hello, and welcome to Novel Conversations, a podcast about the world's greatest stories. I'm your host, Frank Lavallo . And for each episode of Novel Conversations, I talk to two readers about one book. And together, we summarize the story for you. We introduce you to the characters, we tell you what happens to them, and we read from the book along the way. So if you love hearing a good story, you're in the right place. This episode's conversation is about the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker, and I'm joined by our Novel Conversations' readers, Katie Smith and Philip Setnik. Phil, Katie, hello.

Phil:

Thank you, Frank. It's great to be back.

Katie:

Hi, Frank.

Frank:

Thanks for joining us today. Glad to have you both here.

Before we get started, I want to give you a quick summary of Dracula by Bram Stoker. Dracula was written by Bram Stoker and published in 1897. It's one of the most widely recognized and successful novels in the epistolary form to date. The novel is compiled entirely of letters, diary entries, newspaper clippings, telegrams, doctor's notes, lawyer's documents, ship logs, and the like. It has no single protagonist, but it does have several heroes and one amazing heroin. How these central characters meet, confront, and ultimately conquer the great evil of Dracula the vampire make up the story of our novel. Katie, let me ask you, is this the first reading of Dracula for you?

Katie:

Yes, it is.

Frank:

Not like any of the movies you may have seen. Have you seen any movies? I guess I should ask you that.

Katie:

I've seen a few movies. Most of my knowledge comes from the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Frank:

I'm guessing not the same kind of information as you got from Dracula.

Katie:

Not quite.

Frank:

Phil, let me ask you, is this the first time reading it and have you seen any of the movies?

Phil:

It's my first time reading the book, and the only one I've seen all the way through is Love at First Bite, which doesn't really count, although there's a lot of the same elements in it.

Frank:

There are a lot of same elements. Well, we should say most of the vampire stories that you're going to read or watch today would have these elements because it's Bram Stoker who essentially compiled, I don't want to say invented or created these characteristics of a vampire, but he compiled, codified, put them all in one place, and now all vampire stories have to have these conventions, have to have these standards, if you will. There's so many movies and of course TV series like Twilight. Katie mentioned Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It's a very popular subgenre of the horror genre. All right. Before we get started here, let's briefly talk about this epistolary style. I mentioned that the book is entirely made up of various documents, letters, journals. Katie, do you want to tell us a little bit about the epistolary form?

Katie:

Sure. So the epistolary form had really been an early form of what becomes the novel later. So we follow the characters through letters, diaries, journals, and that's how we hear the story.

Frank:

Right. I like to think of the epistolary novel as sort of a proto novel. It was a way of telling a story without having the idea of a linear narrative. It was really popularized very early on by Samuel Richardson in his books, Clarissa and Pamela. But even later on, it was used by Mary Shelley in her novel Frankenstein. And of course, Dracula is one of the most widely recognized and successful of the form. And so let's talk about the start of our novel. The novel starts with a letter and a journal. Katie, tell me about that letter.

Katie:

Yeah. The letter is addressed to my dear friend Hommy-Beg, and it just sets it up for us. It tells us that all the information in here has been compiled to tell this story, all the unimportant things have been taken out, and here they are put together.

Frank:

And then that's essentially what we're going to get. Someone has compiled all of these various documents and put it into some sort of a linear narrative for us to read to understand what went on. And then Phil, quickly, we get an entry from Jonathan Harker's Journal. Who is he and what do we know about Jonathan at the moment?

Phil:

Jonathan Harker is a young man, a solicitor, that's one of the kinds of lawyers in England, and he's taking a business trip on a mission to Transylvania in the Carpathian Mountains, and he's there to meet Count Dracula.

Frank:

Katie, do we know what this mission is, and do we know who he is writing his journal to even?

Katie:

No, not really. He does mention Mina, who seems to be maybe a girlfriend, maybe a wife. We don't know yet.

Frank:

We really don't know, and we don't really know what his business is just yet, but I do want to get Jonathan to the castle of Count Dracula and find out what this mission is, but those last few miles of his journey up to the castle, they were, shall we say, pretty strange. Katie.

Katie:

Absolutely. A lot of people are looking frightened, I would say.

Frank:

Once they find out he's going to the castle of Dracula.

Katie:

He gets a few warnings. One about it's the eve of St. George Day, and that means that evil things will come out that night. And before he gets on his last... Is it train or car?

Frank:

A stage coach I think.

Katie:

Before he gets on the last stage coach, a woman comes up to him and gives him a blessing, a crucifix, and tells him to be careful.

Frank:

And all the watchers at the stage, all are making the sign of the cross once they know where he's headed. But that's not all. We get wolves that are howling. There's dogs barking. The man who's driving this coach seems cadaverous at best. But Phil, we do get to the castle, and we do finally get to meet Dracula. What do we know about Dracula right away?

Phil:

Well, his physical appearance is different than they ever show in the movies really. He's tall and gaunt with white hair and a white mustache, an older gentleman, very thin, very pale with a very strong iron-like grip when he shakes Jonathan's hand.

Frank:

And the first thing that Jonathan notes when he shakes the Count's hand is how cold that hand is.

Phil:

Almost like death.

Frank:

Almost like death. And Phil, we do learn what Jonathan Harker's mission is here.

Phil:

He has been sent by his senior partner and mentor from England-

Frank:

Peter Hawkins,

Phil:

... to help the Count buy a house. And he's working with him to purchase a property in England. So Jonathan is working all through all the details of that particular transaction, but there becomes more to it as he stays longer with the Count.

