Dracula: Chapters 2-4 Summary

• The book club discussion is about Chapters 2-14 of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula.

Chapters 2-4

• Harker questions Dracula about Transylvania's history, Dracula speaks highly of the country and his family.
• Dracula questions Harker about English life and law.
• Harker is told to write letters to his fiancée and employer.
• He is requested to extend his stay in Transylvania by a month due to being overpowered by the Count, Harker agrees.
• Dracula warns Harker not to sleep anywhere in the castle besides his room.
• Harker hangs his crucifix above his bed before exploring the castle.
• Harker sees Dracula crawling down the castle face and fears he cannot escape.
• Ignoring Dracula's warning, Harker falls asleep in a locked room.
• Harker is visited by three women with red lips and sharp teeth.
• The women fill him with desire.
• As one woman moves to kiss Harker's neck, Dracula appears and orders them to stop.
• Dracula says, "When I am done with him you shall kiss him at your will".
• Dracula offers the women a "half-smothered" child.
• The women fade away as Harker loses consciousness.
• Harker is unsure if it was a dream.
• Dracula asks Harker to write three letters to his fiancée and employer, dating them June 12, 19, and 29.
• Even though it is only May 19, Harker is instructed to write that he has left the castle and is safe.
• Gypsies arrive, prompting Harker to ask them to send a letter to Mina as a chance to escape.
• Harker sends his letters to a Gypsy through the window.
• Dracula appears with the letter, outraged by the breach of hospitality and burns it.
• Harker remains a prisoner in mid-June.
• Harker sees more Gypsies unloading large wooden boxes from a wagon.
• Harker notices his clothes are missing and sees Dracula slithering down the castle wall wearing Harker's suit.
• Dracula carries a bundle, similar to the one devoured by the three women, leading Harker to believe Dracula is using the disguise for evil.
• A distraught woman wails for her child at the castle gate, and a pack of wolves devour her.
• Harker scales the castle wall to Dracula's room, finding it empty except for a pile of gold.
• Harker finds a dark stairway and encounters 50 boxes of earth in a tunnel.
• Harker finds Dracula either dead or asleep in one of the boxes.
• Harker flees back to his room, terrified.
• Dracula promises Harker can leave on June 29, but Harker wants to leave immediately.
• Dracula opens the front door, but a pack of wolves blocks Harker's departure.
• Harker overhears Dracula saying, "To-night is mine. To-morrow night is yours!".
• Harker finds the three women upon opening his bedroom door, he returns to his room to pray.
• Harker wakes up and finds Dracula asleep, looking younger and sleeker.
• Harker notices blood trickling down from Dracula's mouth.
• Harker tries to kill Dracula with a shovel, but it glances off Dracula's forehead.
• Harker takes Dracula's gold and attempts to escape by descending the castle wall, ending with "Good-bye, all! Mina!".
• The Author's Note in Dracula emulates 18th-century fiction through transcribed journals to present the story.
• The novel masquerades as a real diary.
• Since the author writes as events happen, they might be unaware of the danger.
• Harker cannot reflect on his experiences or know if he is in danger.
• This real-time technique is popular in horror.
• The Blair Witch Project (1999) is an example of this conceit.
• Today's readers are familiar with the vampire legend due to novels and movies like Twilight so may not appreciate Stoker's novel's shock value.
• Chapter 3 features a discussed scene where Harker is visited by three female vampires.
• Harker is drifting in and out of consciousness when the women seduce him, before Dracula chases them away.
• The women's appearance is sexual.
• Harker notes "the ruby of their voluptuous lips" and feels "a wicked, burning desire that they would kiss me."
• Harker confronts a vampire and an unabashedly sexual woman, which was terrifying to Victorian England.
• The women's voluptuousness contrasts with English heroines Lucy Westenra and Mina Murray.
• The vampire women preying on a child perverts maternity and distinguishes them from Victorian counterparts.
• These "weird sisters," as Van Helsing calls them, remind society of Dracula's greatest threat: transforming proper English ladies into lustful animals.
• Harker is unsure whether the women bend closer or if he merely dreams their approach.
• If the women are real, they threaten to drink Harker's blood.
• If they are a dream, they threaten to drain him of semen
• Either way, Harker is drained of a vital fluid.
• Critic C.F. Bentley says Harker's "in -languorous ecstasy and wait[s]—wait[s] with beating heart" suggests a nocturnal emission.
• Draining a vital fluid, represents an overturning of the male-dominated social structure to the Victorian male imagination.
• These chapters set the tone for future Dracula adaptations because a lot of the things in these chapters show up later. These include:
• An emissary (possibly unsuspecting) goes to meet strange Count Dracula in a foreign land and is going to finalize the arrangement to buy property in England
• The setting is in Transylvania, or a similar land far away from civilization filled with superstition.
• Something is amiss among the locals, there is superstition and strange events happen
• The protagonist is taken to Borgo Pass and offered charms to wart off vampires
• The Emissary usually arrives after midnight and the person taking them is working for the count
• The castle the count lives is old and scary.
• Dracula is seen only at nighttime and the emissary never sees him eat.
• The narrator sees Dracula performing a supernatural act like slithering down the castle wall.
• A female vampire tries seduce the Emissary.
• The Emissary is usually captured and imprisoned in the castle and they must escape.
• Other factors like bats and boxes of dirt, exploration of the castle etc are included

Chapter 5

• A number of letters and diary entries makeup chapter 5
• In it Lucy Westenra exchanges letters about Mina Murray about their respective romances.
• Mina is a schoolmistress who is fiance to Jonathan Harker who declares he is coming home
• Lucy replies with marriage proposals from Dr. John Seward, and Quincey Morris however she has chosen to heart belongs to Arthur Holmwood.
• Dr. Johns correspondence also included diary entries on Phonograph, and talks about a man named Renfield whom he has taken on as a patient
• Quincey also writes a letter congratulating Quincey for his engagement to Lucy

Chapter 6

• Mina describes her visit to picturesque town of whitby where shes is staying with Lucy
• Whitby is reputed to have a haunted abbey
• Mr. Sowales befriends the girls and tells them stories anout town but scoffs at the legends and says the graves in the churchyard were lost

Chapter 7

• This chapter uses newspaper clippings that indicate that a Vessel called 'Demeter' washed ahore at 'whitby' during a terrid storm.
• With newspaper article including the Captains log of the vessel. Log indicate that they started at the russian port of "Varna".
• But ten days into start of voyage a crew member went missing and sailor spot a man who doest look like the crew
• Log say a search indicate no passengers but every frew day after a sailor disappeared and crew become number from fear