Dracula Chapters 9-11
Oct. 30th, 2018 05:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrChapters 1-4
Lucyyyyyy ;_;
Before I get going, here's an amusing post from tumblr about how VERY WRONG Bram Stoker was about vampire myths (which I have no fact checked but it seems reasonable)
A letter from Mina to Lucy. Lucy is alone in England, huh? D: I'm not sure exactly what happens to her but I know it's bad from osmosis and narrative causality and I am not looking forward to it.
Anyway! Mina is finally reunited with Jonathon in a Budapest hospital and they're really sweet. FINE, BOOK, I SHIP IT.
Jonathon: I have forgotten everything to do with my brain fever.
Sister Agatha: The ravings of the sick are the secrets of God!
Mina: Ok :(
Sister Agatha: But he didn't cheat on you or anything, he was just afraid of terrible things beyond mortal ken ;)
Mina: Sweet :)
Jonathon: As you know I don't believe in secrets between man and wife. In this diary is The Secret of what drove me mad, but I do not want to know it. I want to take up my life here, with our marriage. Read it if you will, but never let me know.
Mina wraps the diary in white paper, ties it with a ribbon from her hair, then seals it with her marriage ring.
Mina: This will be an outward and visible sign for us all our lives that we trust each other.
Me: Yeah I am...definitely seeing the vampirism as a metaphor for repressed homosexuality argument...
Then they get married. "And, my dear, when he kissed me, and drew me to him with his poor weak hands, it was like a very solemn pledge between us...." aka "we had sex and it was great" (she doesn't make it sound sexy because she is a Good Girl). Then she's like "I hope you like being married as much as I do ;)"
Lucy replies: "Oceans of love and millions of kisses". She's feeling much better (now that Dracula has left Whitby), and is happily hanging out with her fiance Arthur.
Dr Seward: Renfield is calmer in the moonlight. He finds the idea that the attendants are afraid of him amusing. "Fancy me hurting you! The fools!".
With the implication that Dr Seward would have given him a kitten to eat if he HAD wanted it.
WHAT THE HELL DR SEWARD
They find him at the same old house as before, and he tries to kill Dr Seward before becoming quiet when he sees a large bat.
Lucy's diary:
Lucy :( She's back in London, and thus in Dracula's orbit.
Her mother is dying of a heart condition and so can't keep an eye on her. The general consensus is that both Lucy and her mother are too unwell to be made aware of how sick the other is. Arthur notices Lucy is getting sick and worries.
OH NO
ARTHUR ASKS DR SEWARD TO MEET WITH LUCY TO TRY TO HELP HER
Lucy and Dr Seward are both a bit awkward about the idea but go through with it for Arthur's sake.
Dr Seward: welp her test results are normal so it must be all in her head.
Me: DOES THIS MAN'S EVIL KNOW NO BOUNDS
Dr Seward asks his friend PROFESSOR VAN HELSING to help. Ooooooh I know THAT name.
Letter, Abraham Van Helsing, M. D., D. Ph., D. Lit., etc., etc., to Dr. Seward:
Lol ok.
*squints and tries to figure out if this is only unreadable because I have a headache*
Dr Seward describes Van Helsing's visit to Arthur.
Van Helsing to Lucy: Pfft, Dr Seward said you were low in spirits but what can a bachelor like him know of young ladies?
Van Helsing to Dr Seward: This is serious, but I must investigate further.
Van Helsing to himself: VAMPIRES D:
Renfield thinks he has been abandoned, and so is back to his flies. Lucy is looking better!
A few days later, Renfield throws all his flies away, and Lucy takes such a turn for the worse that Dr Seward telegrams for Arthur and van Helsing to come as soon as possible.
Van Helsing:
Sigh. Victorians.
Lucy is alarmingly weak and anaemic.
Arthur: What can I do? I would give the last drop of blood in my body for her!