Frank:

Katie, Jonathan Harker describes the house to Count Dracula. A couple of interesting notes about the house. Do you want to fill us in a little bit?

Katie:

Sure. The estate is called Carfax. It is on 20 acres. It's a medieval castle with stone walls and only a few windows. The windows are all barred as well.

Frank:

And this is not some finely restored castle in London that you would be ready to move into.

Katie:

No, not at all.

Frank:

This is almost the ruins of a castle. And Phil, the more time Harker spends with Dracula, he begins to notice some kind of odd things about his host.

Phil:

There's a number of odd things. First of all, he is very overcome with a sense of nausea and foreboding and chill whenever the Count is near. At one point, the Count actually leans over and puts his hand on Jonathan's arm, and he was instantly overcome with this dread and this nausea.

Frank:

He mentions that even the Count's breath smelled like death.

Phil:

So it said it was rank. That was the word he used to describe it was his rank breath. And that also had an effect on him. One of the first things we saw was when he came in, first of all, the Count was very hospitable, put out a huge spread of food for him, and a bedroom. And the Count said, "You may sup to your heart's content. I dined early, and I do not sup." Jonathan notices that the Count doesn't eat. He never sees him eating. And then he has a very strange occurrence. First of all, there's no mirrors anywhere in the house, and he goes to shave and has a little shaving mirror that he puts up on his shelf. And at one point, the Count comes in behind him and there's no reflection in the shaving mirror.

Frank:

That's certainly one of the common traits of vampires to this day. They have no reflection in a mirror.

Phil:

Yes. And I thought it was kind of interesting that while Jonathan was somewhat shocked by this, he didn't make a whole lot more of it.

Frank:

He really doesn't. He seems very accepting of all these odd occurrences. And he also notices that the Count talks about the servants in the castle, but then Jonathan Harker notices the Count makes his bed. It's the Count that sets the table. Jonathan Harker begins to wonder, "Are there even any servants in this castle? Is it just me and the Count?" And Katie, it does get a little stranger after that.

Katie:

It sure does. Well, Dracula tells him, "You have free rein to go wherever you want, just not through the locked doors."

Frank:

But then it turns out-

Katie:

They're all locked.

Frank:

... every door is locked. He begins to feel like a prisoner, doesn't he?

Katie:

Absolutely.

Frank:

He can't go where he wants to go. He can only go where the Count wants him to go. But Philip, it gets stranger yet.

Phil:

Well, there is one room he can get into. And he leaves his room and he goes into this room in the south part of the castle overlooking the south and the west wall. It's in a corner, and he's able to look down into the valley and into the side. And on both sides of this castle, it's impregnable. It's way up on top of a cliff. And then he looks out the window and he sees what he presumes to be the Count's window. And all of a sudden, he sees the Count's head and face appear outside the window, and slowly his whole body emerges and he starts crawling down the face of the castle head first. He's using his arms and his feet, and eventually he makes his way around the side of the castle and disappears.

Frank:

And as strange as that is, Katie, it still gets stranger.

Katie:

So one day he goes exploring through the castle, trying to get through whatever doors he can, and he gets through one room. And while he's there, he thinks he's alone in the dark room. There's some moonlight streaming through, and he sees three ladies.

Frank:

Three white figures, he describes them, dancing in the moonlight.

Katie:

Dancing in the moonlight with no shadows.

Phil:

Can I throw in one thing real quick here? One of the cautions that the Count gave to Jonathan before he said, "You have free rein to wander the castle," he said, "Don't sleep anywhere. You can sleep in your room, but if you go to sleep anywhere else, you'll have terrible, terrible dreams."

Katie:

That's right.

Phil:

And one of the things that happens when he starts to see this in the moonlight, he feels himself start to doze off.

Katie:

When he's writing about it, he tells it as if it were a dream. Anyway, as the ladies are dancing, they come closer and closer to him, and he sees their dark eyes and their sharp teeth, and then he's afraid that they're all going to kiss him.

Phil:

One of the women, there's three women, two brunettes and a blonde, and the brunettes urge the blonde who went forward and said, "You go first. There'll be plenty of kisses for all of us." And she leans forward voluptuously and licks her lips. And Jonathan is quite hypnotized. And he writes in his notes, in his notebook about how he is so upset that Mina might actually read this because she'll be jealous of these women. And she leans over and she starts to put her mouth on his neck, and he feels the teeth start to sink into his neck. And all of a sudden, he senses another presence of the room, and it's the Count, grabs her, throws her off, says, "He is mine for now. You will have him later," and she says, "Is there nothing for us then?"

The ladies show no fear of the Count. She says, defiantly, "Is there nothing for us then?" And he takes a bag, a squirming bag, and throws it on the floor. And Jonathan believes he hears perhaps a child crying. And then the ladies take the bag and vanish into thin air. And then Jonathan wakes up as if from a dream.

Frank:

But Phil, based on what happens next, this was no dream.

Phil:

Later on, we find that a woman has come into the courtyard of the castle.

Frank:

Again, Jonathan is looking out that one window that he has a view from.

Phil:

Exactly, down to the courtyard. And she's screaming for her child. And just then he hears the howling of wolves and a pack of wolves comes in, and he hears the wolves dispatching the woman, and then they leave.

Frank:

And Katie, he's now desperate to escape.

Katie:

He is. He's desperate to escape, but he can't figure out how.

Frank:

He has seen one way to get out of the castle, the Count's way.

Katie:

Climbing out the window.

Frank:

And he tries that doesn't he?

