Doc Yoder's Notes
Dracula by Bram Stoker (1897)

Please note that these notes are in progress. Page numbers refer to Penguin 2003 edition. If you have any suggestions or corrections, please email Doc Yoder at rpyoder@ualr.edu.

Dracula Chapter by Chapter Timeline

Chap. I: May 3-4: Harker's Journal (in shorthand)

• Jonathan Harker's journal -- From Buda-pesth to the Borgo Pass; increasingly nervous peasants; Harker has a rosary forced upon him; a note from D., Dracula's driver can control the wolves, takes him, after delaying till midnight up the mountain to the "ruined castle"

Chap. II: May 5-8

• Harker's journal -- Harker meets D; the plans for D's move to London; Harker starts to suspect that something is wrong; D casts no reflection in Harker's shaving mirror; Dracula lunges at the sight of Harker's bloody cut; Harker realizes that he is a prisoner

Chap. III: May 8-16

• Harker's journal -- D tells Harker his cultural/family history; D gets Harker to write and say that he will stay a month, warns Harker not to sleep anywhere but his own room; Harker sees D climb down the wall; Harker goes to sleep in a different room, attacked by the 3 women -- sex and vampirism (pp. 43-47, May 16)

Chap. IV: May 16-June 30

• Harker's journal -- Harker understands his danger; D gets Harker to write 3 more letters, dated June 12, 19, 29 saying that he is on his way home; Harker tries to send a note seeking help, but is foiled; D is preparing large boxes of dirt; Harker climbs out onto the wall, into D's room, finds D's resting place down below; Harker attempts to kill D with a shovel, but fails; D departs, leaving Harker with the 3 women

Chap. V: May 9-26

• Letters between Mina and Lucy; Mina thinks Harker will return in about a week; Lucy tells Mina of her 3 proposals (intro John Seward, Quincey Morris, and Arthur Holmwood): "Why can't they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her?" (p. 67, May 24))
• Seward's diary (on phonograph) -- after Lucy rejects, Seward will throw himself into work, especially the study of Renfield
• Letter/telegram exchange between Morris and Holmwood -- Lucy's 3 suitors are buddies and agree to a drink to celebrate Arthur and Lucy's engagement

Chap. VI: June 5-August 6

• Mina's journal -- Mina is visiting Lucy at Whitby; the old men tell stories about the (empty) graves; no word from Harker in a month
• Seward's diary (back 50 days from Mina's journal) -- Renfield is amassing lives -- flies fed to spiders fed to birds; Renfield eats the birds when he can't have a cat; Seward is having a hard time getting over Lucy
• Mina's journal -- Lucy is sleep walking; no word from Harker; change in Mr. Swales; a ship approaches

Chap. VII: August 8-10 (Capt.'s log July 6-August 4?)

• Dailygraph newspaper report (pasted into Mina's journal) of the Demeter's arrival in Whitby with the dead captain lashed to the wheel
• Captain's log, embedded in newspaper story -- missing men, "something," "It," "Him" on board
• Mina's journal -- Lucy still sleepwalking; Mina remarks that Lucy is so sensitive that she feels the influence of others more readily; funeral of ship captain; Old Mr. Swales dead of broken neck

Chap. VIII: August 10-19

• Mina's journal -- Lucy sleepwalking to the Abbey; Mina finds her with a dark figure bending over her; the "pin pricks" on Lucy's neck; the bat at the window a day or so later; then a bird at the window; Lucy more pale, and the pin pricks don't heal
• Letters between solicitors for delivery of D's boxes to the ruined chapel at Carfax
• Mina's journal -- Lucy's account of that night at the Abbey; Lucy's condition improves once the boxes are shipped; Mina receives news of Jonathan, and plans to go to him
• Sister Agatha's letter -- Harker has been at the convent for 6 wks. with brain fever
• Seward's diary -- Seward is using chloral to sleep, fears addiction; Renfield seems to know that D has arrived; he escapes, runs to Carfax, but is recaptured

