Growing up, many children hear tales of the famous dracula story. As a matter of fact, the character of dracula is a common halloween costume amongst children. When I picked up this book and read the title, my first reaction was that I was familiar with the title. Although I had never before read bram stokers novel dracula, I knew right away that this story included a vampire as the villian.
The first two chapters of this novel were already filled with suspense that gave me the feul to continue on with reading the entire book. After reading these two chapters, I was surprised that the author cut right to the chase. Bram stoker did not hesitate to make it suspenseful to keep the reader going. Jonathan harkers first assighnment as a professional lawyer is to meet with count dracular at his castle in transylvania on behalf of concluding a deal with the purchase of an english estate. There is also a little bit of foreshadowing in the first two chapters.
For example, before jonathan goes to the castle, he stays in a hotel that was selected by count dracula. Right before jonathan leaves this hotel, the innkeepers wife presses a crucifix on his head on the eve of st.Georges day. When he asks her what st. Georges day is, she replies with, all evil things in the world will have full sway.
If I had an oportunity to become a friend of jonathan harkers, I would not turn it down. Jonathan seems like an average man. I would also feel safe being with him because of some of the courages things he achieves in this novel. My favorite scene in this novel was towards the end in chapter 27. This is when dracula finally pays the price after the evil he used on many innocent people. Jonathan is very brave and slits the counts throat. Immediately after this, quincey drives a bowie knife into the vampires heart.
This novel portrayed many conflicts both minor and major. One of the minor conflicts is when jonathan secretly passes a letter to his love mina murray out the window to one of the three gypsies while they were leaving the castle. The gypsy who received the letter brought it straight to the count. As a result the count has a talk with jonathan. He says, a vile thing, an out rage upon friendship and hospality. The reason that the count got so upset was because he told jonathan that he would collect and be rensponcible for any letters that he needed to send.
Another conflict was when jonathan spyed on the count and saw him wearing his clothing and carrying a heap that moved like a baby. This time the conflict was not between the count and himself. A while later, a women showed up at the gates screaming to have her child back. At this time, a bunch of wolves came and attacked her to death.
The last coflict was a major one. This one has to do with mina murrays friend lucy. One night mina woke up and saw that lucy was not in her bed. Because of this, she goes out looking for her. She finds lucy lying on a bench somewhere with a dark figure hunched over her. This figure looks up revealing a pale face and red eyes. When mina approaches them, the man disappears. The next morning she notices two small holes on herb neck. She thinks that when she put lucys shawl on the hooks on it pricked her neck. What she doesnt know is that these holes are from that dark figure. After this night, lucy behaves strangly and often becomes ill.
Some of the strange things that she did was sleepwalking and leaning out of windows. As far as her health goes, her face got plae and the wholes on her neck got larger. One time she had trouble breathing and had to get a blood transfusion with blood from arthur holmwood. After she recovered from this health issue, on the 6th of september a wolf came into the bedroom that her mother and she were sleeping in. This wolf gave hgr mother a heart attack killing her and knocked lucy unconscious. On the 20th of september, she died as well. To sum up that conflict, a figure bit her leading to bizarre behavior and strange ilnesses that later led her to death.
This novel can compare to another book that I read this summer. The book that it can compare to is called girl interrupted written by susanna kaysen. This story is also written in diary from. It is a true story about a girl who tried to commit sucide and got send to an insane asylum. The main character in the story, susanna kaysen, reminds of lucy in a way. The reason that she reminds me of lucy is because lucy also acts insane after her interaction with the dark figure.
