Dracula And Evil
Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. ? Romans. XII. 21 Evil
often triumphs, but never conquers. ? Joseph Roux The two quotations from
above explain that evil never conquers because good always overcomes it. A good
example of this is the book Dracula by Bram Stoker because the author expresses
the nature of good vs. evil. Dracula wants to come to London because he wants to
turn everyone into vampires. The basic background of the book Dracula is when
Jonathan Harker, a realtor who is sent to Transylvania to complete a transaction
with Dracula so he can come to England. What Harker does not know is that
Dracula has a plan for world domination. Well, while Harker is on a train to
Transylvania he enters “the east, a section of Europe whose peoples and
customs will be for the most part, strange and unfamiliar” (Dracula, 20).
Harker arrives at Bistritz on the eve of St. George’s Day, “a night when
evil things in the world have full sway” (Dracula, 21). When Harker first sees
this, he is unconcerned about these superstitions. Then he sees something that
is very peculiar. An old woman is very afraid of the word “Dracula.” She
offers Harker a gift of rosary to protect him of evil spirits. After she gives
him the rosary, he starts to feel uncomfortable going to the Borgo pass on the
following day. The Borgo pass is very important because this is the place where
Dracula’s carriage will await Harker. Well on the next day, a crowd of
peasants gather around the carriage mumbling linguist words that seem to have
some kind of link to the word vampire. Then the “whole crowd makes the sign of
the cross and point two fingers at Harker” (Dracula, 30), to wish him a safe
journey. When the carriage dashes by the country peasants, they knell and cross
themselves. Until this point Jonathan Harker does not know the “Dracula
beckons Harker into his castle and into a horrifying adventure with the
supernatural” (Lidston 546). The only evil character in this book is Dracula,
“an old man and is clean shaven, except for a long white Victorian mustache
and he is clad all in black” (Dracula, 55). “He speaks in perfect English
and welcomes Harker inside, shaking his hand with an ice-cold, vice-like grip”
(Dracula, 55). Dracula explains to him that he will no be able to make the trip
to London, but one of his trusted servants will be going along with Harker back
to London. After supper Jonathan analyzes Dracula and notices one very strange
feature, his mouth is thick and white; they cover sharp white teeth, which stick
out over his lip. What Jonathan does not know is that those teeth are canine
teeth only found in animals. There are exceptions, for instance, vampires have
these teeth so they can puncture the human’s carotid vessel in their neck and
suck their blood. The first time that Jonathan sees Dracula’s cannibal teeth
grow is when Harker starts shaving. He accidentally cuts himself and Dracula
leaps for his throat so he can suck his blood. Harker touches his crucifix and
Dracula’s “demonic fury” vanishes. The strangest event that Harker notices
in Dracula’s castle is “Dracula emerge from his room on the floor below,
slither out, head downward, in lizard fashion, with his cloak spread out around
him like great wings” (Dracula, 179). This shows that “Dracula is not a
person. He is a presence, an absence that requires concealing” (Wolf, 368).
This tells Harker that something is very wrong with this man. He recalls how the
peasants behaved very strangely. Then he recalls how the woman acted when she
heard the word “Dracula,” and after that Harker knows that this man is the
fearful demon known as Count Dracula. To make sure that this man is actually a
vampire who is known to be evil, he plans to encounter Dracula when it is
daytime. Harker goes to Dracula’s room and notices that his room is empty
except for a door that is partially opened. Harker goes downstairs into a
basement-like area and a stench of death makes Harker almost vomit. At the
bottom of the stairs, Harker finds fifty coffins filled with earth. In one of
the coffins he finds Dracula. Jonathan said that it looked as if Dracula’s
youth was renewed. Then Jonathan saw a very repulsive sight, Dracula had a blood
in his mouth and a trickle of blood on his lip. Harker then finds a shovel and
starts to slash at Dracula but after all those slashes he notices that it only
grazed his forehead. He gets so scared that he runs upstairs and while on the
first floor of the castle he starts to hear coffins start to open. Harker
realizes that he can no longer stay in this evil damned castle. This is the
beginning “of the migration to England with the design of populating the
country with fellow vampires” (Lovecraft 458). The heroes who play a major
role in killing Dracula and ending his master plan to take over the world are
Mina Murray, Lucy Westenra, Arthur Holmwood, Dr. John Seward, Quincey P. Morris
and Dr. Abraham Van Helsing. Mina Murray is the fiancée of Jonathan Harker;
Lucy Westenra is Mina’s best friend and later on becomes one of the un-dead,
and Arthur Holmwood is the son of Lord Godalming and later on becomes the king
after his father dies. John Seward is the supervisor of the lunatic asylum;
Quincey P. Morris pays for the tracking of Dracula and Dr. Abraham Van Helsing
is in charge of the strategy for tracking down Cont Dracula and he knows a lot
about vampirism. Mina gets a letter from Budapest saying, “Jonathan is
recovering in our hospital from brain fever. Please come and pick him up”
(Dracula, 230). Immediately after Mina receives the letter she gets ready to go
to Budapest. When Mina is on her trip to pick up Jonathan, a vampire bites Lucy
and her mother dies of a heart attack. Dr. Helsing is called in to check Lucy
and her bite marks. He tries to give her blood transfusions but they do not help
the situation. In order for the vampire, also known as Count Dracula, not to
return to Lucy, her friends put garlic all over her room. When Mina and Jonathan
return to London, they decide to have a walk in the park. Jonathan notices a
figure that is very familiar to him, “a figure that gave him the brain fever
and that gave him all the nightmares,” (Summers 567) that figure is Dracula.
