Classics and the Western Canon discussion

CHAPTER XXIII
DR SEWARD’S DIARY
Van Helsing suggests further that Dracula is a special case when it comes to vampires,

Well, in him the brain powers survived the physical death; though it would seem that memory was not all complete. In some faculties of mind he has been, and is, only a child; but he is growing, and some things that were childish at the first are now of man’s stature. He is experimenting, and doing it well. . .

A note from Mina warns the men that Dracula is on his way to them, and the tension begins to mount as he approaches. Dracula loses some papers and gold coins in a brief fight but threatens that he has already won.

Mina has had a change of heart reversing her previous inability to find room to find room to pity Dracula.

I suppose one ought to pity any thing so hunted as is the Count. That is just it: this Thing is not human—not even beast. To read Dr Seward’s account of poor Lucy’s death, and what followed, is enough to dry up the springs of pity in one’s heart.

and now

That poor soul who has wrought all this misery is the saddest case of all. Just think what will be his joy when he too is destroyed in his worser part that his better part may have spiritual immortality. You must be pitiful to him too. . .

How can it best be put into words what changed Mina's mind?

JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL
Mina suggests that Van Helsing hypnotize her. The connection meant to control Mina backfires on Dracula when Mina is able to sense Dracula surroundings and the vampire hunters determine Dracula is escaping onboard a ship. Van Helsing, rather insensitively again, reminds Mina why it is critical they must chase and catch Dracula rather than let him go to stop her progression into vampirism,

‘he can live for centuries, and you are but mortal woman. Time is now to be dreaded—since once he put that mark upon your throat.’

CHAPTER XXIV
DR SEWARD’S PHONOGRAPH DIARY, SPOKEN BY VAN HELSING
Van Helsing instructs Jonathan to take care of Mina while the rest of the group tracks down information on Dracula's escape.

JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL
Jonathan yearns for the time he did not believe in such things,

MINA HARKER’S JOURNAL
The men learn that Dracula is onboard the Czarina Catherine bound for Varna and the Danube. Like the Demeter, the Czarina Catherine also has a significant name, any guesses? We also get a curious description of Dracula,

A tall man, thin and pale, with high nose and teeth so white, and eyes that seem to be burning. That he be all in black, except that he have a hat of straw which suit not him or the time.

What's up with the fashion statement here?

Van Helsing's poor English turns much of the mariner's talk into a bit of comedy relief,

The captain swore polyglot-very polyglot—polyglot with bloom and blood;

I get bloom for bloomin', and blood for bloody, but I am not sure what the polyglot is.

Van Helsing again stressed that Dracula is an exceptional vampire and speculates as to why,

Were another of the Un-Dead, like him, to try to do what he has done, perhaps not all the centuries of the world that have been, or that will be, could aid him. With this one, all the forces of nature that are occult and deep and strong must have worked together in some wondrous way. The very place, where he have been alive, Un-dead for all these centuries, is full of strangeness of the geologic and chemical world. There are deep caverns and fissures that reach none know whither. There have been volcanoes, some of whose openings still send out waters of strange properties, and gases that kill or make to vivify. Doubtless, there is something magnetic or electric in some of these combinations of occult forces which work for physical life in strange way; and in himself were from the first some great qualities.

Van Helsing also spells out why they must pursue Dracula to his end. He also reiterates the power of Dracula over a doubting world,

…for in this enlightened age, when men believe not even what they see, the doubting of wise men would be his greatest strength. It would be at once his sheath and his armour, and his weapons to destroy us…

DR SEWARD’S DIARY
Dr. Seward notes,

Let any obstructing cause, no matter what, be removed in any way—even by death—and we fly back to first principles of hope and enjoyment.

