Dracula Chapters 5-8
Oct. 27th, 2018 12:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrChapters 1-4
TIME FOR THE FEMSLASHY ADVENTURES OF LUCY AND MINA
(At least, I hope they're going to be femslashy, I know these two are a popular ship)
So! We left Jonathon at the end of June. We now go back to a letter from Mina to Lucy sent in early May.
It's largely exposition: she is an assistant schoolmistress, who is learning to communicate in shorthand to help her fiance Jonathon.
"I shall try to do what I see lady journalists do: interviewing and writing descriptions and trying to remember conversations." Aw.
Mina: I am longing to be with you, and by the sea, where we can talk together freely and build our castles in the air.
Me: SHIPS IT
Lucy is much more girly and expressive in her letter:
Victorian novels, why must you be so femslashy and yet so heteronormative.
Lucy describes three proposals she got in one day, saying "Why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble?" Even if I didn't already know, this would be a sign she is going to DIE TRAGICALLY. Good Victorian girls don't think about having a harem.
1) The serious-minded Dr. John Seward who runs the insane asylum next to Dracula's house, and thinks Lucy is "an interesting psychological study".
2) The Texan, Mr. Quincey P. Morris:
And then she rejects him but gives him a conciliatory kiss because she is a Bad Girl.
3) The mysterious Arthur Holmwood. She says yes and kisses him too!
And now we see the diary of Dr. John Seward. He decides to distract himself from heartbreak with the psychotic delusions of his patient R. M. Renfield. FORESHADOWING. *prepares self for unfortunate Victorian depictions of mental illness*
Then we see a cute if Painfully American letter from Quincy inviting Arthur out to celebrate his engagement to Lucy.
Now for Mina's diary! She and Lucy are hanging out in the sea-side town of Whitby. There is much talk of the prettiness of the town and of Lucy. Mina is condescendingly charmed by Mr Swales, an old local man with a phonetically written accent who thinks she should be smarter than to believe all the Old Legends around the town. "They, an’ all grims an’ signs an’ warnin’s, be all invented by parsons an’ illsome beuk-bodies an’ railway touters to skeer an’ scunner hafflin’s, an’ to get folks to do somethin’ that they don’t other incline to."
Hee, halflings.
Lucy and Mina's favourite place to sit is on some graves (?!). Mr Swales cynically jokes that most of the tombstones are lies: empty graves of people who died at sea, "beloved" sons who committed suicide to escape their awful mothers etc. The two proper young ladies are properly shocked.
Aw, poor Mina misses Jonathon and hopes the lack of recent letters doesn't mean anything bad. SORRY MINA.
More notes from Dr Seward: Renfield is gathering flies to feed to spiders, and then eats one saying "it was very good and very wholesome; that it was life, strong life, and gave life to him".
He feeds the spiders to sparrows and then asks for a cat, by turns fawning and fierce. "The man is an undeveloped homicidal maniac. I shall test him with his present craving and see how it will work out; then I shall know more." When he doesn't get a cat the birds vanish and he says they "flew away", but it becomes clear he ate them.
Dr Seward takes the notebook Renfield keeps writing in and realises his plan is to absorb as many lives as possible. The Dr thinks it would be worth seeing how far Renfield wants to go "with sufficient cause", to advance to cause of science (and be respected for it).
Nnng. Dr Seward gives me such a bad feeling.
Mina again, it is now July and she found the one (Dracula dictated) letter she's gotten from Jonathon very out of character. Also Lucy is sleep walking. Mina worries, and the landscape is described in moody, grey, expressionistic tones.
Mr Swales comes up to her very seriously and apologises for joking about death before: he feels death on the breeze and thinks his own time is nigh.
(Also: Lucy's surname is Westenra, which I thought was a typo for a while)
Mina's diary includes a newspaper clipping, the tone is effectively jarring as the journalist cheerfully describes a recent storm. People on the shore watched in terror as a Russian boat appeared to be about to be dashed to pieces on the reef, but then a strange mist appeared, and as the mist cleared the boat arrived on the shore. Yet the only person on board was a corpse tied to the helm...and a dog, which jumped off the boat and ran towards the graveyard before being lost to the dark.
The only cargo on the boat was boxes of dirt. These were delivered to a local solicitor.
And then we see the captain's log. Once again the dry chipper Victorian tone is very good at creating understated horror. Since so many people have been inspired by Dracula it took like two sentences for me to go "Ohhh nooooo".