As time progresses Lucy’s condition worsens and soon enough they had to put
her in her final resting place. Dr. Helsing notices something strange occurring
to Lucy, she is turning un-dead. Arthur Holmwood and Dr. Abraham Van Helsing
decide to go to Lucy’s grave and release her spirit. Holmwood feels like he is
doing something wrong by letting her spirit be released. Dr. Helsing tells him
that he is the only one that can release her spirit because he was the only one
that actually knew her real well. Holmwood decides that he must do this and he
drives a stake through his lover’s heart, cuts off her head and stuffs garlic
in her mouth. The end of Dracula came soon after Mina was bitten. Dr. Helsing
puts a cross on Mina’s forehead to see if she was borderline and it burned a
crucifix right into her forehead. This proved that the only way that Mina could
be returned to he normal self is by killing Dracula. Now Harker, Holmwood, Mina,
Quincey, and Dr. Helsing go out to find the fifty coffins of earth. The group
found forty-one of the original fifty coffins that Dracula scattered all over
London so he can complete step one of his world domination. They found the
coffins by hypnosis. Dr. Helsing hypnotized Mina and she was able to
telepathically talk to Dracula. On October 2nd a few days after they found the
forty-one coffins, Jonathan receives a letter telling him that the final nine
coffins are located at Carfax. They go to Piccadilly, Dracula’s house in
Carfax and they only find eight coffins. Dr. Helsing discovers the grave of the
three female vampires Jonathan met in Dracula’s castle and he performs the
purification ritual which puts an end to the female vampires. He then finds “a
large tomb more lordly than all the rest upon which is one word: Dracula”
(Dracula 400). Dr. Helsing crushes a holy wafer and places it in the coffin.
When he leaves the castle, he places a holy material around the castle entrance
so the Count can never return to it. On November 6th Dr. Helsing notices a group
of gypsies around a cart. Dr. Helsing some how knows that the cart is carrying
the final coffin which has Dracula inside. Arthur, Seward, Jonathan and Quincey
fight the gypsies until they reach the coffin. When Quincey finally reaches the
coffin, he gets stabbed by one of the gypsies. Jonathan and Quincey rip off the
lid and inside they find Dracula, covered by un-holy dirt. As the sun rises,
Jonathan cuts off Dracula’s head and Quincey drives a knife through
Dracula’s heart. Everyone stands there to “see how the body of an evil
man” (Maurice 758) disintegrates. Before Quincey dies, he notes that the
crucifix on Mina’s head has disappeared meaning that the vampire curse has
been lifted off of her. Mina and Jonathan got married and they named their child
Quincey. Both Lord Godalming (Arthur Holmwood) got married and so did Dr.
Seward. As a science fiction writer, Bram Stoker expresses that evil is always
overcome by good in his masterpiece Dracula. The evil character Count Dracula is
a vampire who wants to move to London and turn everyone into vampires. To
demolish his plan Jonathan Harker, Mina Murray, Arthur Holmwood, Dr. Seward,
Quincey P. Morris and Dr. Abraham Van Helsing come out and put an end to his
world domination. “Is that the end of Dracula? We will never know” (Har-el).
Bibliography
Lidston, Robert. “Bram Stoker.” World Literature Criticism. Detroit:
Gale, 1992. Vol.6 Lovecraft, H.P. “Bram Stoker.” World Literature Criticism.
Detroit: Gale, 1992. Vol.6 Richardson, Maurice. “Bram Stoker.” Contemporary
Literary Criticism. Detroit: Gale, 1982. Vol.8 Stoker, Bram. Dracula. London:
Dent, J.M., 1993 Wolf, Leonard. “Bram Stoker.” World Literature Criticism.
Detroit: Gale, 1992.Vol.6
