Dracula: Overview

The novel ‘Dracula’, written by Bram Stoker in 1897, tells the story of Count Dracula, a vampire. The character Jonathon Harker is a lawyer who travels to Transylvania to meet the Count for what he believes is real estate business, leaving his fiancé Mina back in England. Jonathon realises after a while that he is essentially a prisoner and cannot leave Castle Dracula.

It soon becomes clear that the Count possesses supernatural powers and encounters three beautiful women in the castle who attempt to attack him before he is saved by the Count. Harker becomes increasingly more frightened and climbs down the walls of the castle.

We  learn that Mina’s good friend Lucy back in England has been proposed to by three men, and has decided to marry Arthur Holmwood. Mina goes to visit her in Whitby, where a the only living thing left is the ships dog, who runs away. They also find boxes filled with earth from Castle Dracula.

One night, Mina wakes up and finds Lucy in the cemetery and sees some kind of creature bending over Lucy. Two red dots (fang marks) are found on her neck and she starts to become very ill. One of the men who earlier tried to propose to her, Dr. Seward cannot tell what they are and so calls for Professor Van Helsing.

At this point, Jonathon is in Buda-pest but has developed brain fever so Mina goes to meet him.

Van Helsing believes it will help Lucy to have her bedroom filled with garlic, She appears to get better but her mother cleans up the garlic without realising its effect on Lucy, leaving her to be attacked again.

The doctors attempt to help her by giving her blood transfusions, a wolf breaks into the house, killing Lucy and giving her mother a fatal heart attack.

After Lucy dies, she becomes part of the ‘Undead’ and is seen preying on a child. The others decide they must destroy her and go to her tomb, put a stake, cutting of her head and stuffing garlic in her mouth. 

Mina an Jonathon return to England to help, now married, and the group piece together their diaries as a way to work out where Dracula might be. They find the boxes of earth from the castle that the Count has been sleeping in.

The Count is then let into the asylum the group have been in by one of the patients so that he can get to Mina.

Mina is bitten by the Count and starts turning into a vampire. The others cleanse the boxes of dirt so Dracula has no choice but to go back to his castle. The group follow him back to Castle Dracula but get there before him and destroy the three women that live in there. They use sacred objects to block all the doors of the building and they find the Count, killing him with knives.