Jonathan Harker, a solicitor, travels to Transylvania to meet Count Dracula and help him finalise the purchase of a property in England. Soon afterwards, the Englishman discovers his host's castle's strange, dark secrets and, managing to escape, comes back safe to England. However, when sinister incidents multiply in London, Jonathan knows that the danger creeping on the city streets can only mean one thing: Count Dracula is here.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula is told from the point of view of seven different characters using various medium to narrate the story among which: journal entry, letters, and telegrams as well as phonograph and newspaper articles. This contributed to strengthen the mystery surrounding Dracula but also to create this sense of tension to characterize the threat that Dracula represents to mankind. The tension was even more palpable due to the absence of Dracula's point of view which, I believe, was one of the strongest aspects of this Gothic horror story. However, the feelings of tension, mystery and fear rapidly disappeared at the beginning of the second half of the book.
The arrival of Professor Van Helsing puts an end to the horror story Bram Stoker’s Dracula was, and could have continued to be, turning it into a story about saving women and children from damnation filled with long expositions during which characters spend page after page hiding considerably important information from one another, complimenting one another, and being kind to one another instead of taking actions against Dracula who, by the second half of the book, is no longer the terrifying being that we met through Jonathan Harker’s journal entry at the beginning of the novel. To be fair, the only thing that kind of scared me in the novel was how Dr. John Seward and Professor Van Helsing were performing blood transfusion on one of the female characters. Last time I checked, blood transfusion should be based on blood rhesus and not the love one feels for someone. Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure this female character died because of those blood transfusions and not because of Dracula.
I must say I have mixed feelings about Bram Stoker’s Dracula as I absolutely enjoyed the first half of the novel with its creepy vibes and spine-tingling atmosphere. Jonathan Harker’s depiction of his journey to Transylvania, his stay at Castle Dracula, and the discovery of the Count’s dark secrets were gripping. Unfortunately, the second part ended up being quite anticlimactic due to a slower pace, too many unnecessary expositions and characters making decisions that defy all logic.
Stoker, B, Dracula, London, Penguin Classics, 2003.