Van Helsing and Dr Seward take a moment to admire "his stalwart proportions and the strong young manhood which seemed to emanate from him"
Van Helsing: I won't need every drop ;D
They anaesthetise Lucy and then let Arthur kiss her because WHAT IS CONSENT. Anyway, they do a blood transfusion from Arthur to Lucy and because Bram Stoker didn't know about blood types it's fine.
Arthur is sent home to recover. The bite marks on Lucy's neck happen to be revealed and Van Helsing hisses in recognition, while Dr Seward has no idea what to think. Van Helsing tells Dr Seward to sit with Lucy all night to keep her safe. And as much as I have issues with the dude, he isn't too creepy about it even in his own diary, and is just glad she wakes looking better. She is afraid to sleep, knowing things always get worse when she does, but he promises to keep her safe, and does.
Proving that everything would have been fine if she'd gotten that harem she wanted. Dudes to watch her at all hours! (And also Mina)
Ahh but the next night he is tired after work and she says she feels so much better that he should take the chance to sleep in the next room, promising she'll call him if she needs him.
Aww Lucy writes in her diary that she feels Arthur's presence "warm all around her".
And then the next morning she is sicker than ever. Van Helsing takes a transfusion from Dr Seward.
Dr Seward (in his diary): No man knows, till he experiences it, what it is to feel his own life-blood drawn away into the veins of the woman he loves.
Van Helsing: If our young lover should turn up unexpected, as before, no word to him. It would at once frighten him and enjealous him, too
Huh. Blood transfusions to a vampire victim as a sort of vampirism by proxy, and a way to have a woman "drink" blood from a man while remaining a passive victim.
It's interesting every time I come across a vampirism trope in this book that I have never seen elsewhere, despite having consumed a moderate amount of Dracula inspired vampire fiction. Of course most of it is copies of copies, so stuff that didn't make it into direct copies stays ignored.
Van Helsing gives Lucy a bouquet of flowers to wear, and she is amused when she realises it's garlic flowers. The dynamic between Van Helsing, Dr Seward and Lucy is actually pretty sweet, they're doing their best to keep her safe and cheer her up, and she's trying to stay strong despite very trying circumstances.
Van Helsing is confident that they can now both go home and sleep.
Dr Seward: He seemed so confident that I, remembering my own confidence two nights before and with the baneful result, felt awe and vague terror. It must have been my weakness that made me hesitate to tell it to my friend, but I felt it all the more, like unshed tears.
Lucy in her diary: I never liked garlic before but somehow it is making me feel much better about everything :)
Dr Seward: Let me write down the details of what happened exactly...
Me: Oh nooooooo
Lucy's mother: You will be glad to know that Lucy is better.
Van Helsing: My treatment is working!
Lucy's mother: I think I deserve some credit: her room was awfully stuffy, and full of weird smelling flowers. So I cleared all that out and opened the window ^_^
Me and Van Helsing: D: D: D:
This time Van Helsing gives the blood, and says he will watch over her himself. Lucy's mother's heart is too weak for her to be able to fully understand the danger without dying.
Lucy writes in her diary about how much better she feels, safe from "the flapping against the windows, the distant voices which seemed so close to me, the harsh sounds that came from I know not where and commanded me to do I know not what". Van Helsing has to leave for a day but Lucy is sure she will be fine.
Newspaper article about an escaped wolf:
Once again we start with a chipper Victorian tone I have learned NOT TO TRUST.
The reporter interviews the wolf keeper, a cheerful man with a phonetically written working class accent. He talks about the carrot-and-stick approach to dealing with animals, and how humans are the same: "But, Lor’ love yer ’art, now that the old ’ooman has stuck a chunk of her tea-cake in me, an’ rinsed me out with her bloomin’ old teapot, and I’ve lit hup, you may scratch my ears for all you’re worth, and won’t git even a growl out of me."
This is reminiscent of the conversation with the wolf-keeper in Gabriel Knight 2. *side eyes Jane Jensen 20 years too late*
Anyway, a previously calm and sensible wolf, "Bersicker", freaked out at a strange red-eyed man.