Katie:

He does.

Frank:

But that doesn't work out very well for him. He's not a vampire, of course, but he does work himself over to another window to another room.

Katie:

He does. And when he gets in there, he finds the Count's coffin.

Frank:

A big box, and the Count is just lying in it.

Katie:

No pulse, no breath, no beating heart.

Frank:

And then abruptly, the novel shifts focus, and we move on to a new set of characters in a new place. We now move on to Mina, and we get her journal entries and some of the things that she's going through while Jonathan is off in Transylvania checking out vampires. Katie, do you want to catch us up?

Katie:

Yeah. We are reading the letters from Miss Mina Murray to Miss Lucy Westenra. They seem to be good friends, and they're mostly writing to each other about their love interests.

Frank:

Their boyfriends. Now, Mina apparently is engaged to Jonathan Harker. That's what we're led to understand from the journal, but Lucy's got a few admirers, a few suitors, shall we say.

Katie:

She does. She has three. In fact, she gets three marriage proposals on the same day.

Frank:

Three suitors on the same day.

Katie:

On the same day.

Frank:

Now, we better talk about these suitors. The first one we meet is a Dr. John Seward.

Katie:

Dr. Seward. He is a doctor, and he's I think a family friend of Lucy's.

Frank:

One of the head doctors at an asylum, right, in the neighborhood. And Phil, tell me about the Quincey Morris, the cowboy.

Phil:

We don't learn a lot about Quincey Morris, how he happens to be in Lucy's life, but he is apparently one of her suitors. I can build a whole backstory about him if I thought about it. Apparently, the three of them, and we'll talk about the third suitor momentarily, but Dr. Seward and Quincey and Arthur Holmwood, who is the third suitor, apparently know each other and have had adventures together. And I have a feeling they fought like in the Boar War or something together.

Frank:

At this time in our novel, I think they're hunting buddies, if you-

Phil:

Could be. Yes, that could be as well too, but I have a feeling they've had a number of camping adventures, hunting adventures together. So how he comes to be in England is not made clear in the story. Be that as it may, he has also fallen in love with Lucy. And after she has dispatched Dr. Seward regretfully from his proposal, he comes in, proposes, and she too sends him away sadly and with a pledge from him of everlasting friendship.

Frank:

Katie, you liked Quincey Morris, the cowboy, and you particularly enjoyed his proposal to Lucy. I

Katie:

I loved it.

Frank:

What did you like?

Katie:

Can I read it?

Frank:

Absolutely.

Katie:

"Miss Lucy, I know I ain't good enough to relegate the fixings of your little shoes, but I guess if you wait till you find a man that is, you will go gain them seven young women with the lamps when you quit. Won't you just hitch up alongside me and let us go down the long road together driving in a double harness?

Frank:

I did say he was a cowboy. But Phil, we didn't mention he's an American cowboy.

Phil:

From Texas.

Frank:

From Texas.

Phil:

Indeed. Yep.

Frank:

And guys, once we meet these two suitors, we're immediately introduced to one of Dr. Seward's patient's, RM Renfield.

Phil:

Renfield is a physically very strong man, age 59, and he got some very strange behaviors.

Frank:

Very strange.

Phil:

At the moment we meet him, he is collecting flies. He established quite a fine collection of flies. The doctor came in and said, "You have to get rid of the flies." He said, "Give me three days," so he did. Came back and he had been collecting spiders and feeding the flies to the spiders. And then he had collected some birds.

Frank:

'Cause, of course, there are too many spiders.

Phil:

And somewhere in there, the doctor comes in and is talking to him and he catches a large fly flying around the room, grasps it, catches it between his fingers, and before the doctor can say anything, puts it in his mouth and eats it. The doctor is disgusted by this and says, "You shouldn't do that," and he says, "No, it is life. I am taking in life. It is full, rich life and wholesome," he calls it wholesome, which I thought was hysterical, "And I will take in that life." So it's rather gruesome, and obviously this is a man with a fair amount of mental disturbance.

Frank:

But we're going to find out it goes beyond just a mental disturbance. But let's go back to Mina's journal. She tells us a tale in her journal about a ship that crashes into the area. I think that might contribute to this problem with Renfield.

Phil:

I think that's quite possible, Frank, that those are connected. What happens is that there's a favorite place that Mina and Lucy have to watch over the harbor coming into Whitby, which is where they live, and a terrible storm starts to rise up, and there's a huge fog and wind and all kinds of storm warnings. And there is a ship that is trying to make it into port, and it eventually crashes into one of the pieces of the harbor. Before they can get on board, an animal looks, it like a large dog, leaps out from the bowels of the ship, jumps onto the railing, jumps onto the pier, and vanishes up to the top of the harbor area.

Frank:

Could this have been a wolf by any chance?

Phil:

It could have been a wolf. It wasn't described as a wolf, just as a large dog as what they said it looked like. Could have been a wolf.

Frank:

Gotcha. Okay.

Phil:

Right. And of course, people are kind of terrified for a while of where this huge beast has gone. They also find there are no people on board the ship. The only thing they find is a man with his hands tied to the wheel of the ship with a crucifix tied with it, with his hands tied to the wheel of the ship. And eventually, they do find in the ship's log the whole story of how the ship tries to make it into port, during the whole time at sea people are vanishing from the ship. The other thing they find on the ship is a whole bunch of boxes.

Frank:

Well, more than a bunch.

Phil:

About 50.

Frank:

50 boxes.

Phil:

Right.

Frank:

50 boxes filled with earth and dirt.

