Bram Stoker's "Dracula" (Audio Book): Summary and Commentary
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| listen to it here: https://amzn.to/3yFj4xF |
INTRODUCTION
Dracula is an epistolary novel written by the Irishman Bram Stoker in 1897, inspired by the figure of Vlad III, prince of Wallachia, and is one of the last examples of Gothic novels.
Taking up the myth of the aristocratic vampire, distant from the image of the vampire present in folklore, launched in literature by John William Polidori, Stoker creates a novel with dark atmospheres, in which terror and threat beset the protagonists, in a crescendo of emotions that leads to the discovery of the horror represented by the dark vampire.
SUMMARY
The main protagonist of the story is the lawyer Jonathan Harker, of English origins, who goes to Transylvania to conclude a real estate deal relating to an old castle with a local nobleman, Count Dracula. When Harker arrives in Transylvania, the local farmers warn him against the strange character, providing him with crucifixes and talismans to protect him from the evil Count. Very scared, the young Harker decides to complete his task anyway.
He decides to travel to the castle by means of a carriage, which during the journey is almost attacked by a pack of wolves along the way.
Arriving at the dilapidated castle, Harker discovers that Dracula is a well-mannered and hospitable gentleman. After a few days of stay he soon realizes that he has become a prisoner of that place. Meanwhile, Harker's girlfriend, Mina Murray, writes to her friend Lucy Westenra who has received marriage proposals from three men: Dr. John Seward, Arthur Holmwood, and an American named Quincey Morris. Lucy accepts Holmwood's proposal.
Mina goes to visit Lucy in the seaside resort of Whitby, along the coast of which a Russian ship with all its crew has sunk, many are missing and the captain is dead. The ship's cargo is revealed to be fifty crates of earth shipped from Dracula's castle. Meanwhile, shortly thereafter, Lucy suddenly begins to sleepwalk.
Mina notices that her friend looks white and sick and she has two small red marks on her neck that neither Dr. Seward nor Mina can explain. Meanwhile, Harker reappears in the city of Budapest and Mina joins him. Van Helsing, a very famous doctor in the country, goes to visit Lucy and orders the rooms to be covered with garlic, a traditional remedy against vampires.
Everything seems to be working, until the garlic plant is eliminated by her mother, unaware of everything. One night Dracula enters the room in the guise of a wolf and kills the girl and with her, also her mother, due to a heart attack. After her death, the woman also turns into a vampire and immediately starts killing, especially innocent children.
To put an end to this situation, Professor Van Helsing, assisted by Holmwood, Seward, and Quincey Morris, drives a stake through her heart, cutting off her head, and stuffing her mouth with garlic.
After what happened, Mina and Jonathan get married and return to England where they decide to participate in the mission to kill Dracula. Van Helsing and the rest of the group discover Dracula's nocturnal hideout, who in the meantime, however, manages to attack Mina.
The final act of the book takes place in the mountains where the castle stands: primarily Van Helsing has sterilized the whole place and killed Dracula's brides.
Afterwards the professor and Mina find themselves with the rest of the company besieging the group of gypsies escorting the vampire's chest. After defeating the fierce gang surrounding the castle, Jonathan and Quincey kill Dracula who dies turning into dust!
COMMENT
It is a much discussed book in the literary world. According to some, if the book hadn't been a horror film, one of the first of its kind, it wouldn't have been anything special. But this book is unique, Stoker invented the vampire, or rather, he took a bunch of lore and piled them into one story.
Today we are used to the vampire with a dark but still beautiful charm, Dracula was ugly, old, with an enormous nose, very white skin and blood red lips, a truly horrible being, what made him fascinating was the aura of dark mystery that envelops it, if we remove all our knowledge of vampires before reading it we would ask: but what is it?
On the contrary, men are examples of courage, sacrifice and intelligence and it will be Van Helsing himself who explains what a vampire is to his incredulous friends.
The women are all beautiful: the vampires are fascinating, passionate, erotic but as soon as the spell ends they show themselves for what they are, arousing a real sense of disgust, while the heroines are candid girls with a pure heart, of an angelic beauty who face the Conte with their companions in a fight between good and evil.
The book is made up of the diaries of the people who come to deal with Dracula and is very fluent, Stoker peers into the souls of the characters, their secrets and their fears, their intentions keeping in mind that they know that their diaries they will be read by others, even the author specifies this by making one of the characters speak.
I believe that this book is worth reading not only for those who like the genre, but for all those who want to know how the myth of the vampire was born and how it has evolved compared to our ideas, but above all it is worth reading because it is a great book and as such it gives you emotions.
