Chapter 2 of Bram Stoker's Dracula delves into Jonathan Harker's deepening unease and growing suspicions during his stay at Castle Dracula, as mysterious events and unsettling observations about Count Dracula himself begin to surface. The chapter highlights the stark contrast between Dracula's outward courtesy and the underlying predatory nature, foreshadowing the true horror to come.
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Hello and welcome to chapter two of
project Dracul Analysis analysis of
chapter 2 of Bram Stoker's Dracula.
And again, I've just gone through and
picked out some key
quotations and little things I want to
discuss in said chapter. So, without
further ado, have a look. So, this
continues Jonathan Harker's stay at
Castle Dracula, and we're going to find
out more mysterious
things are happening, and we're
obviously introduced to Count Dracula himself.
himself.
So, we start off with
5th of May entry. And again, picking out
things here. This is uh I thought this
was an interesting for description of
Castle Dracula itself and going for that
Gothic medieval look as well and it's
nighttime. Several dark ways led from it
under great round arches perhaps seemed
bigger than it really is. I have not yet
been able to see it by daylight. So it's
a good one for themes of appearance
versus reality and crossing those kind
of boundaries. And of course, Jonathan
Harker has crossed the boundary into
Castle Dracula itself.
And we talked about the driver last time
as well. And notice his pre prodigious
strength and the implication even though
Jonathan Hoger hasn't made the
connection yet, but later on we will
realize he realizes as well as the
reader uh that Stoker intends this to be.
be.
It's Dracula doing his micromanagement
thing again.
We have a nice simile here like a steel
vice that could have crushed mine if he
had chosen. And that actually
foreshadows the power which Dracula has
over Jonathan Jonathan Harker
in Castle Dracula.
And there's also connotations of pain
there as well.
I said close to a great door old and
studded with large iron nails. So that's
definitely got a medieval feel. Whether
that's deliberately evoking the u the
famous or infamous iron maiden torture
device which actually was a Victorian
invention and wasn't really used in
medieval times anyway. But it certainly
has that feel. It doesn't really have
well this is iron nails. This they're
not sticking out. But I think the
connotations of that make you think of
definitely at the very least medieval
and maybe by very subconscious
association you're thinking of yeah
something like the iron maiden itself
but it's not like it's got spikes on a
door the nails are nailed into the wood but
but
then uh said a projecting doorway of
and so again it's medieval it's old the
carving be much worn by time and
weather. Even though I didn't highlight
that, sorry. So, a sense of age and
time. Series of rhetorical questions
here. Stoker gives Harker. What sort of
place had I come to and among what kind
of people? What sort of grim adventure
was it on which I had embarked? Was this
a customary incident in the life of
Clark sent out to explain the purchase
of a London estate to a foreigner?
So, series of rhetorical questions
there. Stoke is using that to
demonstrate or illustrate, I should say,
Jonathan Harker's confusion and sense of
alienation and and isolation as well and confusion.
confusion.
And I've just highlighted that one. I'm
now a full-blown solicitor as well. So,
there's a little bit of a social status
thing going on there and the idea of his
own kind of social class and his own um
stat improving there because he's been
proed. Obviously, that's good for Mina
as well. His relationship with her.
I've highlighted this because the sound
of rattling chains and the clanking of
massive bolts drawn back. There's
definitely like a ghostly connotations
there, isn't it? If if anyone's familiar
with A Christmas Carol, you'll know what
I mean with that one. And again, it's
ominous. The key was turned with loud
grating noise of long disuse and the
great door swung back. So, we've got a
clanking on a matapier there as well.
The description of Dracula is
interesting and not necessarily exactly
how he appears in lots of film versions.
Uh, so should a tall old man clean
shaven say for a long white mustache and
clad in black from head to foot without
a single speck of color about him
anywhere. He held in his hand an antique
silver lamp. Interesting premodifier
there. antique suggesting again age
which the flame burned without chimney
or globe of any kind throwing long
quivering shadows as it flickered in the
draft of the open door. So actually even
the lamp is a little bit mysterious as well.
well.