Chap. IX: August 20-Sept. 6

• Mina's letter to Lucy: Mina and Harker wed; Harker gives Mina his journal, but neither of them read it
• Lucy's letter to Mina: Lucy is recovered; she and Arthur set a wedding date
• Seward's diary: Renfield seems to imply some similarity between himself and Seward; Renfield escapes again, runs to the chapel at Carfax; Seward sees the bat
• Lucy's diary: back in London; bad dreams return
• Exchange of letters between Holmwood and Seward, arranging for Seward to examine Lucy, whose condition is worsening
• Seward brings in Van Helsing; first description of Van Helsing (p. 122, Sept. 2); Seward reports to Holmwood
• Seward's diary: dual reports on Renfield and Lucy, implies that their behavior is somehow related
• Seward begs Van Helsing to return as Lucy has taken a sudden turn for the worse

Chap. X: Sept. 6-Sept. 11

• Seward's letter to Holmwood on Lucy's condition
• Seward's diary (several entries): Van Helsing vague warning; Holmwood arrives at Lucy's in time for the first transfusion (p. 133, Sept. 7); Seward and VH
discover puncture wounds on Lucy's neck; Lucy improves, and then relapses after Seward lets her sleep alone; second transfusion (p. 138, Sept. 10); VH suggests that Holmwood might be jealous of Seward donating blood to Lucy; VH calls in garlic from Haarlem

Chap. XI: Sept. 11-18

• Lucy's diary: optimistic about help from friends and a good night's sleep
• Seward's diary: Mr. Westenra had removed the flowers overnight, and Lucy is much worse; VH donates a transfusion
• Lucy's journal: after 4-5 days, Lucy is better, but there is still that angry flapping at the window
• Pall Mall Gazette report of a wolf escaped from the zoo (and earlier a tall thin man at the wolf cage), who returned with glass and cuts in his fur
• Seward's diary: he was attacked and cut by Renfield, who then lapped up the blood from the floor
• Telegram from VH / Seward's diary: warning from VH not to leave Lucy alone arrives too late
• Memorandum from Lucy: wolf crashes through window; Mrs. W dies; servants are drugged; air is full so specks swirling about

Chap. XII: Sept. 18-20

• Seward's diary: finds Mrs. W dead and Lucy much worse; VH suggests that more than life is at stake; Qunicey Morris arrives just in time to donate blood to Lucy; VH reads Lucy's memorandum; QM and Seward talk about what happened to Lucy's blood (QM tells a short story about having to destroy a horse who had been attacked by a vampire bat, 162); Lucy's teeth seem to be getting longer and sharper
• Letter from Mina to Lucy ("unopened by her"): Harkers are back in Exeter; Hawkins has made Harker a partner and left everything to him in his will
• Report from Hennessey (Seward's asst. at asylum): some workmen were removing large boxes from Carfax and Renfield attacked them, saying, "I'll fight for my lord and master" (167)
• Letter from Mina to Lucy ("unopened by her"): Hawkins has died suddenly, and Mina and Harker will be coming to London for the funeral
• Seward's diary: Lucy weakens, teeth look even longer and sharper, the wounds on her neck disappear; Arthur arrives for the death scene, but VH wonąt allow him to kiss Lucy on the lips, even after Lucy's request in a "soft voluptuous voice" such as never heard from her before; Lucy dies ­ apparently the morning of Sept. 20

Chap. XIII: Sept. 20?-25 (there are some problems, I think, squaring the time of Seward's journal with the day to Lucy's death)

• Seward's diary: funeral arrangements for Lucy; she seems to become more beautiful and life-like in death; VH wants to cut off her head and take out her heart (176), but after her crucifix is stolen, it is too late to do that; Arthur inherits the Westenra estate; VH's warnings become increasingly ominous, but he does not tell what he suspects/knows
• Mina's journal (Sept. 22): written returning to Exeter from Hawkins's funeral in London; after the funeral Harker spotted the rejuvenated D in Hyde Park (183-4); at home they receive word of Lucy's death
• Seward's diary: Lucy is buried in Hampstead; VH feels like a father to Arthur, but recognizes that if Arthur feels that the transfusion wedded him to Lucy, then Lucy is a polygamist; VH lets slip that his wife is insane
• Westminster Gazette reports: in Hampstead in the days after Lucy's funeral, a "bloofer lady" is seducing children away; they all turn up with wounds on their necks