Dracula: Your wolves seem upset ^_^
Wolf keeper: Maybe it's you :P
Dracula: Oh yes, they wouldn't like me (^▿▿^)
Wolf keeper: Maybe they would, they always likes a bone or two to clean their teeth on about tea-time ^_^
Bersicker is anxious but Dracula pats him and says he's made pets of several wolves in his time. That night the wolves howl, and then the rails on Bersicker's cage have been broken, and the wolf has escaped. A witness saw a large grey dog hanging around.
The wolf-keeper says fast, vicious wolves are all well and good in story-books but Bersicker is probably hiding in a park somewhere wondering where his breakfast is. And then Bersicker appears! The wolf-keeper and his wife dote on him like a lost dog. His head is covered in broken glass.
This is adorable? Even the wolves Dracula commands are innocent victims who just want to live a safe and simple life.
Dr Seward's Diary, 17 September: Renfield broke into my study and attacked me with a dinner knife! Then he lapped up the blood from the carpet, repeating "The blood is the life!". I am glad to know Van Helsing won't need me to care for Lucy tonight, I am so tired.
Telegram from Van Helsing, delivered a day late, 18 September: IT IS VITAL YOU BE AT LUCY'S HOUSE TONIGHT
Dr Seward's Diary, 18 September: Fuck
Lucy's Diary, 17 September, Night: This is an exact record of what took place to-night. I feel I am dying of weakness, and have barely strength to write, but it must be done if I die in the doing.
Lucy ;_;
I felt bad enough when I was expecting her to be written as a generic Victorian Doomed Slutty Girl, but there's more to her than that and I really like her. DAMMIT BRAM STOKER.
Nnnnng ok so I just...avoided the book for a day but there's like 2 pages left. Goddd after this I might cheer myself up with some Hakuoki bad ends, at least those have happy alternatives.
Lucy's mother comes in to lie in bed with her, feeling worried. There is a bat at the window, and howls in the dark. Suddenly, the window breaks: it's a wolf. Her mother grasps for anything to help her, eventually grabbing the wreath of flowers, and then collapses.
Lucy feels faint, and sees specks blowing in the window. She feels her mother's body go cold. Everything goes dark.
A little while later the maids come in and see the body. They freak out and Lucy tells them to calm down with some wine. They don't come back, and when she investigates she sees that they have all fallen asleep, drugged. Someone has put her mother's laudanum (morphine) in the wine.
It is still night. The air swirls with specks, and the lights burn blue and dim. A wolf howls outside. Lucy has no choice but to sit with her mother's body and wait for morning. She hides the diary entry she's writing in her breast so that it may be found by those who lay out her corpse.
D:
Next
Lucyyyyyy ;_;
Before I get going, here's an amusing post from tumblr about how VERY WRONG Bram Stoker was about vampire myths (which I have no fact checked but it seems reasonable)
A letter from Mina to Lucy. Lucy is alone in England, huh? D: I'm not sure exactly what happens to her but I know it's bad from osmosis and narrative causality and I am not looking forward to it.
Anyway! Mina is finally reunited with Jonathon in a Budapest hospital and they're really sweet. FINE, BOOK, I SHIP IT.
Jonathon: I have forgotten everything to do with my brain fever.
Sister Agatha: The ravings of the sick are the secrets of God!
Mina: Ok :(
Sister Agatha: But he didn't cheat on you or anything, he was just afraid of terrible things beyond mortal ken ;)
Mina: Sweet :)
Jonathon: As you know I don't believe in secrets between man and wife. In this diary is The Secret of what drove me mad, but I do not want to know it. I want to take up my life here, with our marriage. Read it if you will, but never let me know.
Mina wraps the diary in white paper, ties it with a ribbon from her hair, then seals it with her marriage ring.
Mina: This will be an outward and visible sign for us all our lives that we trust each other.
Me: Yeah I am...definitely seeing the vampirism as a metaphor for repressed homosexuality argument...