This seems to mirror what Dracula is doing in flying back to the safety of his home. It is also here we learn the name of what Dracula did to Mina in forcing her to drink his blood, as well as a reminder that evil comes from good,

The Count had his own purposes when he gave her what Van Helsing called ‘the Vampire’s baptism of blood.’ Well, there may be a poison that distils itself out of good things; in an age when the existence of ptomaines is a mystery we should not wonder at anything!/i>

The doctors see Mina is changing and suspect the growing danger of her two-way mental connection with Dracula suggesting once again to withhold information from her, though this time they are loath to suggest it, and decide not to mention it

JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL
Jonathan is also loath to keep information Mina. But Mina still has her wits about her and brings it up herself making them promise not to mention their plans to her. Mina also makes her case to accompany the men,

I may be of service, since you can hypnotize me and so learn that which even I myself do not know.’

Van Helsing suggests that in lieu of scientific understanding, superstition must be their guide,

And to superstition must we trust at the first; it was man’s faith in the early, and it have its root in faith still.

CHAPTER XXV
DR SEWARD’S DIARY
Mina's spying on Dracula is becoming harder. Mina also makes the men promise to kill her as they did Lucy before her transition into a vampire is complete and asks for the burial service to be read for her now to give her comfort now and the men may act more quickly to kill her when the time comes. The men kneeling in acquiescence to Mina's wishes makes me think of knights swearing allegiance to the pope on starting off for the crusades.

JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL
The Czarina Catherine is still at sea. The men arrange to search the ship under the pretense of looking for property stolen from Lord Goldalming.

RUFUS SMITH, LLOYD’S, LONDON, TO LORD GODALMING, CARE OF H.B.M. VICE-CONSUL, …
After a week the ship is reported in the Dardanelles.

DR SEWARD’S DIARY
Dr. Seward complains of the necessary loss of his phonograph and being reduced to a pen. He notes Mina is very lethargic and begins to wonder if things are going as planned. Mina reports the waves are very faint now. The Czarina Catherine is several days late to Varna. Dr. Seward also writes,

‘Euthanasia’ is an excellent and a comforting word! I am grateful to whoever invented it.

How poor the conditions must be for that to be true?

28 OCTOBER—TELEGRAM, RUFUS SMITH, LONDON, TO LORD GODALMING, CARE OF H.B.M. …
Dracula's ship is reported in Galaz. Google indicates this is about 193 mi (310 km) north of Varna. This explains the faint waives mina hears because the ship needs to travel up the Danube a little ways to reach Galaz.

DR SEWARD’S DIARY
Dr. Seward's remarks on Dracula's ship going to Galaz intead of Varna,

I suppose that nature works on such a hopeful basis that we believe against ourselves that things will be as they ought to be, not as we should know that they will be.

or as Robert Burns wrote, The best laid schemes o' mice an' men. Gang aft a-gley. The final race to Castle Dracula begins.

Mina surprises everyone by having memorized the train schedule. While some of the men are out securing information and passage to Galaz, the doctors and Mina determine the sudden feeling of freedom Mina feels signifies that Dracula feels safe enough to cut himself off from her, in effect blinding himself, but unbeknownst to Dracula, Mina can still spy on him.

He think, too, that as he cut himself off from knowing your mind, there can be no knowledge of him to you; there is where he fail! That terrible baptism of blood which he give you makes you free to go to him in spirit, as you have as yet done in your times of freedom, when the sun rise and set.

Dracula's inexperience, i.e., his child brain, also reduces him to his old habits, only thinking empirically, and the thinking of the common criminal making his plans easier to predict. Apparently Dracula's child brain does not have much of a frontal lobe for imaginative thinking and planning outside of his own experiences.

Why is Dracula, who up until now has been called cunning and intelligent all of a sudden said to have a child brain?

David wrote: "How can it best be put into words what changed Mina's mind?"

In this vampire mythology, it seems that when you're turned into a vampire, your soul is trapped, unable to move on as your body continues, occupied by a demon. It also seems your soul has to watch what your body is doing. Mina sees that for his spirit to be at peace, they have to kill the body. The idea of the soul being stuck and the saviour who wants to help it end its journey is still common in vampire metaphysics today.