Chap. XIV: Sept. 23-26

• Mina's journal: she reads Harker's journal and decides to produce a typewritten draft
• Letter/telegram exchange VH to Mina and back: VH is coming to talk to Mina
• Mina's journal: Mina's account of VH's visit; she has a typescript of her journal as well as Harker's; other points: VH is revealing ties with old ways (he doesn't read shorthand, he sees Mina as representing a disappearing standard of female behavior); at the same time, Mina is typing, practicing verbatim memory and memorizing precise times for the train schedule ("the 3.34" one will arrive at "10.18")
• Exchange of letters VH & Mina: VH confirms that Harker's joural is true; they make plans for Mina, VH and Harker to meet
• Harker's journal: account of meeting with VH; VH says that Mina is one of "God's women," not like the new women; at the train station he sees the Westminster Gazette report of the "bloofer lady" (from Ch. 13) and panics
• Seward's (resumed) journal: Renfield is back counting flies and spiders (is he an accountant of life?); VH and Seward discuss what may be believed in the modern nineteenth-century scientific age; VH reveals that it is Lucy who is wounding the necks of the children in Hampstead

Chap. XV: Sept. 26-29

• Seward's diary, continuing immediately from Ch. 14: Seward and VH go to hospital to examine latest victim of "bloofer lady"; they go to cemetery and find Lucy's coffin empty; Seward glimpses a white streak, and they find a tiny child, unharmed; the next day (Sept. 27), they return to cemetery to find Lucy in her coffin, no sign of decay and teeth sharper than ever; first reference to "the vampire" and the "Undead" (214); Seward to starting to believe VH; VH delays destroying Lucy so that Arthur can be involved and have a sort of peace
• VH's note left for Seward, but not delivered: VH plans to confine Lucy to the tomb with garlic and a crucifix so that she'll be hungrier when they bring Arthur -- better proof
• Seward's diary: they bring Arthur and Quincey in on the plan; Arthur is outraged, but agrees to go along

Chap. XVI: Sept. 29 (events begin just before midnight Sept. 28)

• Seward's diary: at the cemetery they (VH, Seward, Arthur and QM) find Lucy's coffin empty; VH seals the tomb with Eucharist/putty; Lucy returns (a caricature of the "new woman"? p. 225) and tries to seduce Arthur; they all see her vampiric self, let her into the tomb and seal her in; the next day they return and Arthur drives the stake through Lucy's heart (230); VH and Seward cut off her head and fill her mouth with garlic

Chap. XVII: Sept. 29-30

• Seward's diary: Seward reads the journals of Mina and Harker; Mina arrives; Harker is in Whitby gathering info; Seward is recording his journal, waiting for Mina
• Mina's journal: picks up roughly where Seward left off; Mina's account of her meeting with Seward; after some hesitation, Seward agrees to let her hear some of his diaries (it dawns on him that he has no way to find a particular passage on the cylinders); Mina decides to produce a typescript of Seward's diary
• Seward's diary: Mina's sympathy with Seward's lost love, but she has only heard / typed up to Sept. 7 (the first transfusion); Seward agrees to let Mina hear / type the account of Lucy's death(s)
• Mina's journal: Mina is compiling the documents into chronological order, including the newspaper reports (fulfils the note before Chap. 1); she has made three copies
• Seward's diary: Harker arrives with the correspondences concerning shipping the boxes from Whitby to Carfax; Seward begins to figure out the connection with Renfield
• Harker's journal: begins on the train from Whitby to London; he is figuring out how well D has planned it all; once in London, he confirms that all 50 boxes of dirt were delivered to Carfax (including a comic(?) bit on having to buy drinks for the laborers / informants)
• Mina's journal: showcases Mina's sensitive side; she may even feel a bit of pity for D who is "so hunted"; Arthur breaks down in front of her and she treats him as her "child"; QM enlists her as a sister; Mina realizes that "No one but a woman can help a man when he is in trouble of the heart" (246)