Then they get married. "And, my dear, when he kissed me, and drew me to him with his poor weak hands, it was like a very solemn pledge between us...." aka "we had sex and it was great" (she doesn't make it sound sexy because she is a Good Girl). Then she's like "I hope you like being married as much as I do ;)"
Lucy replies: "Oceans of love and millions of kisses". She's feeling much better (now that Dracula has left Whitby), and is happily hanging out with her fiance Arthur.
Dr Seward: Renfield is calmer in the moonlight. He finds the idea that the attendants are afraid of him amusing. "Fancy me hurting you! The fools!".
To-night he will not speak. Even the offer of a kitten or even a full-grown cat will not tempt him. He will only say: “I don’t take any stock in cats. I have more to think of now, and I can wait; I can wait.”
With the implication that Dr Seward would have given him a kitten to eat if he HAD wanted it.
We shall to-night play sane wits against mad ones. He escaped before without our help; to-night he shall escape with it. We shall give him a chance, and have the men ready to follow in case they are required
WHAT THE HELL DR SEWARD
They find him at the same old house as before, and he tries to kill Dr Seward before becoming quiet when he sees a large bat.
Lucy's diary:
I must imitate Mina, and keep writing things down. Then we can have long talks when we do meet. I wonder when it will be. I wish she were with me again, for I feel so unhappy. Last night I seemed to be dreaming again just as I was at Whitby.
Lucy :( She's back in London, and thus in Dracula's orbit.
Her mother is dying of a heart condition and so can't keep an eye on her. The general consensus is that both Lucy and her mother are too unwell to be made aware of how sick the other is. Arthur notices Lucy is getting sick and worries.
OH NO
ARTHUR ASKS DR SEWARD TO MEET WITH LUCY TO TRY TO HELP HER
Lucy and Dr Seward are both a bit awkward about the idea but go through with it for Arthur's sake.
Dr Seward: welp her test results are normal so it must be all in her head.
Me: DOES THIS MAN'S EVIL KNOW NO BOUNDS
Dr Seward asks his friend PROFESSOR VAN HELSING to help. Ooooooh I know THAT name.
Letter, Abraham Van Helsing, M. D., D. Ph., D. Lit., etc., etc., to Dr. Seward:
Lol ok.
Tell your friend that when that time you suck from my wound so swiftly the poison of the gangrene from that knife that our other friend, too nervous, let slip, you did more for him when he wants my aids and you call for them than all his great fortune could do.
*squints and tries to figure out if this is only unreadable because I have a headache*
Dr Seward describes Van Helsing's visit to Arthur.
Van Helsing to Lucy: Pfft, Dr Seward said you were low in spirits but what can a bachelor like him know of young ladies?
Van Helsing to Dr Seward: This is serious, but I must investigate further.
Van Helsing to himself: VAMPIRES D:
Renfield thinks he has been abandoned, and so is back to his flies. Lucy is looking better!
A few days later, Renfield throws all his flies away, and Lucy takes such a turn for the worse that Dr Seward telegrams for Arthur and van Helsing to come as soon as possible.
Van Helsing:
All men are mad in some way or the other; and inasmuch as you deal discreetly with your madmen, so deal with God’s madmen, too—the rest of the world. You tell not your madmen what you do nor why you do it; you tell them not what you think. So you shall keep knowledge in its place, where it may rest—where it may gather its kind around it and breed. You and I shall keep as yet what we know here, and here.” He touched me on the heart and on the forehead, and then touched himself the same way.
Sigh. Victorians.
Lucy is alarmingly weak and anaemic.
Arthur: What can I do? I would give the last drop of blood in my body for her!
Van Helsing and Dr Seward take a moment to admire "his stalwart proportions and the strong young manhood which seemed to emanate from him"
Van Helsing: I won't need every drop ;D
They anaesthetise Lucy and then let Arthur kiss her because WHAT IS CONSENT. Anyway, they do a blood transfusion from Arthur to Lucy and because Bram Stoker didn't know about blood types it's fine.