Phil:

Exactly. Now, one of the things that Jonathan had mentioned in his notes was he saw these boxes being loaded back at the castle.

Frank:

Oh, Katie, I guess it's pretty clear Dracula has arrived in England.

Katie:

It's pretty clear. And eventually, we'll find out that he did have those boxes sent. We have the letters and a bill of lading exchanged between the lawyers and the delivery companies.

Frank:

Indicating delivery of 50 boxes to Dracula's new house. Carfax I think you told us it was called.

Katie:

Carfax. Yep.

Phil:

Kind of shocking to me that Dracula left such a paper trail, unless it was in an intentional attempt to seem legit. I'm not sure which way to go with that.

Katie:

Well, I was wondering if it's because he's so interested in the English customs. He talks to Jonathan about that in the castle, how he wants to know how the English people talk, how they walk, how they dress, how they do things.

Phil:

Right. He wants to be beneath the radar as much as possible. So if he did anything like tried to smuggle those goods in, it would've attracted too much attention. That's a good point.

Frank:

That's where I was going to go. He had to stay, I think, above board, do these things legally because just one misstep, one illegal move could take his whole plan down.

Katie:

Exactly.

Frank:

Katie, I think that's part of what he was pumping Jonathan for information, "How do I act here? How do I act when I'm there?" And if you remember, the Count is very deliberate in making sure he's got various attorneys. He doesn't want one attorney.

Katie:

Right.

Frank:

He doesn't want just Jonathan Harker's firm handling all of this. He's got various attorneys handling little pieces, so he hopes, I think he hopes, no one can put the whole puzzle together of him bringing just 50 boxes of God only knows.

Katie:

Right. Exactly. And there's only so much he could learn about that in the books. He needs an English man to tell him exactly how it's done.

Frank:

Exactly. And he needs solicitors and he needs lawyers. And then, Katie, as we continue to read Mina's journals, we find out there's problems with Lucy. She's not feeling well.

Katie:

She's been sleepwalking.

Frank:

But not just sleepwalking, is she?

Katie:

Well, we have a tale about one night when Mina wakes up from fear to see that Lucy isn't in the room. She's gone outside. So Mina quickly follows her, tries to find her in the moonlight. That favorite spot they have of watching the ships, Mina thinks, "Well, maybe she's gone over there in her sleep." So Mina's traveling across and sees her in the distance in the moonlight, sees her lying down on a bench, and then all of a sudden she sees nothing. A big cloud or something has covered the moon. And when it starts dissipate, when the fog lifts, she sees a figure bent over Lucy.

Frank:

And Phil, after Mina witnesses these events, she tells us in her journal, she's finally heard from Jonathan Harker. Well, at least heard about him. right?

Phil:

Right. It's been relayed to her that he's in hospital in Budapest.

Frank:

She decides she's got to travel to see him. He's not well enough to come home yet. Obviously with Dracula gone to come to England, he's safe, more or less, where he is in Budapest, but weakened by his experiences and so can't come home. So Mina decides she's going to go to Budapest to travel to see him. All right, Katie, with Mina heading to Budapest to get Jonathan Harker, let's get back to Dr. Seward and Renfield.

Katie:

All right. Dr. Seward has found out that Renfield escaped.

Frank:

Renfield escapes the asylum and goes to Carfax. It turns out Carfax is right next door to the asylum.

Phil:

Huh.

Frank:

That's insane.

Phil:

I know.

Katie:

Imagine that. And he says to Dracula, "I'm here to do your bidding master. I am your slave. I'll be forever faithful."

Frank:

And Dr. Stewart hears this.

Katie:

He does.

Frank:

But eventually, he and the attendants recapture Renfield, put him into a straight jacket, and take him back to the asylum

Phil:

Into a padded cell.

Frank:

All right, Phil, Katie, let's take a break here. And when we come back, let's find out what's going on with Renfield, Lucy, Dracula's old house next door to the asylum, and, of course, Jonathan and Mina. We'll be right back.

When we left, we said we wanted to know what was going on with Renfield and Lucy, and, of course, Jonathan and Mina. Katie, can you catch us up on Jonathan and Mina?

Katie:

Sure. Mina meets Jonathan in Budapest, and they are soon married.

Frank:

We're not sure how he got away from Dracula, but he's recovering in a hospital, and somehow, miraculously, he has his journal.

Katie:

He does. And he gives it to his new wife.

Frank:

And asks her to read it if she wishes. And for now, she decides, "I don't think I'm going to read this journal."

Katie:

No, she ties it up and seals it with her wedding ring.

Frank:

I forgot about sealing with the wedding ring. Good. And Phil, what's going on back in England with Lucy and Dr. Seward?

Phil:

So Lucy is struggling. She's having dreams. She's hearing sounds outside her window.

Frank:

What kind of sounds? Do you recall?

Phil:

Mostly it was a flapping, like something flapping against the window kind of thing.

Frank:

She thought a big bird, perhaps.

Phil:

Big bird. I don't know if they mentioned bat quite yet, but that was one of the possibilities that she heard something like that.

Frank:

And some howlings. I think maybe dogs, maybe wolves.

Phil:

Dogs and wolves howling. Dogs outside the window for sure. It wasn't necessarily wolves at that point.

Frank:

And her fiance, Arthur Holmwood, is concerned. So he writes Dr. Seward and asks him to check her out.

Phil:

He doesn't find anything physical, so he thinks it must be something mental. He calls in a psychiatrist associate of his, actually a former mentor of his, Professor Abraham Van Helsing.