Welcome to my house and to freely and of
your own will. In the folklore, vampires
have a strange thing about courtesy and
invitations and manners and politeness.
And Dracula is definitely polite and at
least appearing friendly as well. So
again, there's appearance versus reality.
reality.
A little simile under there as well.
Welcome to my house. Come freely. Go
safely. That's ironic as well, isn't it?
and leave something of the happiness you bring.
bring.
So that something that you may be
leaving is going to be blood.
The strength of the handshake was so
much akin to what I noticed in the driver.
driver.
There's one of those warning signs that
Jonathan Harker should have really have noticed
noticed
whose face I had not seen that for a
moment I doubted if it were not the same
person to whom I was speaking. So to
make sure I said interrogatively, "Count
Dracula," he bowed in a courtly way as
he replied, "I am Dracula. I bid you
welcome, Mr. Harker, to my house. Come
in. The night air is chill, and you must
need to eat and rest." So I was getting
carried away with doing the voice then
as well.
And again, there's a sense of there's
something mysterious going on because in
terms of the very rigid ideas about how
class worked, he had carried it in
before I could forto him. So he's
carrying in Jonathan Harker's luggage
and to Harker as again Stoker is writing
this. Make sure you always when you're
analyzing and discussing you're
mentioning the writer's names and
you know it's it's very unusual that
this would happen. It's what we've seen again
again
the connection between the driver. It's
Dracula actually doing the driving.
Dracula's carrying in the luggage. So
there's something peculiar going on here
instantly for the reader. Na you're my
guess. This is late. My people are not
available. Let me see to your comfort
myself. It's very unusual for Aris to be
waiting or serving
visitors. Excuse me. [clears throat]
Okay. So, continuing on. The light and
warmth and the count's courteous welcome
seem to have dissipated all my doubts
and fears. Well, there's more irony.
You will, I trust. Excuse me that I do
not join you, but I have dined already
and I do not s.
This is the first of several references
to eating and drinking. And Harker
doesn't ever see
Dracula, Count Dracula, ever actually
eat. And again, it's another warning
sign. It's something that's curious and
suspicious about him and strange.
And a letter there from his boss, Mr.
Hawkins. I mean Jonathan Harker gets
that. This description of Dracula is
very interesting as well and again not
necessarily very faithfully reproduced
in a lot of the film versions and very
marked physioamy. There was a
fascination in Victorian times. So this
is a bit of context about the idea of
facial features
and also they al this frenology was the
bumps on the head as well. But the idea
of facial features suggesting something
about a person's personality and
character and everything and there's no
there's no science in it. It's a pseudo
science, but it was very popular and
very widely believed in the 19th century.
century.
So this detailed description actually
fits in with that really. His face was
strong, a very strong aqualine. So you
got a parenthesis in there.
And aqualine means eagleike. It's a
great premodifier. There is a great
adjective with high bridge of the thin
nose and peculiarly arched nostrils.
Lofty domed forehead and hair growing
scantily around the temples but
profusely everywhere. His eyebrows were
very massive, almost meeting over the
nose, with bushy hair that seemed to
curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so
far as I could see it under the heavy
mustache, was fixed and rather cruel
looking with peculiarly sharp white
teeth. These protruded over the lips
whose remarkable ruddiness showed
astonishing vitality in a man of his
ears. So again, the description of him
seems a bit unusual as well.
And then there's also a sense of the
predator there as well with the sharp
point teeth
and also these intriguing aspects about
him and these hints that there's
something unusual about him. Astonishing
vitality in a man of his years.
Also you see about his hands and
they seemed rather white and fine. But
seeing them now close to me I could not
but notice that they were rather coarse.
broad with squat fingers.
And again, unusually, there were hairs
in the center of the palm.
Now, that's linked to
another widely held Victorian belief
which is possibly a bit too strong for
YouTube, but if I put it delicately,
it was
an association
with, let's say, a man who might frequently
frequently
entertain himself. And I'm not going to
say anything else beyond that.