Arthur is sent home to recover. The bite marks on Lucy's neck happen to be revealed and Van Helsing hisses in recognition, while Dr Seward has no idea what to think. Van Helsing tells Dr Seward to sit with Lucy all night to keep her safe. And as much as I have issues with the dude, he isn't too creepy about it even in his own diary, and is just glad she wakes looking better. She is afraid to sleep, knowing things always get worse when she does, but he promises to keep her safe, and does.
Proving that everything would have been fine if she'd gotten that harem she wanted. Dudes to watch her at all hours! (And also Mina)
Ahh but the next night he is tired after work and she says she feels so much better that he should take the chance to sleep in the next room, promising she'll call him if she needs him.
Aww Lucy writes in her diary that she feels Arthur's presence "warm all around her".
And then the next morning she is sicker than ever. Van Helsing takes a transfusion from Dr Seward.
Dr Seward (in his diary): No man knows, till he experiences it, what it is to feel his own life-blood drawn away into the veins of the woman he loves.
Van Helsing: If our young lover should turn up unexpected, as before, no word to him. It would at once frighten him and enjealous him, too
Huh. Blood transfusions to a vampire victim as a sort of vampirism by proxy, and a way to have a woman "drink" blood from a man while remaining a passive victim.
It's interesting every time I come across a vampirism trope in this book that I have never seen elsewhere, despite having consumed a moderate amount of Dracula inspired vampire fiction. Of course most of it is copies of copies, so stuff that didn't make it into direct copies stays ignored.
Van Helsing gives Lucy a bouquet of flowers to wear, and she is amused when she realises it's garlic flowers. The dynamic between Van Helsing, Dr Seward and Lucy is actually pretty sweet, they're doing their best to keep her safe and cheer her up, and she's trying to stay strong despite very trying circumstances.
Van Helsing is confident that they can now both go home and sleep.
Dr Seward: He seemed so confident that I, remembering my own confidence two nights before and with the baneful result, felt awe and vague terror. It must have been my weakness that made me hesitate to tell it to my friend, but I felt it all the more, like unshed tears.
Lucy in her diary: I never liked garlic before but somehow it is making me feel much better about everything :)
Dr Seward: Let me write down the details of what happened exactly...
Me: Oh nooooooo
Lucy's mother: You will be glad to know that Lucy is better.
Van Helsing: My treatment is working!
Lucy's mother: I think I deserve some credit: her room was awfully stuffy, and full of weird smelling flowers. So I cleared all that out and opened the window ^_^
Me and Van Helsing: D: D: D:
This time Van Helsing gives the blood, and says he will watch over her himself. Lucy's mother's heart is too weak for her to be able to fully understand the danger without dying.
Lucy writes in her diary about how much better she feels, safe from "the flapping against the windows, the distant voices which seemed so close to me, the harsh sounds that came from I know not where and commanded me to do I know not what". Van Helsing has to leave for a day but Lucy is sure she will be fine.
Newspaper article about an escaped wolf:
Once again we start with a chipper Victorian tone I have learned NOT TO TRUST.
The reporter interviews the wolf keeper, a cheerful man with a phonetically written working class accent. He talks about the carrot-and-stick approach to dealing with animals, and how humans are the same: "But, Lor’ love yer ’art, now that the old ’ooman has stuck a chunk of her tea-cake in me, an’ rinsed me out with her bloomin’ old teapot, and I’ve lit hup, you may scratch my ears for all you’re worth, and won’t git even a growl out of me."
This is reminiscent of the conversation with the wolf-keeper in Gabriel Knight 2. *side eyes Jane Jensen 20 years too late*
Anyway, a previously calm and sensible wolf, "Bersicker", freaked out at a strange red-eyed man.
Dracula: Your wolves seem upset ^_^
Wolf keeper: Maybe it's you :P
Dracula: Oh yes, they wouldn't like me (^▿▿^)
Wolf keeper: Maybe they would, they always likes a bone or two to clean their teeth on about tea-time ^_^
Bersicker is anxious but Dracula pats him and says he's made pets of several wolves in his time. That night the wolves howl, and then the rails on Bersicker's cage have been broken, and the wolf has escaped. A witness saw a large grey dog hanging around.