Frank:

Van Helsing. And while Van Helsing is considering her mental health, her physical health continues to deteriorate. Katie.

Katie:

To the point where they decide there's only one thing to do. She needs a blood transfusion.

Frank:

Blood transfusion. They see her as becoming very, very pale, very, very weak. So of course the diagnosis is she's anemic, so she needs to get some blood. Well, who's going to give her this blood?

Katie:

Arthur Holmwood.

Frank:

Oh, her fiance. That sort of makes sense.

Phil:

He shows up just in the nick of time.

Frank:

And does it work?

Katie:

For a little bit, but then she regresses, and she needs another transfusion.

Frank:

And this time her other suitor steps up, Dr. Seward, and he gives her a transfusion.

Katie:

And it also works for a little bit.

Frank:

But Phil, while this is going on, Van Helsing brings flowers to Lucy.

Phil:

Not flowers exactly. It's garlic.

Frank:

Ah. I've been waiting for the garlic to show up. Well, how does Van Helsing explain this?

Phil:

Beyond saying that it comes from Haarlem in Holland, he doesn't really explain, but it works for a while until the night of the wolf.

Frank:

The night of the wolf. Tell me about the night of the wolf.

Phil:

So we have not really spoken about Lucy's mother, who has also been very ill. And they're trying not to do anything that would give her a shock, that could send her into a death spiral, but she comes in at one point and she has noticed that there's this odor coming from the room and there's garlic everywhere, so she removes the garlic and opens the window to freshen up the room.

Frank:

No one's told Lucy's mom about what's going on with Lucy.

Phil:

Exactly. Yeah.

Frank:

And you had said they didn't want to worry her, but-

Phil:

So they've been keeping everything from her. Van Helsing and Dr. Seward and Arthur haven't told her anything about what's going on with Lucy. And before one of the, I think it was before the third transfusion, she in all good meaning, came in and took out the garlic and opened the window. And of course, Lucy's attacked yet again and is even more deathly pale. So finally, the mother comes in to console Lucy and she lies down with her. And all of a sudden, there's the sound of the wolf at the window and breaks the glass in the window, and the shock of it kills her mother. And she is lying there with her dead mother with her, but Lucy survives, but is more and more deathly pale.

Frank:

And now a third transfusion is going to be needed. Who gives her the third transfusion? And I know we've got a fourth one coming up, but who gives her the third transfusion? Katie.

Katie:

It's Dr. Van Helsing's turn.

Frank:

Boy, they're all stepping up. These men are trying to take care of Lucy, but this transfusion doesn't work, and so she's going to need a fourth transfusion. Imagine that.

Katie:

Yeah.

Frank:

Is it Arthur's turn again, Katie?

Katie:

Well, it was about to be, but then Quincey Morris shows up.

Frank:

Quincey Morris, the cowboy.

Katie:

The cowboy. He's had a letter, of course, from Arthur asking him to help with Lucy.

Frank:

So all of Lucy suitors are here to help.

Katie:

They are, but to no avail because after days of fits and starts and recovery and remission, eventually Lucy dies.

Frank:

She does die. But Phil, before she dies, she tries to bite Arthur.

Phil:

Indeed. Arthur is in the room, and she opens her eyes for one last moment. And she looks fairly lucid, and she says, "Come and kiss me." And he's about to kiss her, and Van Helsing grabs him and throws him across the room because she's trying to bite Arthur at that point.

Frank:

Van Helsing's not finished with Lucy.

Katie:

Oh no. He wants to do an autopsy.

Frank:

An autopsy.

Katie:

Actually, he wants to cut off her head and cut out her heart.

Frank:

And at this point, through another journal, we learn about a couple more deaths, don't we?

Phil:

Exactly. Phil Hawkins, who was Jonathan's mentor, dies, leaving Jonathan all of his law firm and all of his possessions. And Arthur's father passes away and passes on his title as Lord Godalming, passes it down to Arthur.

Frank:

Right. Arthur Holmwood now becomes Lord Godalming. Well, things start moving fast here. Van Helsing reaches conclusions about just what's been going on. And Phil, do you want to fill us in?

Phil:

There are a number of incidents that happened. They think that Lucy is dead and buried. She's in her grave. They have a funeral for her and everything, along with her mother. Then Jonathan produces some newspapers that he hands to Van Helsing. He starts looking at them. And all of a sudden, he sees some incidences of children vanishing and then showing up with small pin pricks on their neck, and he says, "Oh no, it is starting already."

Frank:

And that's when Van Helsing leaves the other men for a little while.

Phil:

Goes to Amsterdam.

Frank:

That's right, he does. He goes to Amsterdam.

Phil:

Goes home to Amsterdam, do some research.

Frank:

In the meantime though, these children are being bitten. And now, we also find out that Mina has finally read Jonathan's journal, tells Seward, who then tells Van Helsing, so then Van Helsing comes back from Amsterdam and he wants to visit Mina.

Katie:

Who gives him the journal. And after he's read it all, he says, "It's all true. Everything is true."

Frank:

That's actually a relief to Jonathan. He thought he was crazy. He thought he'd been dreaming this. He thought he was hallucinating. It turns out everything he saw, everything he believes is in fact true.

Phil:

And they even enCountered Dracula in a scene in a park right around the time that all of this starts to happen with the Journal. Jonathan sees that man himself. He sees him across the way.

Frank:

But a very changed Dracula he sees.

Phil:

He's become much younger. He's all of a sudden got a beard, and he's got dark hair, but he still has the same power about him and the same sharp pointy teeth and red lips that he had before.