6 July: Took on cargo of boxes of earth. Crew of five. Looking good for the trip back to England!
13 July: Crew seem dissatisfied. Keep crossing themselves?
16 July: One of the crew has gone missing? Another crew-member says he saw a strange man? To cheer up the crew did a search. "As there were only the big wooden boxes, there were no odd corners where a man could hide" hahahaha /o\
2 August: Only two of us left. God has deserted us.
3 August: First Mate has gone mad, saying "The sea will save me from Him, and it is all that is left!" before throwing himself into the ocean. I guess he was the one killing the others!
4 August: I have seen It-Him! The first mate was right to choose the sea. I shall tie this rosary around my hands, that which He-It!-dare not touch, and fulfil my duty as captain. May those who find this understand.
The people who find it do not understand at all, but the captain is given a heroes burial. It is at this point I realise Dracula is the Devil, if not literally then as a very strong metaphor.
Lucy keeps waking up and trying to dress herself and go...somewhere, but Mina keeps stopping her. We find out Mr Swales was found dead, seemingly of fright D: "Perhaps he had seen Death with his dying eyes"
A dog at the funeral freaks out and Lucy is afraid of it. Being English, Mina decides the solution is to take her out for a long walk and a hearty afternoon tea. "I believe we should have shocked the “New Woman” with our appetites. Men are more tolerant, bless them!"
Yes, yes, Mr Stoker, feminism is terrible but girls are hot. A+ teenage girl characterisation. (Though actually I read his wikipedia page and there's a theory he was gay and self hating, which would definitely explain some things)
Later Mina wakes with a start and realises Lucy is missing. She runs through the town desperately searching, and eventually sees the white shape of Lucy reclining on their favourite graveyard seat. Something dark seems to be perched over her, with a white face and red eyes, but then it's gone. Lucy is still asleep, but gasping for air, grasping her neck and moaning. They sneak back, hiding from a passing drunk to preserve their reputations.
The next morning there are pinpricks on Lucy's neck. Mina thinks it's from the safety pin she used to fasten Lucy's shawl, and apologises, but Lucy says she can't feel a thing.
>.>
Mina sees a bat and a bird at Lucy's window, but does not think to connect them with each other, or to Lucy's increasingly pale and haggard look. Mina finds her one night fainted at the window, crying silently, and realises he wounds at her throat have become larger, and ringed with white.
Lucy :(
We see dry letters between solicitors organising for the soil from the Russian ship to be placed at Dracula's new house.
Lucy describes the strange, surreal dream she had the night Mina found her in the graveyard. "[there was] something very sweet and very bitter all around me at once; and then I seemed sinking into deep green water, and there was a singing in my ears, as I have heard there is to drowning men"
News from Jonathon!! He has been found with a brain fever "making all sorts of delirious statements about wolves and demons". I can just imagine him earnestly trying to explain to the nuns at the hospital and them gently patting his head.
I'd just like to take a moment to admire Stoker's skill at writing different styles (teenage girls putting down feminism aside), there's this sense of a full living world of different people going about their lives, largely unaware of the evil slowly gathering. They each only see their own little part, and it is only as readers that we see the full pattern.
Dr Seward: Renfield suddenly goes from servile to haughty. “I don’t want to talk to you: you don’t count now; the Master is at hand.” And he doesn't care about his spiders any more: “The bride-maidens rejoice the eyes that wait the coming of the bride; but when the bride draweth nigh, then the maidens shine not to the eyes that are filled.”
Dr Seward: Can't sleep, thinking about Lucy. OH NO RENFIELD ESCAPED.
He finds Renfield at a chapel door saying “I am here to do Your bidding, Master. I am Your slave, and You will reward me, for I shall be faithful.”
Dr Seward frames this all as some religious delusion and is quietly smug about Renfield's poor theology. Dr Seward recaptures Renfield with great difficulty and has to put him in a straight-jacket to stop him from attacking the staff.
Next Chapter
TIME FOR THE FEMSLASHY ADVENTURES OF LUCY AND MINA
(At least, I hope they're going to be femslashy, I know these two are a popular ship)
So! We left Jonathon at the end of June. We now go back to a letter from Mina to Lucy sent in early May.
It's largely exposition: she is an assistant schoolmistress, who is learning to communicate in shorthand to help her fiance Jonathon.
"I shall try to do what I see lady journalists do: interviewing and writing descriptions and trying to remember conversations." Aw.
Mina: I am longing to be with you, and by the sea, where we can talk together freely and build our castles in the air.