Chap. XVIII: Sept. 30-Oct. 1

• Seward's diary: Mina has made his house a "home"; Mina meets Renfield who is sane as he ever was; he knows Seward wanted to marry Lucy and that Lucy is dead; VH arrives back from Amsterdam; he says that Mina has a "man's brain" (250), and encourages her to make her transcript as complete as possible, including the past few hours -- the various accounts catch up with themselves
• Mina's journal: the minutes of the "committee's" meeting; VH reveals vampire lore: they exist, their powers and weaknesses, and what are they to do (252-7); VH insists that Mina no longer be a part of the activities; Mina privately thinks this is a bad idea
• Seward's diary: 4am Oct. 1, the men set out for Carfax, but are delayed by entreaty by Renfield to release him; he seems sane and begs to get out of the asylum, even if in chains; ominously reminds Seward that he tried to convince him

Chap. XIX: Oct. 1-Oct. 2 (mostly Oct. 1)

• Harker's journal: The men go into Carfax, find only 29 of the 50 boxes; they are attacked by rats, but Arthur's dogs route them; they return to find Mina pale and sleeping deeply; she sleeps very late into the day (still Oct. 1); Harker plans to find the man who moved D's boxes
• Seward's diary: VH to see Renfield, who is rude to him; Seward and VH discuss the importance of keeping things from Mina
• Mina's journal: she is "strangely sad and low-spirited" (273); during the night she heard loud praying downstairs (later revealed to be Renfield); Mina has a "dream" of a pillar of cloud, that she recognizes from Harker's journal as D's method; the next night she takes chloral to sleep, but seems to intuit that she might regret it

Chap. XX: Oct. 1-2

• Harker's journal: Harker tracks down the laborers who moved D's boxes -- D is set up in the northeast, southeast and south, some notice of D's great strength; Harker notices that Mina is a little too pale, and thinks that Seward and VH were right to keep Mina in the dark; Next day (Oct. 2) after some snide satire on the language of the laborers, Harker manages to find D's house in Picadilly, but can get no info on it till he invokes "Lord Godalming's" name; Mina is still pale, but Harker is glad that keeping secrets has not come between them
• Seward's diary: back to Oct. 1: Seward's account of Renfield's ascendancy; Renfield wants lives, but does not want to be bothered with/by souls
• Letter from lawyers (Mitchell, Sons & Candy) that Count de Ville bought the house in Picadilly
• Seward's diary: alternative account of Mina's journal from Ch. 19 (Renfield praying); the next night Renfield is severely injured

Chap. XXI: Oct. 3

• Seward's diary: Renfield's account of what went on at the asylum while the men were at Carfax with the rats -- D was with him; Renfield tells them that it makes him "mad to know that [D] has been taking the life out of [Mina]" (299); they catch D forcing Mina to drink his blood while Harker is in a stupor beside them (300); Mina realizes that she is "unclean" (303); all the manuscripts except the one in the vault have been burned; Renfield is dead; Mina's account of what happened with D -- she "did not want to hinder him" (306); drinking D's blood seems to establish a psychic connection between D and Mina (307)

Chap. XXII: Oct. 3

• Harker's journal: in a complete reversal they decide to tell Mina everything; VH tells Mina that if she dies now, she will become a vampire (310) -- thus she inhabits a space between living and undead, between human and vampire; they plan how to get into D's Picadilly house; Mina's teeth are more prominent; Mina is burned by the Eucharist (316); Harker decides that if Mina becomes a vampire, he will join her (317); they return to Carfax and "sterilize" the remaining boxes of dirt; after they go to Carfax, and the help of a locksmith, gain admittance; one box is missing