Frank:

And now Phil, after Van Helsing has read Jonathan's journal, Jonathan and Van Helsing get together, and they talk, and we get this tale of vampire bats. And Phil, he makes a very shocking statement about Lucy.

Phil:

The question comes up, who is biting these children, and he says, "It is Lucy who is biting these children," because Jonathan thinks maybe there are vampire bats here in England. He says, "Nope, it is Lucy who is doing the biting."

Frank:

Lucy's alive.

Phil:

Lucy is undead, biting the children, and must be destroyed.

Frank:

And so they stake out the graveyard. They watch for Lucy. And sure enough, they see Lucy bite another child. And there's no doubts now, Katie, they must take action. What action do they take and who takes it?

Katie:

So after they see her at night, they wait until daylight, and they go into the tomb. They open her coffin, and Arthur takes a wooden stake and a hammer and drives it through her heart.

Frank:

And that finally kills the undead.

Katie:

And lets the soul sleep in peace.

Frank:

And finally, a connection is made with the house next door and Renfield. And now, Van Helsing is going to reveal everything that he's learned doing his research in Amsterdam. But first, let's take a break here. And when we come back, I want to know what Van Helsing now knows about Dracula and his history. You're listening to novel Conversations. Today, we're having a conversation about Dracula by Bram Stoker. I'm your host, Frank Lavallo. We'll be right back.

Welcome back. You're listening to Novel Conversations. And today, we're having a conversation about Dracula by Bram Stoker. And I'm joined by our novel conversations readers, Katie Smith and Phil Setnik. All right, Katie, Phil, when we left, we were about to learn from Van Helsing the history of Dracula and the Draculas. Phil, what do we learn?

Phil:

Well, first that they go way back in time. There were Draculas in Old Rome, Germany, France, even as far as China.

Frank:

And Phil, I got to be honest with you, as I was reading it, I wasn't quite sure whether this Dracula is one of the old Draculas or is he a newer Dracula?

Phil:

I want to say that he dates back some four or 500 years.

Frank:

Okay, so not the earliest Dracula.

Phil:

Not the earliest, no. They've been around for even longer than that. As you say, they've been all over the world.

Frank:

Throughout history.

Phil:

Throughout history, exactly. And all they have to go by though is the superstitions and rumors and tales. And it's an interesting thing that Van Helsing, who seems to be the scientist, is also very much incredulous about all of these things. He's very open minded and very willing to act on little scientific evidence and entirely on folk tale and the evidence he collects based on that folktale.

Frank:

He's willing to go a bit beyond the science.

Phil:

And I wonder if that's something that was trying to be brought out in the book that this is an age of science in that time when this book was written, and it had turned many people into closed-minded prigs that they couldn't deal with things that were outside of their realm of understanding.

Frank:

And I think that's part of the gothic movement against some of that rationalism, some of that reasonableness that was creeping into the world, and it was an attempt to go back to a little bit of a belief in mystery and the mysterious, but I digress guys. What does Van Helsing tell us is the story about the boxes and these 50 coffins?

Phil:

The Draculas have to sleep in a particular kind of earth.

Frank:

Isn't it the earth of their original homeland perhaps?

Phil:

It has to be sanctified somehow for their use. As we saw before, he was digging up the floor of the chapel in his castle in Transylvania, and that's what he was having transported on the ship to England so that he had places, resting places all over the city of London.

Frank:

Boxes of sanctified dirt.

Phil:

Boxes of earth so that he could actually sleep in them.

Frank:

Katie, back at the asylum, Renfield is acting up again. But my question I guess for you is he acting?

Katie:

That's a little unclear. I'm not sure he is, but he does ask for the doctor to be brought in. And when that happens, I think all of the men go together.

Frank:

They do. They all want to hear what Renfield has to say.

Katie:

What he has to say is he wants to get out, he wants to be let free, and that something terrible is coming.

Frank:

And this is a different Renfield than we as readers or even Dr. Seward have seen before.

Katie:

Absolutely. So much so that Mr. Morris says, "He's the sanest lunatic I ever saw."

Frank:

He's very reasonable. He's very calm. He makes his request. He tries to explain the reasons for it. He fears what might happen here at the asylum. I get a feeling he's almost foreshadowing something.

Katie:

I think you're right, and I think Van Helsing sees it too.

Frank:

Phil, did you have anything to add here?

Phil:

No, you've described it pretty well that he is pleading as though for his life, he is pleading to be released so that he may not be in danger. And when he finally fails in his ability to get released, he says, "You will, I trust, Dr. Seward, do me the justice to bear in mind later on that I did what I could to convince you tonight," and is in a very defeated and, again, foreshadowing kind of tone.

Frank:

You mentioned that he spoke about fear, but the fear that Renfield's feeling is not really for himself, is it? He's fearing for these other people, these characters we've come to meet.

Phil:

Yes, exactly.

Katie:

For example, Mina.

Frank:

Let's get back to Mina. Mina is changing before these men's eyes. And it seems to me none of them are noticing.

Katie:

Not really. And as Jonathan gets home after visiting Renfield that night, he goes into the room, finds Mina asleep, but it looks as if she might have been bitten.

Frank:

And certainly over the next few days, she's very lethargic. She sleeps a lot more than she used to sleep. They mentioned that she's getting paler, but not one of these men yet make a connection between her and anything that happened with Lucy or Renfield or Dracula. They just comment on her apparently deteriorating physical condition.

