Dracula chapter 1-12 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Dracula chapter 1-12 - Essay Example During his travels, he gets several hints that he is heading into great danger, but he tries to talk these fears away, even after he meets his host, a very creepy man who has many of the characteristics we today recognize as being vampires. Harker becomes a prisoner of the castle and has many disturbing experiences. His entries end with his desperate plan of escape, knowing he is about to lose his soul to an evil creature or creatures. The story then picks up through a variety of communication forms – letters, journal entries, newspaper articles, etc. These more fully flesh out Mina and introduce the characters Lucy Westenra, John Seward (a physician at the lunatic asylum near Dracula’s new London home), Dutch doctor Van Helsing, the lunatic Rensing and a few other minor characters. Through these pieces of correspondence, the reader learns about the arrival of Dracula to Britain and the mysterious illness that befalls Lucy, eventually leading to her death by the end of Chapter 12, as she is treated by Seward and Van Helsing. Mina escapes Lucy’s fate in these chapters because she is called away to Buda Pest in order to help nurse Harker, who was found suffering from brain fever. She returns to England just in time to hear about Lucy’s death. Reading through these chapters was enlightening. Although I thought I knew the story, I had never realized the strange way that it is delivered, as a series of writings made by the characters themselves. This approach continuously reminded me to view the story from the characters’ perspectives rather than my own. When I was reading about the warnings of the villagers and the description of Dracula, my own experience told me the character is obviously a vampire and Harker is already trapped. Looking at it from the character’s perspective though, I suddenly realized that everything I think I know about vampires