And it's not necessarily that he's doing
that, but there are lots of
sexual references in the novel or sexual illusions.
illusions.
and just Yeah, I'm going to move on.
Then the nails, uh, long and fine and
cut to a sharp point. It gave him this
more predatory kind of imagery here. His
breath was rank,
but a horrible feeling of nausea came
over me, which do what I could, I could
not conceal. So, these are more of these
warning signs for Jonathan Harker,
aren't they? These ideas of
a dangerous predator and like a
predatory animal would have really foul
breath. It's because he's drinking blood and
and
grim sort of smile which showed more
than he had yet done his protuberant
teeth. So they are your classic vampire
teeth you're imagining.
Then also reference again predatory
animals howling of many wolves.
And this next line is a fun. Listen to
them the children of the night. what
music they make.
Seeing I suppose some expression in my
face stranged to him, he added, "Ah, so
you dwellers in the city cannot enter
into the feelings of the hunter." That
just reinforces what I was saying before
on the previous page, but again, links
to predatory animals. Dracula has an
affinity for all spooky animals and
particularly wolves, bats.
I don't know whether it would extend to
other creepy crawies and rats and
things. Maybe it would. I don't know.
But he's definitely got an affinity with
any animal that's spooky. He's got a
special bond with it. He's like an evil
Dr. Dittle, but he only specializes in
spooky animals.
Then I am in all in a sea of wonders.
Nice metaphor there as well. Then
there's a sense here of the added
mystery of the castle as well because
the beds are very old and there's a
cultural reference to Hampton Court. So
the kind of you can go there now. I
think it's a I think is is it a national
trust or an English heritage? I can't
remember. But you can go there. You can
go to Hampton Court. Maybe not either of
them. But you can go there and you can
see it and you could see the type of bed
that he's talking about. But here but
there they were worn and frayed and moth
eaten. So, he's in this bedroom that
people haven't been using for many, many
years. Adding to the mystery, again, the
warning signs, I have not yet seen a
servant anywhere, which would be
alarming to a Victorians, particularly
one visiting an aristocratic
uh castrat's castle. Where are the
servants? Dracula is doing everything.
And he was the coachman obviously as well.
well.
Then we have reference to what he finds
in the library. All the English books,
whole shelves of them and bound volumes
of magazines and newspapers, all
relating to England and English life and
custom and manners. And then again, more
cultural references to things that
Stoker's readers would be familiar with.
And Dracula here, he's planning I plan
to go to London
through them. I have come to know your
great England and to know her is to love
her. So his personification there as
well. This is all part of
Dracula's plan.
He needs literally fresh blood. The
locals in Transylvania
know how to defend against him,
but he wants to go somewhere new and he
wants to go to London, the capital, the
heart of the British Empire. So it's the
most powerful country in the world, most
richest powerful country in the world.
And what SOA is doing is very similar to
what around the same time
HD Wells does in War of the Worlds,
which is effectively here, you have a
question of what happens if a more
powerful force invades the British
Empire. In War of the Worlds, spoiler
alert, it's not much of a spoiler alert.
It's Martians
and they invade England first of all and
it's again overwhelms the powers of the
British Empire in the same way that the
British Empire went out into the world
and use superior technology against the
locals they would find wherever they
landed and then take over that place. In
this way, you have a similar thing, but
this time it's not technology. It's not
alien technology. It's the supernatural.
And Dracula is a foreigner. And it's a
foreign unknowable power that's going to
secretly invade into British society.
And actually around the time 1890s,
early part of the 20th century, there
there was growing paranoia about the
activities of spies and anarchists and
secret agents and things. So it actually
also indirectly kind of taps into that
as well. But there there's this fear of
this paranoia. Okay, we're top of we're
top of the tree. We're top of the world,
British Empire, but what if an
unknowable or more powerful force did
what we're doing to the rest of the
world. So I find all that really interesting.
interesting.