Katie:

Maybe they think she's just a delicate little flower.

Frank:

Well, this is no delicate little flower.

Phil:

Van Helsing goes through this whole litany of characteristics that Draculas have, that the undead have, that they hate garlic, they are put at bay by wafers and by crucifixes and other holy objects.

Frank:

Anything religious, right?

Phil:

Well, that's a good question. Religious symbols of other religions would affect them, or is it just Christianity? Don't know.

Katie:

Will it guard against the evil eye.

Phil:

The evil eye. All these different talismans and things like that can resist them, and among the things is his ability to transform himself. And he can become a bat or he can become a wolf or he can become a mist. That was one of the things that got me was that eventually Mina is shown standing at the window, and all of a sudden she sees a mist moving across the gardens, just a wisp of it, and all of a sudden it's coming in the window, and she doesn't make this connection either. She doesn't tell anybody about it. Now, maybe it didn't occur to her, or maybe she wasn't able to tell anybody. I'm not sure which because she'd been hypnotically prevented from doing so, but this was what happens right around the time when she starts to fail and her health starts to fail. She saw this mist coming in.

Frank:

And yet, no one makes any connections.

Phil:

Yes.

Frank:

That was very frustrating for me. And meanwhile, as Mina continues to deteriorate, the men are on the trail of these boxes. They've gotten more bills of lading and letters from lawyers, and they're tracking down these 50 boxes. They have found many in Dracula's castle, but there's at least 11 or 12 that are still missing. And they're searching out, they've got addresses for various houses around the area, and they're searching for these other boxes.

Phil:

Nice bit of detective work really.

Frank:

It really is. And it really lends itself to the epistolary form because we get a lot of information just from letters, as I mentioned, bills of lading, communications between delivery men and other lawyers. So it's a fascinating way for the Bram Stoker to tell us this story.

Phil:

It's almost like the Chekhov, Chekhov's rule. There's this epistle on the stage in Act one, and somebody gets shot by Act three. Stoker sets up the whole paper trail that I mentioned before with all the description of the documents and so on so it becomes handy later on when they go to find these 50 boxes scattered about London.

Frank:

And I always turn Chekhov's admonition around, and I always say, "If you're going to need a gun in the third act, you better put it on the wall in the first act. You can't just have it miraculously appear right in the third act."

Phil:

One other little note here, we do find that Renfield, his foreboding and his fear, was well placed not just for Mina but for himself because he is eventually also attacked and severely injured and perhaps killed. I don't think it says that he died of his injuries, at least not by the time we saw it. But he has a broken neck, his head is concussed and depressed and fractured, and so he's in very bad shape.

Frank:

The skull is fractured, his back is broken. He's been attacked by some kind of strong persona. And now, we know both Mina and Renfield have been attacked several times by Dracula, whether in a mist or in a persona of a very strong man. But now, I'm curious about these coffins that the men are finding. Phil, you said that these coffins are filled with dirt that's been sanctified for Dracula. What are they doing with these coffins?

Phil:

So the whole point of these coffins is so that he has a refuge that he can go to in a number of different places because, remember, he has to be someplace when the sun comes up, so he has a place of refuge to go to. So what they're trying to do is take away those refuges. So they open up the coffin, they put in a piece of holy wafer, and they seal it back up, which contaminates it, so to speak, for Dracula's use.

Frank:

And finally, they do find the Count and they confront him, but he escapes again.

Katie:

Of course he does, but not all is lost. Mina asks to be hypnotized by Van Helsing in order to somehow channel what Dracula sees.

Frank:

And what does she see with quotation marks about Dracula? She's channeling him, if we want to use a modern term.

Katie:

She doesn't actually see, but she hears water lapping, and they figure out he's on a boat.

Phil:

He had taken the last of the coffins and put it on a ship to be ready to use for escape.

Frank:

Well, does he escape?

Phil:

He does, but they eventually figure out what ship he's on, and they figure they can head him off. If they go by land, they can go more quickly and catch up with him even before he even gets off the ship. They were going to leave Mina behind because of fear for her safety, but she insists on going with them.

Frank:

So that she can, as I said, continue to channel Dracula.

Phil:

Indeed. But there's a twist because he can reverse the conduit and see her.

Frank:

So why bring her?

Phil:

That's a great question, Frank.

Katie:

I think for her safety mostly.

Frank:

They do decide it's probably safer for her to be with the men than left alone.

Phil:

I'll go with that, Katie. Yeah.

Katie:

They're very intent on keeping her safe and bringing her back to life. All of these men care about her so much.

Frank:

But not only keeping her safe, they do continue to track Dracula.

Katie:

So they eventually track him and find out that he's headed to the castle.

Frank:

Well, duh. And then they split up, right? Arthur and Jonathan go one way, Dr. Seward and Quincey Morris go another way, and Mina and Van Helsing head pretty much towards the castle. Phil, tell me about the events of Mina and the professor.

Phil:

When they get to the castle, they eventually meet up with the white ghosts that Jonathan saw towards the beginning of the story, the three women, and they track them into the castle, and then Van Helsing takes away the covering from their coffins and drives stakes through their hearts.

Frank:

Right. Van Helsing enters the castle, but he leaves Mina behind. And once he gets into the castle, he finds their coffins.

Phil:

Finds their coffins, drives stakes through their hearts, cuts off their heads, and they are destroyed.

Frank:

All right, so three down and at least one to go.

Phil:

They then station themselves at the gates waiting for those two groups and for Dracula to arrive.

Frank:

All right, Katie, do you want to finish the story for us?