Jen wrote: "David wrote: "How can it best be put into words what changed Mina's mind?"
In this vampire mythology, it seems that when you're turned into a vampire, your soul is trapped, unable to move on as yo..."

How much does her change of heart towards pity for Dracula comes from actually pitying him to kill him and allow him to rest in peace and how much comes from the desire to keep the men from acting out of hate for him? Does her motivation for her pity come from Dracula who is controlling her, or because she beginning to realize what its like to walk a mile in vampire shoes and would want to be pitied herself when she turns and needs to be killed to be at peace?

David wrote: "How much does her change of heart towards pity for Dracula comes from actually pitying him to kill him and allow him to rest in peace and how much comes from the desire to keep the men from acting out of hate for him? Does her motivation for her pity come from Dracula who is controlling her, or because she beginning to realize what its like to walk a mile in vampire shoes and would want to be pitied herself when she turns and needs to be killed to be at peace?"

It seems to be some of both. She doesn't seem to have much pity for Dracula in his current form, rather it's his soul she thinks needs to be released so it can move on. To me she pities him particularly because he's been like this for hundreds of years. She wouldn't want this for anyone.

David wrote: "Why is Dracula, who up until now has been called cunning and intelligent all of a sudden said to have a child brain? ..."


This "child brain" managed to fool the "MD, D.Ph., D.Litt., etc." so far. Without Mina's suggestion for hypnosis, they would have lost his trace forever.

I think the child brain remarks and the whole argument at the end of chapter XXV regarding the intellectual limitation of the evildoers is just VH's attempt to boost their courage on this seemingly impossible task.

The intellectual capacities of vampire's seems a gray area. They certainly seem big step up from mindless zombies, but the child brain aspect throws me. In Van Helsing's note to Dr. Seward informing him he is watching over Lucy's grave VH writes,

Therefore I shall fix some things she like not—garlic and a crucifix—and so seal up the door of the tomb. She is young as UnDead, and will heed.

This implies both that she is capable of and may in time learn things, including how to get around the garlic, or a least, as a recent vampire, she is more compliant with the remedies against her. Yet, as a young un-dead she instinctively knows how to turn into fog to escape through the cracks into her tomb.

Then we get the speech listing Dracula as the perfect storm of occult forces of nature, geology and chemistry of his native land, and the imposing characteristics that Dracula brought with him into his existence as a vampire, yet he still has a child brain, and apparently fits what seems today we would call a criminal profile.

Is it a man vs. beast explanation, where Dracula has been able to beat the odds and retain some rudimentary reasoning functions where other vampires have not and will not? If so, would that entail that Dracula, while doing the evil that he has to do to survive, is more accountable than other vampires as an agent of evil because he knows what he is doing and knowingly chooses it?

David wrote: "The intellectual capacities of vampire's seems a gray area. They certainly seem big step up from mindless zombies, but the child brain aspect throws me. In Van Helsing's note to Dr. Seward informin..."

Except for the loss of empathy, the intellectual capacities of Stoker's vampires seem to be above average, I think a modern psychiatrist would diagnose them as psychopaths, but Dracula would score high on the IQ-Test.

It's interesting that the vampire Lucy was calling Arthur "my husband", so she still had memories from her human life. She also seemed quite articulate:

"She still advanced, however, and with a languorous, voluptuous grace,
said, "Come to me, Arthur. Leave these others and come to me. My
arms are hungry for you. Come, and we can rest together. Come, my
husband, come!"

Why she was trying to seduce Arthur? It was just because she knew that he loved her and she wanted to take advantage of it? Or because she retained not only memories but also feelings?

There was something diabolically sweet in her tones, something of the
tinkling of glass when struck, which rang through the brains even of
us who heard the words addressed to another.

As for Arthur, he seemed under a spell, moving his hands from his
face, he opened wide his arms.

She managed to seduce him, but she did not predict that VH would stop Arthur. Maybe their bestiality and lust for blood are limiting their judgment after all, just like an addict or a gambler ( even an intelligent one) would stop being rational when exposed to his addiction.