Me: SHIPS IT
Lucy is much more girly and expressive in her letter:
Mina, we have told all our secrets to each other since we were children; we have slept together and eaten together, and laughed and cried together; and now, though I have spoken, I would like to speak more. Oh, Mina, couldn’t you guess? I love [Arthur Holmwood]...I wish I were with you, dear, sitting by the fire undressing, as we used to sit; and I would try to tell you what I feel.
Victorian novels, why must you be so femslashy and yet so heteronormative.
Lucy describes three proposals she got in one day, saying "Why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble?" Even if I didn't already know, this would be a sign she is going to DIE TRAGICALLY. Good Victorian girls don't think about having a harem.
1) The serious-minded Dr. John Seward who runs the insane asylum next to Dracula's house, and thinks Lucy is "an interesting psychological study".
2) The Texan, Mr. Quincey P. Morris:
Miss Lucy, I know I ain’t good enough to regulate the fixin’s of your little shoes, but I guess if you wait till you find a man that is you will go join them seven young women with the lamps when you quit. Won’t you just hitch up alongside of me and let us go down the long road together, driving in double harness?
And then she rejects him but gives him a conciliatory kiss because she is a Bad Girl.
3) The mysterious Arthur Holmwood. She says yes and kisses him too!
And now we see the diary of Dr. John Seward. He decides to distract himself from heartbreak with the psychotic delusions of his patient R. M. Renfield. FORESHADOWING. *prepares self for unfortunate Victorian depictions of mental illness*
Then we see a cute if Painfully American letter from Quincy inviting Arthur out to celebrate his engagement to Lucy.
Now for Mina's diary! She and Lucy are hanging out in the sea-side town of Whitby. There is much talk of the prettiness of the town and of Lucy. Mina is condescendingly charmed by Mr Swales, an old local man with a phonetically written accent who thinks she should be smarter than to believe all the Old Legends around the town. "They, an’ all grims an’ signs an’ warnin’s, be all invented by parsons an’ illsome beuk-bodies an’ railway touters to skeer an’ scunner hafflin’s, an’ to get folks to do somethin’ that they don’t other incline to."
Hee, halflings.
Lucy and Mina's favourite place to sit is on some graves (?!). Mr Swales cynically jokes that most of the tombstones are lies: empty graves of people who died at sea, "beloved" sons who committed suicide to escape their awful mothers etc. The two proper young ladies are properly shocked.
Aw, poor Mina misses Jonathon and hopes the lack of recent letters doesn't mean anything bad. SORRY MINA.
More notes from Dr Seward: Renfield is gathering flies to feed to spiders, and then eats one saying "it was very good and very wholesome; that it was life, strong life, and gave life to him".
He feeds the spiders to sparrows and then asks for a cat, by turns fawning and fierce. "The man is an undeveloped homicidal maniac. I shall test him with his present craving and see how it will work out; then I shall know more." When he doesn't get a cat the birds vanish and he says they "flew away", but it becomes clear he ate them.
Dr Seward takes the notebook Renfield keeps writing in and realises his plan is to absorb as many lives as possible. The Dr thinks it would be worth seeing how far Renfield wants to go "with sufficient cause", to advance to cause of science (and be respected for it).
Nnng. Dr Seward gives me such a bad feeling.
Mina again, it is now July and she found the one (Dracula dictated) letter she's gotten from Jonathon very out of character. Also Lucy is sleep walking. Mina worries, and the landscape is described in moody, grey, expressionistic tones.
Mr Swales comes up to her very seriously and apologises for joking about death before: he feels death on the breeze and thinks his own time is nigh.
(Also: Lucy's surname is Westenra, which I thought was a typo for a while)
Mina's diary includes a newspaper clipping, the tone is effectively jarring as the journalist cheerfully describes a recent storm. People on the shore watched in terror as a Russian boat appeared to be about to be dashed to pieces on the reef, but then a strange mist appeared, and as the mist cleared the boat arrived on the shore. Yet the only person on board was a corpse tied to the helm...and a dog, which jumped off the boat and ran towards the graveyard before being lost to the dark.
The only cargo on the boat was boxes of dirt. These were delivered to a local solicitor.
And then we see the captain's log. Once again the dry chipper Victorian tone is very good at creating understated horror. Since so many people have been inspired by Dracula it took like two sentences for me to go "Ohhh nooooo".