So this is what he wants to do. And he's
taken him years. It's taken Dracula a
long time to learn English because he's
Van Helsing later says he's got like a
child's brain. and it takes him a long
time to learn it. Vampirism is a curse
after all. And he's not granted with
great wisdom. It's taken him a lot of
effort to actually do all this and pick
up all of this as well.
Uh this reference at the bottom here I
am no I am a boyard of the common people
know me and I am master but the stranger
in a strange land. He is no men know him
not and to know not is to care not for.
He's known in Transylvania he can move
around more freely, can't he? So again,
it's crossing boundaries as well. He can
cross a boundary into from this rural
almost medieval style world into modern
high techch powerful
powerful London.
London.
Then he wants to find out more about how
to speak English and he wants to be corrected.
corrected.
Then this is ironic. You may go anywhere
you wish in the castle except where the
doors are locked. Well, of course you
will not wish to go. That's ironic. I
think a locked door makes you more
curious, doesn't it? Really?
There is reason that all things as they
are. And did you see with my eyes and
know with my knowledge you would perhaps
better understand?
We are in Transylvania and Transylvania
is not England. Our Vays are not yours.
and there shall be to you many strange things.
things.
So, it's it's a warning, but it also
from Stoker as well creates intrigue in
the reader. And Gothic genre, classic
staple of the Gothic genre, the locked
room, loads of locked room, secret
passages, things like that, and we've
got it here in spades.
Then he asks about the blue flames later
on. And last night, in fact, when all
evil spirits are supposed to have
unchecked sway, a blue flame is seen
over any place where treasure has been
concealed. That treasure has been
hidden, he went on. In the region which
you came last night, there can be but
little doubt, for it was the ground
fought over for centuries by the Walesian
Walesian
and the Turk, if he would have said
Valian. Anyway,
so is a sense of history in Dracula's
Then
and he has a low opinion of the peasants
here because your peasant is as hard a
coward and a fool.
Again, mysteries, treasure, the blue
I know no more than the dead where even
to look for them. Harker says that. That
is deeply ironic as well, isn't it?
because king too
or maybe the most famous member of the undead.
undead.
So there's mention here about cultural
differences that could be good for
crossing boundaries as well about
patronymics harker Jonathan. So that's
when because not all lang not all
cultures in the world have the same way
as in generally in English where you
have your first name surname. It's
obviously different all over the world.
with reference to Carfax and yeah I
wondered if this was something
interesting to note here as the house is
foursided agreeing with the cardinal
points of the compass is that some kind
of indirect
subtle connotations of the cross of
crucifixes maybe could be couldn't it
obviously Dracula wouldn't like that but
I wonder if the you know different
points of the compass it creates a cross
doesn't it I wonder if it's actually
very subtly Stoker foreshadowing the
later activities of the crew of light
when they set out to defeat Dracula
later on.
Then there's reference to how old the
house is. You can't really imagine
Dracula moving into a new build. Can you
nice little reference to Kodak, which is
high-tech at the time, and Kodak still
exists as a company, but I think they've
been bought out by somebody else long
ago. But they cameras. So the use of
cameras, that would be that's high-tech
to the readers of Stokus time. That's
another example of technology in the
novel. And remember again, it's going to
be high-tech. To [snorts] us, it isn't,
but to the readers of the time, there's
lots of technology in here, which is
cutting edge.
There's also foreshadowing of the
private lunatic asylum which is going to
figure very largely in the novel which is
is
Dr. Seid's asylum which we will see
later on. I am glad that is old and big.
I myself am of an old family and to live
in a new house would kill me. I think
there could be a brilliant sitcom where
Dracula moves into or maybe with some
other fellow monsters if they move into
a new build somewhere and they get to
grips with electric rockets and uh
modern appliances.
It amuses me to think anyway. Then
after all, how few days go to make up a
century? This alludes to obviously his
extended lifespan.
We Transian nobles love not to think
that our bodies may lie amongst the
common dead. Well, obviously
graves and tombs are very important to
him so he can recharge his vampiric
matchies as it were. I am no longer
young and my heart though weary years of
mourning over the dead is not attuned to
mirth. You can say that again.