Yes, Lucy goes after Arthur apparently assuming she could get in a quick bite before anyone noticed but is foiled by VH. Vampire lore outside of this book seems to indicate vampires most commonly go after family members as their initial victims; their familiarity with them makes them more vulnerable.

Speaking of victims, we are given more fuel to consider in our ongoing discussion on Dracula's preference for female victims. He threatens the men during the encounter at his Picadilly house,

Your girls that you all love are mine already; and through them you and others shall yet be mine—my creatures, to do my bidding and to be my jackals when I want to feed.

David wrote: "The intellectual capacities of vampire's seems a gray area. They certainly seem big step up from mindless zombies, but the child brain aspect throws me. In Van Helsing's note to Dr. Seward informin..."

I know I keep saying 'Well, in other vampire media it's like this...' and that's because as I said in the week 1 discussion, Dracula is the ur-text for most 20th and 21st century vampire mythology. Anyway, in many more recent stories, a new vampire is much like Lucy: ravenously hungry for blood with poor impulse control, easy to kill because they don't know all the rules and haven't honed their skills yet. Usually the one who turned them has to stay with them for a while to show them the ropes. The longer they stay alive, the better they get at being vampires. For a while, they're very attractive and urbane. However, in many cases, the oldest vampires become more and more demonic looking and may stop communicating verbally as any lingering humanity recedes.

What is the significance of the ship's name, Czarina Catherine, transporting Dracula back home?

Is ist me, or does VH's english gets worse and worse?

By the way: Lucy's scar prooves to be a good thing, for apparently otherwise everyone would've began to doubt Dracula the vampire ever having existed even though they have testimony of at least 3 written/spoken diaries.

Marieke wrote: "Lucy's scar prooves to be a good thing, for apparently otherwise everyone would've began to doubt Dracula the vampire ever having existed"

I think you meant Mina, but yes, a few entries lamented the fact they were prevented from forgetting all about Dracula due to Mina's scar. Dracula, who has his own scar, continues to be identified by Mina's scar after he has left England. This could be compared to the marks left on a person's body produced by certain diseases, most notably, syphilis.

I thought about VH's accent some more. It can be trying at times, but it forces a closer read to understand what is being said. Also, since the explanations of vampires and Dracula all come from Van Helsing, his accent underscores the foreign, the strange, and the otherness of the superstitions more than if VH spoke in clear English. He is the accepted outsider and intermediary between the modern West and the unaccepted older East and blends the two in many ways.

After reading the long passages of VH-speak I found myself trying to talk that way with people. Or my brain thinking in that way when trying to form thoughts to speak. Occasionally when reading him I would think he was actually speaking clearly, although at other times I would say WTF!

Sam wrote: "After reading the long passages of VH-speak I found myself trying to talk that way with people. Or my brain thinking in that way when trying to form thoughts to speak. Occasionally when reading him..."

VH's accent is more understandable to me when read by the actors in my audiobook than by myself in my own head. Immersion reading it seems to help too.

David wrote: "What is the significance of the ship's name, Czarina Catherine, transporting Dracula back home?"

I'd love to know what the significance is--if there is one. My knowledge of Russian history is limited. Wikipedia says Catherine was the last reigning empress of Russia and its longest ruling female leader. Is that significant to the novel?

I'm increasingly impressed with Mina and the role she plays. She straddles between two entities, acting as a sort of conduit. Van Helsing defines her as having a man's brain and a woman's heart, which is another way of saying she combines the positive qualities attributed to both genders. And now she mediates between Dracula and the men, conveying information back and forth. Without her assistance, the men would be stuck.

Her ability to straddle two cultures enables her to see things from both sides. That may be why she expresses sympathy for Dracula. She understands his misery in ways that the men do not.

I know it's not supposed to be funny, but I thought the scene when the men attack Dracula was comical. They were sort of bungling about the place, waving a crucifix and wafer and throwing knives at him. He manages to evade them, jumps out of the window, and taunts them with is words. It was a bit like a slapstick comedy.

