The Epistolary Form: Letters and Diaries “Dracula” is an epistolary novel. It is told through letters, diary entries, newspaper clippings, and phonograph recordings. The form creates immediacy. The reader reads the characters’ accounts as they write them. The form also creates suspense. The characters do not know what is happening. They discover the truth slowly. The reader discovers it with them. Stoker used the epistolary form to make the supernatural seem real. If multiple witnesses record the same events, the reader must believe them.
Count Dracula: The Monster as Gentleman Dracula is not a brute. He is cultured. He speaks eloquently. He knows history. He invites Jonathan Harker to his castle. He feeds him. He talks with him. He is charming. He is also terrifying. He crawls down the castle wall like a lizard. He has hair on his palms. He has sharp teeth. He can turn into a bat, a wolf, or mist. He controls wolves and rats. He is ancient. He is evil. He is seductive. The reader is repelled. The reader is fascinated.
Jonathan Harker: The Trapped Englishman Jonathan is a solicitor. He travels to Transylvania to finalize Dracula’s purchase of an estate in England. He is trapped in the castle. He is almost seduced by Dracula’s brides. He escapes. He returns to England. He marries Mina. He helps hunt Dracula. He is the novel’s everyman. He is brave. He is ordinary. He survives.
Mina Harker: The New Woman Mina is the novel’s heroine. She is intelligent. She learns to type. She uses a phonograph. She organizes the diaries. She is the novel’s archivist. She is also a traditional woman. She loves Jonathan. She wants to be a good wife. Dracula bites her. She is contaminated. She is saved. Mina represents the New Woman of the 1890s: educated, capable, and independent. She also represents the Victorian ideal: pure, domestic, and self-sacrificing. The novel cannot decide which.
Van Helsing: The Wise Professor Van Helsing is a Dutch doctor. He knows about vampires. He leads the hunt. He is eccentric. He speaks in broken English. He is brave. He is also cruel. He makes Mina drink holy water. He forces the others to kill the vampire women. He is the novel’s moral authority. He is also a foreigner. The English need a foreigner to save them. Stoker was Irish. He was an outsider. He knew that outsiders see what insiders miss.
Lucy Westenra: The Seduced Victim Lucy is Mina’s friend. She is beautiful, innocent, and weak. She is courted by three men. She chooses Arthur. Dracula bites her. She becomes a vampire. She preys on children. Van Helsing and the others kill her. They drive a stake through her heart. They cut off her head. They fill her mouth with garlic. Lucy is the Victorian ideal destroyed. She is also a warning. Women who are too sexual become monsters.
The Ending: The Hunt The men hunt Dracula across Europe. They track him to Transylvania. They find his castle. They kill him at sunset. He turns to dust. Mina is freed. The novel ends with a note from Jonathan. He says that they have a son. They name him after everyone who died. The ending is happy. It is also sad. Quincey Morris, the American, died. He was brave. He was loyal. He is forgotten.
Conclusion: “Dracula” is a novel about fear. It is about the fear of the foreigner. It is about the fear of female sexuality. It is about the fear of disease. It is about the fear of death. Stoker channeled the anxieties of his age into a monster. The monster has survived. We still fear. We still read.
