‘I could hear a lot of words often repeated, queer words, for there were many nationalities in the crowd; so I quietly got my polyglot dictionary from my bag and looked them out. I must say they were not cheering to me, for amongst them were ‘Ordog’--Satan, ‘pokol’—hell, ‘stregoica’—witch, ‘Vrlok’ and ‘vlkoslak’—both of which mean the same thing that is either were-wolf or vampire.’
Harker says he is disturbed, but does not realize they are talking about Count Dracula. He thinks their words are superstitions, because he says
‘(mem, I must ask the Count about these superstitions.)’, again showing his lack of open mindedness. Realising that these words were not superstitions could have made an effect on his entire life. If he would have realised they were talking about the Count himself, he would have turned back, and avoided the atrocities ahead.
After they start off, everyone in the crowd makes the sign of the cross and points two fingers at him. He asks one of the passengers what is meant, and Jonathan said
‘He would not answer at first, but on learning that I was English he explained that it was a charm or guard against the evil eye. This was not very pleasant for me, just starting for unknown place to meet an unknown man; but everyone seemed so kind hearted, and so sorrowful, and so sympathetic that I could not be touched.’
Jonathan soon discovers he has made a mistake. Bram Stoker uses gothic imagery to describe Jonathans fear when he discovers,
‘doors, doors, doors everywhere, and all locked and bolted. In no place save from the windows in the castle walls is there an available exit’
Harker quickly learns that Dracula is more than he says, especially after he is bitten, and his immature attitude changes. One morning, as Harker looks frantically around the castle for an escape hatch, he stumbles upon a room where a number of coffins of earth are stored. In an eerie gothic scene, Jonathan looks underneath the cover of one of the coffins, and finds Dracula. Jonathan thinks he is dead, but again gothic tradition comes into it, because a main element of gothic text is irony. Really, we know that Dracula can be dead and alive at the same time, because he is a vampire, but Jonathan does not yet know of this, disregarding all these happenings as superstitions. That night, Dracula appears alive as usual, and Jonathan now suspects something supernatural about his host. Harker remains trapped in the castle as he observes Count Dracula loading his coffins.
Eventually, Jonathan escapes from the castle, on the verge of sanity. Here we see again an element of gothic text, because a main element of gothic text is being on the border of two different things. Apart from Jonathan being on the border of sanity and insanity, we also see that at midnight, which is on the border of one day and the next, strange things happen such as the mysterious coach driver telling Jonathan that
‘A blue flame is seen over any place where treasure has been concealed.’
Jonathan returns to England to discover the ship carrying Dracula was mysteriously sunk at sea. He realizes what he must do when he observes Dracula on the streets of London. He sets out with the help of Van Helsing, and Dr. Seward to find and destroy Count Dracula. Dr. Seward is the doctor trying to save Lucy and other victims of vampire bites. In Sister Agatha's Letter, we get more gothic imagery. Agatha writes
‘I have a vague memory of something long and dark with red eyes, just as we saw in the sunset, and something very sweet and very bitter all around me at once; and then I seemed sinking into the deep green water, and there was a singing in my ears, as I have heard there is to drowning men; and then everything seemed passing away from me; my soul seemed to go out from my body and float about the air.’
This passage is full of gothic imagery. ‘Something long and dark with red eyes’ makes images of the devil in the readers mind, and combined with the earlier scene where the crowd whispered about Dracula, it all adds to the feeling of horror in this fantastic novel.
It is quite common as well that in gothic novels there are certain characters that contribute to the feeling of horror and peculiarity of the novel. The character Renfield is extremely complicated, and mysterious, and he actually contributes a lot to Draculas status of belonging to the gothic tradition. In Dr. Seward's diary, he writes
‘I am puzzled afresh about Renfield. His moods change so rapidly that I find it difficult to keep touch with them, and as they always mean something more than his well being, they form a more than interesting study. This morning, when I went to see him after his repulse of Van Helsing, his manner was that of a man-commanding destiny. He was in fact commanding destiny--subjectively. He did really care for any of the things of mere earth; he was in the clouds and looked down on all the weaknesses and wants of us poor mortals.’
The gothic image of Renfield looking down from the cloud ‘on all the weakness and wants of us poor mortals’ continues to add to the horror in the novel.
The use of dark imagery, and grisly language adds to the gothic scenery, and it is soon easy to see why Bram Stoker's novel is the most widely read of all time. Stoker converges his vast knowledge of science, sexuality of the Victorian times, modernity, religion and most of all superstition, and created, without doubt, a novel that will always belong to the gothic tradition.