David wrote: "Marieke wrote: "Lucy's scar prooves to be a good thing, for apparently otherwise everyone would've began to doubt Dracula the vampire ever having existed"

I think you meant Mina, but yes, a few en..."

I did mean Mina of course.
Actually I can understand their point of view about that. Because what they're experiencing is so strange it can start to feel like a dream (I did have experiences like that a few times, although none of them involved vampires)

About the Czarina Catharina: she was a long rulin czar and under her rule I believe Russia gained the seaport of Sebastopol, among other things. She is known for starting of kind of as an enlightened ruler, but tending more towards despotism in the end. Also the so-called Potemkin-villages were erected for her: whole villages were everything but the facade was in shambles.

So I don't know what that would signify for Stoker and his story.

Tamara wrote: "David wrote: "What is the significance of the ship's name, Czarina Catherine, transporting Dracula back home?"

I'd love to know what the significance is--if there is one. My knowledge of Russian h..."

The name of ship is taken from the Russian empress who was notorious for her sexual promiscuity.

Catherine, throughout her long reign, took many lovers, often elevating them to high positions for as long as they held her interest and then pensioning them off with gifts of serfs and large estates.

The men are attempting to save Mina from from the same promiscuous behaviour Lucy exhibited during her short time as a vampire. On the other hand, I suppose one could say the men are chasing after Czarina Catherine, too.

David wrote: "The men are attempting to save Mina from from the same promiscuous behaviour Lucy exhibited during her short time as a vampire..."

When did Lucy exhibit promiscuous behavior as a vampire? I must have missed that.
Also, do we consider Dracula as exhibiting promiscuous behavior because he likes to bite into women?

Right, I am not q

David wrote: "The name of ship is taken from the Russian empress who was notorious for her sexual promiscuity...."

Is there a difference in the negative inferences of the term "promiscuity" as applied or not to men versus to women? E.g., contrast Henry VIII with Catherine the Great?

Aha, there would be an unfair inference if Catherine were only a woman, but she is Catherine The Great, Empress of Russia, so the comparison must be with Empresses and Kings, and unique empress's at that. Every one of them was promiscuous. But she was more than promiscuous, she was screwing horses, for gods' sake.

Sam wrote: "But she was more than promiscuous, she was screwing horses, for gods' sake. ..."

And the relevance to ruling Russia of that day?

Nearly 250 years ago, Empress Catherine II “the Great” played a similar hand when she attempted to impress the West while ruthlessly enforcing her authority over Russia and the surrounding region.
Yet at the same time, she annexed much of what is now Ukraine through wars with the Ottoman Empire and the partition of Poland and brutally suppressed the largest peasant rebellion in Russian history.
I believe this included Varna and Bulgaria.

At Varna in 1444 the Turks defeated the Hungarians who were part of That Crusade

Tamara wrote: "When did Lucy exhibit promiscuous behavior as a vampire?"

Remember this is Victorian England and at one point Mina's holding hands with her own husband in public was writing down things like this,

Jonathan was holding me by the arm, the way he used to in old days before I went to school. I felt it very improper, for you can’t go on for some years teaching etiquette and decorum to other girls without the pedantry of it biting into yourself a bit; but it was Jonathan, and he was my husband, and we didn’t know anybody who saw us—and we didn’t care if they did—so on we walked.

Also remember as far as the story is concerned, new women were great, as long as they were not sexual new women, which the female vampires represent. The three ladies, the way Lucy looked so beautiful as a vampire, and this,

In a sort of sleep-waking, vague, unconscious way she opened her eyes, which were now dull and hard at once, and said in a soft, voluptuous voice, such as I had never heard from her lips:— ‘Arthur! Oh, my love, I am so glad you have come! Kiss me!’

Of course VH had to step in and throw Arthur back. Apparently it did not take much to be inappropriate back then.