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72 pages 2 hours read

Bram Stoker

Dracula

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1897

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Chapters 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1 Summary

The book comprises the journal entries, letters, and telegrams written by its characters. Jonathan Harker recounts his trip to Castle Dracula in his journal. He stays at the Golden Kronte Hotel in the village of Bistritz. That night he receives a letter from Dracula welcoming him to the Carpathians.

The next morning, Harker asks the landlord and his wife if they know anything about Dracula. They refuse to answer, but before he leaves, the landlord’s wife begs him to stay. She warns him that it is the eve of St. George’s Day, and at midnight, “All the evil things in the world will have full sway” (5). When he refuses, she gives him a crucifix.

Before he leaves on the coach, he sees people talking about him. He translates their words with a dictionary: vampire, Satan, and hell. They make the sign of the cross and point at him, their charm against the evil eye. The passengers on the coach look at him with pity and give him gifts, more objects that will protect him from evil.

At the Borgo Pass, Harker switches to a smaller carriage and he and the driver carry on alone. As they travel, dogs and wolves begin to howl, spooking the horses. Harker has the sense that the land is repeating itself over and over and that they are not making progress. They begin to see blue flames. Each time, the driver dismounts and places stones around the flames. At one point wolves encircle them, but the driver commands them to leave and they obey. By the time they reach the castle, Harker is terrified.

Chapter 2 Summary

Harker meets Dracula, who is tall, old, strong, and wears a white mustache. When they shake hands, Harker notices that Dracula has an unnaturally powerful grip and also that his hand is cold. He serves Harker dinner but does not eat. During the dinner, Harker notices other odd features about Dracula: His teeth are sharp, and his ears end in points. There are hairs in the palms of his hands.

The next day Dracula leaves Harker alone. Harker explores his living quarters, the room next to his, and the library. He notices that there are no mirrors anywhere. When Dracula returns they talk in the library. Dracula is interested in mastering the English dialect and diction. He says he learned English from books. Before bed, Dracula says Harker can go anywhere he wishes except rooms that are locked. He abruptly ends their conversation near sunrise.

The next morning, Harker cuts himself shaving when Dracula surprises him by approaching from behind. Harker notices that Dracula has no reflection. When Dracula sees the blood, he reaches for Harker’s throat but the crucifix that the landlord’s wife gave Harker stops him. Dracula throws the shaving mirror out of the window. After breakfast, Harker explores the castle and realizes he is locked in. Count Dracula is keeping him prisoner.

Chapter 3 Summary

That night Harker and Dracula discuss Transylvania’s history. As Dracula answers his questions, he is obviously proud of his heritage. He describes his people as warlike and uncomfortable in the absence of conflict.

During the coming days, the Count quizzes Harker on legal matters. He wants to know how many solicitors he can have. It is obvious that he doesn’t want any one person to know too much of his affairs. He instructs Harker to write to whomever he needs that he will stay for a month. He also hopes that Harker only speaks of business in his letters.

Before leaving, Dracula tells Harker not to fall asleep anywhere else in the castle. Once he believes he is alone, Harker hangs the crucifix over his bed and explores the castle further. Later, he looks out the window and sees Dracula crawling down the face of the castle wall. He will see this happen again days later. Then he explores more and tries many locked doors before finding one that he can open.

He falls asleep in this new room. When he wakes, three beautiful young women are there. They talk about kissing him. One of them puts her teeth and lips on his neck. Dracula appears. He reminds them that he warned them not to touch Harker, but they can have Harker when Dracula is through with him. Dracula gives them a bag containing a child to tide them over until they can take control of Harker.

Chapter 4 Summary

Harker wakes in his bed, relieved to be free of the “awful women who were—who are—waiting to suck my blood” (42) He goes back to the room where it happened but it is locked. He does not believe that the women were a dream.

On May 19, Dracula asks him to write three letters to Mina and his employer. He wants Harker to put three different dates on them: June 12, June 19, and June 29. Each letter must contain the message that Harker has left the castle and is en route to his home. Harker interprets the date of June 29 as how long he has left to live.

A group of gypsies visit the castle and stay in the courtyard. Harker wants them to help him escape and hopes to pass a letter for Mina to them. However, that night Dracula shows Harker the letter that he handed to one of the gypsies. He burns the letter and says that Harker’s trickery is an insult to their friendship.

Days later, he sees Dracula climb out the window, wearing Harker’s traveling suit. Harker worries that Dracula is going to impersonate him for some inexplicable reason. Then he hears a woman crying outside. She screams for someone to return her child. Dracula summons a pack of wolves which kill the woman.

Assuming that Dracula is asleep during the day, Harker climbs one of the walls during the daytime and enters Dracula’s room. The room is empty. Harker explores and finds a chapel containing the fifty boxes filled with earth. Dracula is asleep on one of them, eyes open.

The next day, Dracula agrees to let Harker leave, but several wolves wait at the door, keeping him inside. He overhears Dracula telling the three women that they can have him the following day.

The next day, Harker returns to the chapel. Dracula is again in the coffin, and younger than Harker has ever seen him. His lips are bloody. Harker realizes he is being used to move Dracula to London so that he can find new victims. He tries to kill the count with a shovel, but Dracula’s stare deflects the blade.

Harker hears the gypsies outside and vows to escape or die trying. He takes some of the gold from Dracula’s room and begins climbing down the wall.

Chapters 1-4 Analysis

The first four chapters introduce the reader to many of the conventions of a gothic novel. It is worth considering that at Dracula’s publication in 1897, the vampire legend was not as common as it is now. There were no movie treatments or television programs, and blockbusters like Twilight or HBO’s True Blood had not made vampires a lucrative industry with mass appeal. Reading Dracula for the first time in the 19th century, readers would not have anticipated many of the story’s events and tropes, even though they may be familiar—even cliché—to a modern audience.

The epistolary nature of the novel helps Stoker maintain suspense throughout the story. The entire book purports to be a record of something that has already occurred. Therefore, the reader does not know if all—or any—of the contributing writers survive.

Harker represents the typical English man of the times. He finds his journey, Dracula, and the castle so disorienting because they are the opposite of Victorian England. His reactions to his experiences—particularly his continuous worry that the unnatural events might be dreams—are similar to those of other characters later in the novel.

The scene with the three vampire women is the best example of this and is also the most overtly sexual scene in the novel. It does a great deal of work portraying Victorian attitudes towards female sexuality. One of the girls kneels before him and then bends over him, an unmistakable suggestion of fellatio. Harker describes her body’s movement as “thrilling and repulsive” (39) and here we find the first of the book’s descriptions of sexual women as voluptuous. They have “voluptuous lips” (39) and move with a “deliberate voluptuousness” (39). This word reappears later in several of Lucy’s final scenes. Harker is horrified, but also wants them to kiss him. The monsters are vampires, but sexually free or aggressive women were also objects of fear and condemnation in Harker’s society.

Characters in Dracula tend to assume they are dreaming when faced with unnatural, unscientific, irrational events. Harker’s delirious state after his encounter with the women introduces the theme of the tenuous line between dreams, memories, and sanity. If the women are real, then Harker is in a deadly, dangerous situation. He is trapped in a castle with monsters that want to drain his blood, which will kill him and turn him into one of them—although he does not know this yet. If he is dreaming or hallucinating, then he still finds himself in a dangerous plight: His mind is betraying him through a sexual fantasy arising from his own subconscious.

The women have power over Harker because they are part of a system—Dracula’s castle and the vampiric hierarchy—that is the opposite of the patriarchal Victorian norms. The difference will become clearer in the following chapters, as the reader meets Mina and Lucy.

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