Dracula

Summary

           A young Englishman named Jonathan Harker travels through Transylvania on a business trip. He’s there to help Count Dracula, a Transylvanian nobleman, in buying an English estate. His journey into the remote Eastern European landscape is fearsome, although initially he is charmed by the Count’s generosity and intelligence. Gradually, he comes to realize that he is a prisoner in Count Dracula’s castle, and that the Count is a demonic being who plans to prey on the masses of England. Dracula leaves him to die at the hands of three female vampires, but Jonathan attempts a desperate escape.

            Meanwhile, in England, Jonathan’s fiancée Mina Murray visits her bestfriend, Lucy Westenra. Lucy was recently been proposed by three men: Arthur Holmwood, Dr. Seward and Quincey Morris. She chooses Arthur to be her happy fiancé, and be bestfriend with the rest. Mina and Lucy go to Whitby, a quaint seaside town, for a vacation. While they are there, a Russian vessel is shipwrecked. A large dog leaps from the wreck and runs away. All of its crew are missing save one dead captain. The ship was carrying fifty boxes of earth from Dracula’s castle. despite the wreck, the boxes are delivered as ordered. Lucy begins to exhibit strange behavior: she sleepwalks often, and she seems to grow paler and weaker. Eerie things happen: one night, Mina finds her unconscious in the cemetery, as a figure with glowing eyes bends over her. The figure disappears as Mina comes closer, but night after night strange events continue to happen and grows thinner and paler with each passing day.

            Word comes from Budapest that Jonathan has been found, sick with brain fever. He can remember nothing of his travels in Transylvania. Mina goes to nurse him back to health and to help him make the trip back to England. When she arrives, they marry immediately. He gives her his diary but is afraid to read it. Mina seals that diary and promises that she’ll never read it unless it is for his sake.

            Back in England, Lucy returns to her home in London. Arthur, fearful for her health, asks Dr. Seward to try to figure out what is wrong with her. Seward is baffled by her illness, and calls in the aid of his old mentor, the brilliant Professor Abraham Van Helsing. Van Helsing seems to know from the beginning what he might be up against. He tries to use various charms, as well as constant blood transfusion for Lucy, to keep her alive. Again and again his attempts are thwarted by a mixture of Dracula’s cunning and bad luck. Lucy’s mother is killed by heart attack during one of Dracula’s more dramatic plot to get to Lucy, and Lucy dies a few days later. Arthur’s father dies at about this time. Van Helsing takes possession of Lucy’s diary and correspondence, which lead him to make contact with Mina Harker.

Meanwhile, the Harkers have returned to England. Peter Hawkins, Jonathan’s boss, dies suddenly leaving the Harkers a considerable fortune. One day while they are in London, Jonathan actually sees Count Dracula, who has been restored to his youth by his feeding, and although Jonathan can’t remember things clearly, he has a nervous attack and falls unconscious. When he comes to, he can’t remember what upset him. Disturbed by this behavior, Mina decides to read the journal. She finally knows what bothered her husband’s mind. And when Van Helsing comes to visit her to ask question about Lucy, they know how the vampire comes to England.

Mysterious attacks against children have begun in the area where Lucy was burned. Van Helsing shows Seward, Morris and Arthur that the cause is Lucy, who is now one of the undead. Arthur is the one who gives his fiancée peace by staking her through the heart. The four men pledge to destroy Dracula next.

The men start to hunt down the boxes, and when they found the boxes, they begin sterilizing it with holy wafer. Dracula, in the last box, flees back to Transylvania to rest and regroup for another attack. The band of friends track him down, splitting up so that Van Helsing and Mina succeed, killing the three female vampires and using holy wafer to render the castle uninhabitable for the undead. They then regroup with the others, and then all together they surround the gypsies who are transporting Dracula in his coffin. During the struggle against the gypsies, Quincey Morris receives a mortal wound. Jonathan and Quincey deliver the killing blows to Dracula just as the sun is setting.