Katie:

I'd love to. There's a wagon coming up that's carrying the coffin, which has Dracula inside of it. And just minutes before the wagon gets to the house, we see Jonathan and Quincey show up. They draw their weapons, the people driving the wagon draw their weapons, and a fight ensues. And while this is happening, Jonathan manages to pry off the lid of the coffin exposing Dracula, and they see that the sun is just about to go down. It's just about to be night. And in that moment, they killed Dracula. Jonathan slits the throat, and Quincey stabs his heart.

Phil:

To the astonishment of the onlookers, his body just dissolves.

Frank:

Is that because of the sun... No. The sun was going down or coming up?

Phil:

That's because they killed him. The only thing that was keeping him alive was the spirits of others flowing through his veins.

Frank:

And so ends our story.

Katie:

Well, not quite. There's a note. We have a letter from Jonathan. He tells us that Quincey died in the fight. And a year later on the day, Mina gives birth to a son, who I think they name him after all of the men who fought.

Frank:

They do. I think they say he's got a multitude of names or something,

Katie:

But they call him Quincey.

Frank:

But they call him Quincey. That was a great way to end. Kate, Phil, great insights, great telling of the story. Let's take a final break here, and then head into our last segment where I'd like to ask the two of you to share a moment or a character or perhaps a quote that we haven't had a chance to talk about yet. Right now, you're listening to Novel Conversations. I'm Frank Lavallo. We'll be right back.

And welcome back. You're listening to Novel Conversations. I'm Frank Lavallo. And today, I'm having a conversation about Dracula by Bram Stoker. And I'm joined by our Novel Conversations' readers, Katie Smith and Phil Setnik. Before our break, we ended our story. And now, I'd like to ask the two of you to share a moment or a character or a line that we really haven't had a chance to talk about. There's a lot going on in this novel, and obviously we couldn't get to every moment of it, so here's your chance to tell me something that we may have missed. Katie, do you have something for us?

Katie:

I do. This is maybe my favorite line in the book, and it comes pretty early on when Jonathan is at the house of Count Dracula. he's been feeling very eerie and not sleeping well and knows that he's in danger, but he says, "I could not help experiencing that chill, which comes over one at the coming of dawn, which is like in its way, the turn of the tide. They say that people who are near death died generally at the change to dawn or at the turn of the tide. Anyone who has when tired and tried as it were to his post, experience this change in the atmosphere can well believe it."

Frank:

Good line. Good line. Phil, do you have something?

Phil:

Just a scene from the book. When we first enCountered Jonathan in the castle, and he realizes he's a prisoner, he begins this slow dissent into kind of a frantic behavior. He's getting more and more frustrated and upset, but I didn't quite buy it. What was making him so crazy about just being locked up? Well, he was locked up. That's a bad thing. But then he sees the three women. That was when it really turned the tide for me about here was a man who was descending in what he thinks might be madness, and he has to get out of that place at all costs.

Frank:

Good, good. I want to talk about Mina. This book was written in 1897, certainly not the height of women's emancipation, but this character, Mina Wilhelmina is her full name, Wilhelmina Murray Harker, what a strong character. She saves the day for these men. She's the one who says, "Let me be the conduit. You can hypnotize me. I can tell you what Dracula is doing and hearing and seeing." She insists on being taken along on the journey. She's the one who compiles and reads all of these journals and all of these notes. What a standout character. And I've got to give Bram Stoker some credit. There were not a lot of strong women characters being written at this time. Boy, did he really give us one. Katie, do you have anything else you want to share?

Katie:

I wanted to comment on the epistolary way of writing. I think that through that we were able to get a sense of the fear that everybody felt. And if it hadn't been through letters and diaries, the way that they felt sick when Dracula comes near or they wake up in a fit of fear, all of that would've been lost a little bit.

Frank:

It was a great way for Bram Stoker to give us insights into what these characters were thinking without happening to tell us that he was in their minds. Phil, do you have anything else?

Phil:

I was impressed by Stoker's writing, of course, and especially of his creation of characters through their accents and the way that he wrote, so that he wrote the way people spoke so that you had to hear in your mind the very old sailor and the way he spoke, and even the Count and Van Helsing and how they spoke, and how Bram Stoker brought that out in the way that he wrote their characters.

Frank:

I think it's fantastic that you brought that thought up because the last thing I want to talk about is actually a line about Quincey Morris, our American cowboy. At one point, the other men head off to other countries in order to continue their research on the boxes and on the history of Draculas, but they have to leave Quincey Morris behind because after all, he's a cowboy and he only speaks American. And that kind of speaks to not only the good parts of a cowboy, but perhaps not so good parts about Americans. No matter where we go, we expect everyone to speak our language. But I did, I really liked Quincey Morrison, and he only speaks American. All right, guys. With that said, I'd like to end our conversation about Dracula by Bram Stoker. Katie. Phil, I do want to thank you both for coming in and having this conversation with me today. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

Phil:

Had a great time. Thank you.

Katie:

Thanks, Phil. Oh, thanks, Frank.

Frank:

Absolutely. Thanks.

Phil:

Thanks Katie.

Frank:

Thanks, Katie. And Phil.

Phil:

What, I don't get thanked?

Katie:

And Noah.

Phil:

And Noah.

Katie:

Oh man.

Phil:

The disembodied voice, yes.

Frank:

Noah.

Katie:

Thank you, Frank, Phil and Noah.

Frank:

I'm Frank Lavallo, and you've been listening to Novel Conversations.

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