I love the shade and the shadow. Could
you say that Dracula is always throwing
shade? No, that's a terrible joke and I
won't and I will move on very quickly.
But it actually links obviously the
Gothic theme as well and he's more
powerful at nighttime and he doesn't
turn to stone in sunlight.
Then on looking at certain places,
little rings marked and on examining
these I noticed that one was near London
on the east side, Manifesty where his
new estate was situated. The other two
were extern Whippby on the Yorkshire
coast. So these all connects to places
of interest for Dracula in England that
he's heading towards and Whippby you see
a lot of and there are some references
to exit as well.
Then it's a bit suspicious he doesn't
eat doesn't he Dracula and then he was
sleepy. Anything else I was going to say
about here? They say that people who are
near death die generally at the change
of the dawn or at the turn of the tide.
That's good for crossing boundaries
because it refers to these liinal
spaces. spaces and times that exist
between two other spaces and times. So
here you have
twi not twilight the opposite of
twilight the time before the sun comes
up and the turn of the tide when it
between high tide and low tide or vice
versa but they're all kind of liinal
spaces aren't they
all at once we heard the crow of a
coming up with pre-natural shrillness
through the clear morning air counter
jump into his head why there is morning
again how miss am I to let you stay up
so long you must make your conversation
regarding my dear from country of
England. That's interesting. So that I
may not forget how time flies by us. And
with a courtly bow, he quickly left me.
Just imagine him just kind of right. Got
to get out of here. But he doesn't turn
to stone. He doesn't turn to stone.
That's not in this novel. He just can't
he doesn't have access to all his
powers. I don't think he doesn't enjoy
being in the sunlight. It's better if he
stays out of it.
Then we have this incident when he's
shaving as well and Dracula suspiciously
again for warning signs. There was no
reflection of him in the mirror
exclamatory sentence. And that
contextually is the idea of vampires not
having a soul because the the folklore
belief was a mirror. Didn't really show
you. It showed you your soul which is
why the superstitious super not
superstition the superstition is there
when a mirror breaks seven years bad
luck and then you're meant to bury it
and then that helps to stop it the bad
luck because they believed it was your
soul breaking in the mirror and it's
one of those things but it links to that
then Dracula gets all excited because
there's a bit of blood and he cuts
himself shaving as well
his eyes blaze with
of demoniac fury. It's a great word.
Suddenly made a grab at my throat. So
the instinct of Dracula overcomes all
the veneer of civility, that predatory
nature. Stoker presents that that shines through.
Then we all know about significance of
crucifixes for vampires.
Take care how you cut yourself. It is
more dangerous than you think in this
country. It's really because he can't
really control himself. And he chucks
away his mirror.
Make an excuse as a foul bble of man's vanity.
vanity.
But it's really because it he doesn't
show up in it. But shouldn't his clothes
so it should just look like his clothes
are hovering in the air behind Jonathan
Harker? No. That would be silly. But
it's fun to imagine for a second.
Then he had his breakfast on his own. I
have not yet seen the count eat or
drink. Again, one of those warning signs
that Dracula is not a normal person.
So, there's a sense of danger culminating
culminating
in the climax of this chapter.
In no place safe in the windows is the
castle walls is there an available exit.
The castle is a veritable prison and I
So Jonathan Harker
and we'll see particularly in the next
chapter here is already adopting that
Gothic genre role of the damsel in
distress. Normally in Gothic literature,
there's normally a female young woman
will be imprisoned and trapped and is
left in the castle exploring and finding
locked doors and there's a mystery.
Harker fulfills that role. So that's
another interesting boundary being
crossed by Stoker there. So anyway, that
was quite a long one because it's quite
a long chapter. So I'm going to wrap up
there. I hope you enjoyed that. I will
keep these going if they seem popular.
I'd like to do the whole thing really,
but it will take me some time. Anyway,
enough of my problems. Who cares?
Have a good time, whatever you are
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