Chap. XXIII: Oct. 3-early Oct. 4

• Seward's diary: Harker's hair has turned white over his alarm at what has happened to Mina; VH and Seward recognize that D's "child-brain" is still learning about the extent of his powers; they also fear that if they fail D could become "the father or furtherer of a new order of beings, whose road must lead through Death, not Life" (322); at the Picadilly house they receive a telegram from Mina that D has left Carfax in a hurry; they confront D at Picadilly house and he makes the sexual threat explicit: "Your girls that you all love are mine already; and through them you and others shall yet be mine" (326); D escapes with some money; back at home, Mina says that D is the saddest case of all, urges the men to resist revenge as a motive and acknowledges that some day she may need such pity
• Harker's journal: after a fitful night, Mina asks VH to hypnotize her; she apparently is perceiving what D senses ­ dark, lapping water; they realize that D's plan is to escape

Chap. XXIV: Oct. 4-6

• VH recording on Seward's phonograph (the first entry direct from VH): he addresses Harker, tells him to stay with Mina while they go to discover the ship D is on; he has realized the D is heading back to his castle
• Harker's journal (brief entry): to deal with the tension, Harker and Mina study the journals; Mina thinks that they may be the "instruments of ultimate good" (336)
• Mina's journal: the committee's next meeting, the account of how D got on the Czarina Catherine; VH speculates on the sources of D's power; VH makes explicit that Mina will become a vampire if she dies; VH describes D as a sort of anti-christ: "If such an one was to come from God, and not the Devil, what a force for goood might he not be in this old world of ours" (341)
• Seward's diary: after what VH calls her "Vampire's baptism of blood," Mina is starting to show vampire characteristics, including an ominous silence; VH and Seward decide to keep things from Mina, in case D has access to her mind as she has access to his; the men set their plan to pursue the Czarina Catherine, including Winchesters
• Harker's journal: Mina has intuited what VH and Seward have figured out and she makes Harker promise not to tell her anything of their plans; Harker feels that a door has been shut between them; Mina insists that she go along on the pursuit; QM says that he is ready to die for the cause; Harker makes out his will

Chap. XXV: Oct. 11-28

• Seward's diary: an amazing scene in which Mina makes the men promise to kill her "if the time comes"; the men kneel before her and pledge; then she makes Harker say the burial service over her
• Harker's journal: in Varna, they spend a week waiting for D's ship to arrive; VH's hypnotism of Mina is starting to sound like D's mind control: VH seems to be able to "simply will, and her thoughts obey him" (354)
• Telegram that the ship has passed the Dardanelles
• Seward's diary: Seward complains about having to write his diary rather than record it; 3 more days and the ship does not arrive in Varna
• Telegram: the ship has arrived at Galatz, Oct. 28
• Seward's diary: they make plans to go to Galatz; Mina is mentally freer and she posits that D has "selfishly" withdrawn into himself

Chap. XXVI: Oct. 29-Nov. 4

• Seward's diary: on the train to Galatz; Mina is more under D's influence they get; VH can hardly hypnotize her any more
• Mina's journal: Quincey takes to her to a hotel (they made the arrangements by telegraph); the other search for D
• Harker's journal: they interview the Capt. of the Czarina Catherine who tells of something scaring the Roumanians; Immanuel Hildesheim is "Mr. de Ville"'s agent in Galatz; they lose track of the box after it got off the ship; they figure that D's box is moving on water, but where?
• Mina's journal: imitating a sort of scientific method, Mina figures out D's route; they decide to split up in pursuit of D: Harker w/ Arthur in a boat; Quincey and Seward on horseback; Van Helsing and Mina by train and the carriage to the Borgo Pass; Mina reflects on the "wonderful power of money" (378)
• Harker's journal: on the boat w/ Arthur; 4 days chasing D up river
• Seward's diary: days on the road; news that Harker and Arthur had an accident, but are continuing
• Mina's journal: she and VH switch to a carriage for the final leg