The wolf-keeper says fast, vicious wolves are all well and good in story-books but Bersicker is probably hiding in a park somewhere wondering where his breakfast is. And then Bersicker appears! The wolf-keeper and his wife dote on him like a lost dog. His head is covered in broken glass.
This is adorable? Even the wolves Dracula commands are innocent victims who just want to live a safe and simple life.
Dr Seward's Diary, 17 September: Renfield broke into my study and attacked me with a dinner knife! Then he lapped up the blood from the carpet, repeating "The blood is the life!". I am glad to know Van Helsing won't need me to care for Lucy tonight, I am so tired.
Telegram from Van Helsing, delivered a day late, 18 September: IT IS VITAL YOU BE AT LUCY'S HOUSE TONIGHT
Dr Seward's Diary, 18 September: Fuck
Lucy's Diary, 17 September, Night: This is an exact record of what took place to-night. I feel I am dying of weakness, and have barely strength to write, but it must be done if I die in the doing.
Lucy ;_;
I felt bad enough when I was expecting her to be written as a generic Victorian Doomed Slutty Girl, but there's more to her than that and I really like her. DAMMIT BRAM STOKER.
Nnnnng ok so I just...avoided the book for a day but there's like 2 pages left. Goddd after this I might cheer myself up with some Hakuoki bad ends, at least those have happy alternatives.
Lucy's mother comes in to lie in bed with her, feeling worried. There is a bat at the window, and howls in the dark. Suddenly, the window breaks: it's a wolf. Her mother grasps for anything to help her, eventually grabbing the wreath of flowers, and then collapses.
Lucy feels faint, and sees specks blowing in the window. She feels her mother's body go cold. Everything goes dark.
A little while later the maids come in and see the body. They freak out and Lucy tells them to calm down with some wine. They don't come back, and when she investigates she sees that they have all fallen asleep, drugged. Someone has put her mother's laudanum (morphine) in the wine.
It is still night. The air swirls with specks, and the lights burn blue and dim. A wolf howls outside. Lucy has no choice but to sit with her mother's body and wait for morning. She hides the diary entry she's writing in her breast so that it may be found by those who lay out her corpse.
My dear mother gone! It is time that I go too. Good-bye, dear Arthur, if I should not survive this night. God keep you, dear, and God help me!
D:
Next
no subject
Date: 2018-10-30 11:28 am (UTC)I have laughed at quite the volume reading along.
If you enjoy the book, the Francis Ford Coppola adaption is remarkably accurate to the book, and has Gary Oldman doing a terrifyingly good role as Dracula.
(Mind you the cast was pretty amazing. Gary Oldman! Winona Ryder! Anthony Hopkins! Cary Elwes! Richard E Grant! Tom Waits! Keanu Reeves???)
There's a big chunk of the Richard E Grant autobiography detailing why you shouldn't go drinking with Gary Oldman and Tom Waits, left over from this adaptation.
no subject
Date: 2018-10-31 06:48 am (UTC)I did not entirely what I saw of enjoy the movie but it was an interesting experience so thank you! And yeah the cast was amazing.
no subject
Date: 2018-10-30 03:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-10-31 05:04 am (UTC)Hee thank you! I spent a while trying to find a decent vampire one and eventually had to frankenstein a few together :)
no subject
Date: 2018-10-31 02:16 am (UTC)Stoker really had bad luck with the blood types thing: Landsteiner's discovery of blood types was only three years after Dracula was published. And now if a revisionist author wants to cast aspersions on Dr Van Helsing's credibility, the business of him plugging blood from multiple donors into Lucy without concern for blood types is sitting right there.
no subject
Date: 2018-10-31 04:58 am (UTC)The books set in 1897 though, isn't it? So Van Helsing can be forgiven for not knowing better, and obviously just got VERY LUCKY.