6 July: Took on cargo of boxes of earth. Crew of five. Looking good for the trip back to England!
13 July: Crew seem dissatisfied. Keep crossing themselves?
16 July: One of the crew has gone missing? Another crew-member says he saw a strange man? To cheer up the crew did a search. "As there were only the big wooden boxes, there were no odd corners where a man could hide" hahahaha /o\
2 August: Only two of us left. God has deserted us.
3 August: First Mate has gone mad, saying "The sea will save me from Him, and it is all that is left!" before throwing himself into the ocean. I guess he was the one killing the others!
4 August: I have seen It-Him! The first mate was right to choose the sea. I shall tie this rosary around my hands, that which He-It!-dare not touch, and fulfil my duty as captain. May those who find this understand.
The people who find it do not understand at all, but the captain is given a heroes burial. It is at this point I realise Dracula is the Devil, if not literally then as a very strong metaphor.
Lucy keeps waking up and trying to dress herself and go...somewhere, but Mina keeps stopping her. We find out Mr Swales was found dead, seemingly of fright D: "Perhaps he had seen Death with his dying eyes"
A dog at the funeral freaks out and Lucy is afraid of it. Being English, Mina decides the solution is to take her out for a long walk and a hearty afternoon tea. "I believe we should have shocked the “New Woman” with our appetites. Men are more tolerant, bless them!"
Lucy is asleep and breathing softly. She has more colour in her cheeks than usual, and looks, oh, so sweet. If Mr. Holmwood fell in love with her seeing her only in the drawing-room, I wonder what he would say if he saw her now. Some of the “New Women” writers will some day start an idea that men and women should be allowed to see each other asleep before proposing or accepting. But I suppose the New Woman won’t condescend in future to accept; she will do the proposing herself.
Yes, yes, Mr Stoker, feminism is terrible but girls are hot. A+ teenage girl characterisation. (Though actually I read his wikipedia page and there's a theory he was gay and self hating, which would definitely explain some things)
Later Mina wakes with a start and realises Lucy is missing. She runs through the town desperately searching, and eventually sees the white shape of Lucy reclining on their favourite graveyard seat. Something dark seems to be perched over her, with a white face and red eyes, but then it's gone. Lucy is still asleep, but gasping for air, grasping her neck and moaning. They sneak back, hiding from a passing drunk to preserve their reputations.
The next morning there are pinpricks on Lucy's neck. Mina thinks it's from the safety pin she used to fasten Lucy's shawl, and apologises, but Lucy says she can't feel a thing.
All her old gaiety of manner seemed to have come back, and she came and snuggled in beside me...
>.>
Mina sees a bat and a bird at Lucy's window, but does not think to connect them with each other, or to Lucy's increasingly pale and haggard look. Mina finds her one night fainted at the window, crying silently, and realises he wounds at her throat have become larger, and ringed with white.
Lucy :(
We see dry letters between solicitors organising for the soil from the Russian ship to be placed at Dracula's new house.
Lucy describes the strange, surreal dream she had the night Mina found her in the graveyard. "[there was] something very sweet and very bitter all around me at once; and then I seemed sinking into deep green water, and there was a singing in my ears, as I have heard there is to drowning men"
News from Jonathon!! He has been found with a brain fever "making all sorts of delirious statements about wolves and demons". I can just imagine him earnestly trying to explain to the nuns at the hospital and them gently patting his head.
I'd just like to take a moment to admire Stoker's skill at writing different styles (teenage girls putting down feminism aside), there's this sense of a full living world of different people going about their lives, largely unaware of the evil slowly gathering. They each only see their own little part, and it is only as readers that we see the full pattern.
Dr Seward: Renfield suddenly goes from servile to haughty. “I don’t want to talk to you: you don’t count now; the Master is at hand.” And he doesn't care about his spiders any more: “The bride-maidens rejoice the eyes that wait the coming of the bride; but when the bride draweth nigh, then the maidens shine not to the eyes that are filled.”
Dr Seward: Can't sleep, thinking about Lucy. OH NO RENFIELD ESCAPED.
He finds Renfield at a chapel door saying “I am here to do Your bidding, Master. I am Your slave, and You will reward me, for I shall be faithful.”
Dr Seward frames this all as some religious delusion and is quietly smug about Renfield's poor theology. Dr Seward recaptures Renfield with great difficulty and has to put him in a straight-jacket to stop him from attacking the staff.
Next Chapter
no subject
Date: 2018-10-27 02:38 pm (UTC)(But I also haven't reread the book in quite some time, though this is making me want to!)
no subject
Date: 2018-10-28 12:24 pm (UTC)nods I can see that interpretation from what I've read so far. She's an interesting character, I am both looking forward to and dreading seeing her deal with Things Getting More Intense.