Chap. XXVII: Nov. 1-6; postscript 7 years later

• Mina's journal: Mina's realizes that she is becoming more vampiric; suspense building -- she is unclean; they will beat the others to the Borgo Pass
• VH's memorandum: Mina sleeps all day and does not write anymore, so VH is keeping the record; Mina is increasingly vampiric; the weird sisters approach them, but Mina realizes that ironically / chillingly she has nothing to fear from them; the sisters kill the horses
• Harker's journal: Harker and Arthur leave the boat and get horses
• Seward's diary: Seward and Qincey see the wagon with D's box
• VH's memorandum: VH enters D's castle; he destroys the vampiresses even as he is moved by their beauty; their look of "repose" when he kills them supports him in his horrible work (395)
• Mina's journal: she and VH walk from the castle in the snow; VH finds a nook in the rocks for them to watch from; they watch the three groups converge: Harker/Arthur, Seward/Quincey, D; D is destroyed -- beheaded by Harker, stabbed by Quincey who is fatally wounded and dies
• 7 years later: Mina and Harker have son they call Quincey; they return to visit Transylvania and see the castle; it all seems so unbelievable, but VH says they "want no proofs" (402)

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Assorted topics to consider

Letters (epistolary) vs journals

• epistolary form (letters) assumes an audience, even if only an audience of one; in "literary epistles" there is also an implied larger readership reading over this "private" correspondence
• journals or diaries assume no such audience as epistolary form; their intended audience is the presumed future self of the writer; it is presumably less guarded than even a personal private correspondence
• in Dracula all this changes when they begin to stitch together the various pieces; suddenly the private letters with a limited audience and the journals/diaries with no intended public audience all become shared correspondence; I think this assumption of being shared must to some degree influence the "entries" that come after that point
• Stoker dramatizes this tension between private/public in the scene when Mina asks Van Helsing if her account of her personal feelings from the morning should be included; he decides that it would be best for that account to be included

Free will

• Is the most frightening element of the novel that damnation can come to you against your will, despite your choice, actions, faith?
• "The gates of heaven are shut" (p. 305)
• The Eucharist burns Mina (p. 381): "Unclean, unclean" -- even God shuns her "polluted flesh"
• Mina's cry echoes her response to her vampire baptism at Dracula's breast: "unclean, unclean" -- in Mina's memory of that event she says it was either suffocate or swallow? Is she punished for not choosing martydom?
• Did Lucy ask for it? Hindle suggests that Dracula got her first because she was the most sexually available character. Is Lucy punished for being a "New Woman"? Does she have a "strange belief" (like Renfield) about monogamy/polygamy (Why can't a girl just say yes to 3 men, or to as many as want her?)
• Is Mina punished for daring to pity Dracula? (p. 293) Later she explicitly chastises Harker for acting out of hatred when Dracula must be the saddest case of all.
• Dracula enters only after being invited -- this would seem to imply some necessary act of will on the part of the victim -- but once Dracula is over the threshold, everyone in the house (not just the one who invited him in) is fair game. This is how he got to Mina; they are still staying at Seward's house/asylum, into which Renfield had invited Dracula. So much for the necessity of a choice.
• So the fear is that you can be damned, shut out from heaven, so polluted that not even God will touch you, all against your will, without your having chosen to sin. This is pretty astounding. And apparently you can only be saved by vicarious action, but this vicarious action is not the vicarious suffering/sacrifice of Jesus.

Modernity / East meets West

• Harker's journal is in shorthand
• Harker: "I read that every known superstition in the world is gathered into the horseshoe of the Carpathians, as if it were the centre of some sort of imaginative whirlpool" (8)
• Harker's Kodak camera (30)
• Harker: "Here I am, sitting at a little oak table where in old times possibility some fair lady sat to pen, with much thought and many blushes, her ill-spelt love-letter, and writing in my diary in shorthand all that has happened since I closed it last. It is nineteenth century up-to-date with a vengeance. And yet, unless my senses deceive me, the old centuries had, and have, powers of their own which mere 'modernity' cannot kill" (43).
• Mina is practicing shorthand/stenography and typewriting (62)
• Lucy introduces the issue of "slang" (64, 66)
• Lucy: "Why can't they let a girl marry three men" (67)
• Seward's diary is kept on the phonograph (68)
• Blood transfusions: (133, 138)
• VH: "A year ago which of us would have received such a possibility [as vampires], in the midst of our scientific, matter-of-fact nineteenth century?" (254)

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