1. Dracula – Chapters 4-5 - Notes

2. Sleep and Dreams
“I awoke in my own bed. If it be that I had not dreamt, the Count must have carried me here.” – Pg 43
Recall the end of Midsummer, how none of them wanted to trust their memories or their senses, for what had happened was simply too unbelievable, too embarrassing, too ridiculous.
How does the same logic apply, here?
What does Jonathan use to tell himself he wasn’t dreaming?
Facts defeating fantasy, even if only on a small level.

3. No More Secrets
Jonathan now knows there are creatures here that “were,…are— waiting to suck [his] blood.” – Pg 43
More of the detective spirit in Jonathan:
“I must know the truth…I fear it was no dream.”
“Last night the Count asked me in the suavest tones to write three letters.” – Pg 44
Why does Dracula want these letters?
“He knows that I know too much, and that I must not live, lest I be something dangerous to him.”
Dracula wants the letters to keep people in England thinking that everything’s still going peachy, lest Jonathan’s absence be noted before Dracula’s far enough along in his plans to be stopped.
According to page 44, how long does Jonathan have to live, and how does he know?

4. Gypsies What is Jonathan’s first thought of how to escape? Szgany.
Nomads.
What happens to the letters he gives them?
Who are they loyal to?
Why can’t the Count read them?

5. Myth / Culture Note - Gypsies
Gypsies, a nomadic people sometimes referred to as the Romani, are an actual people from Eastern Europe.
However, many works of fantasy, the Gothic, etc, often romanticize / exaggerate / depict gypsies as either thieves, magical, mysterious, or all of the above.
Their characteristic features in the media they do appear in include wagons, often in a caravan of such, fortune tellers, head-scarves and various other ornaments, etc.
Generally, they are not depicted as “evil,” though in Dracula they definitely seem allied with the Count.

6. I find this…suitable
How has Dracula attired himself for leaving the Castle? See page 46.
Why is he dressed this way?
This plus the letters equals…?

7. Strange Powers
“Floating motes of dust to take new shapes to the sound as they danced in the moonlight. ..I was becoming hypnotised! Quicker and quicker danced the dust: the moonbeams seemed to quiver as they went by me into the mass of gloom beyond…The phantom shapes, which were becoming gradually materialised from the moonbeams, were those of the three ghostly women to whom I was doomed.” – Pg47
What do we learn, from this, of the vampires’ powers?

8. “Monster, Give Me My Child!”
Who assails the door of Dracula’s castle?
How does Dracula dismiss her?

9. Methodical
“It has always been at night-time that I have been molested or threatened.”
True to form, monsters like the night. Vampires, all the more so. Creatures of darkness, so to speak.
Jonathan uses this advantage to investigate the castle.
Where does he find the Count?
What else do we learn about vampires?

10. Suspense
Note how the author uses the fear of impending doom and deadlines to build suspense:
“Today is the date of my last letter.” – Pg 50
Dracula – “Tomorrow, my friend, we must part.”
Double-meaning, there, known to both and yet unspoken.

11. Of all the ways to die.
Page 51 – How does Dracula plan for Jonathan to die?
“I heard the voice of the Count:-- ‘Back! Back to your own place! Your time is not yet come. Wait! Have patience! Tonight is mine. Tomorrow night is yours!”
Death by the three. With Jonathan’s letters sent and his likeness seen in town, the ruse is complete and the real man is no longer needed.

12. Planted in the Earth Page 52
What has Dracula gained from sleeping in soil?
“I saw something which filled my very soul with horror. There lay the Count, but looking as if his youth had been half renewed.”
Just as the dead belong in the earth, Dracula gains from placing himself in the earth of his homeland.

13. Escape and Suspense Jonathan has now grown desperate.
“I am alone in the castle with those horrible women. Faugh! Mina is a woman, and there is nought in common. They are devils of the Pit! I shall not remain alone with them; I shall try to scale the castle wall farther than I have yet attempted.”
Does he make it?
How does the author build suspense, now?

14. Chapter 5 – Page 55
For the first time, not only do we read a book written in the first person point of view, but from multiple characters’ points of view.
Whose point of view do we have now, and to whom is she speaking / writing?
What does she do for a living?
Find the irony here at the bottom of the page when she speaks of Jonathan’s trip:
“It must be so nice to see strange countries.”

15. Letters
The exchange that ensues between Mina and Lucy is inherently shaped by its medium – the letter.
How is a conversation via letters different from, say, the phone? ? Texting? How might one speak the same information differently in these mediums?
What is the main subject of Mina and Lucy’s exchanges?

16. Love
How are Mina and Lucy different, especially in their attitude towards love and courtship?
Who are the three persons that propose to Lucy, and how are they different?
How well does Lucy seem to know these individuals?
Note how different courtship was then as opposed to now.
How are Lucy’s desires somewhat…beyond those of a proper Victorian woman?

17. Three Men and a Lucy
And now, we get the points of view of Dr. Seward, Quincey Morris, and Arthur Holmwood.
Who has Lucy chosen, and how does each of the three friends react to the news?
How is life so much simpler back in England than for poor Jonathan in Transylvania? How stark the contrast?