Characteristics of the Classic

Within the first hundred pages of Dracula, one immediately starts to pick up the vampire characteristics that Count Dracula displays. Most of these qualities are like those of the stereotypical vampires that one sees around Halloween.

As the main character, Jonathan Harker, is trapped in the castle, he notices the strange behavior of his host. Dracula makes sure that Harker has plenty to eat, but while he eats Dracula makes the excuse that he “dined out on his being away from home” (27). Dracula and Harker talk long into the night of many things, including Dracula’s family history (which he talks about like he was there). However, come morning, Dracula abruptly apologizes for keeping him up so late and runs off.
One morning, while Harker is shaving, Dracula comes up behind him and bids him good morning. Harker is startled because he “had not seen him, since the reflection of the glass covered the whole room behind me” (28). When Harker nicks himself with the razor and starts to bleed, Dracula’s “eyes blazed with a sort of demoniac fury” (28). He tries to grab his throat, but he touches Harker’s crucifix and stops. Dracula tells Harker to be careful and he throws the razor out of the window.
Harker makes other observations about Dracula. One day he sneaks into Dracula’s room to find him sleeping in a box filled with newly-dug dirt. Another night he sees Dracula “begin to climb down the castle wall…face down with his cloak spreading out around him like great wings” (38). Normal people climb down walls or cliffs feet first. Dracula crawls down “just like a lizard moves along a wall” (38). Harker also comes to the belief that Dracula has some kind of control over the multitudes of wolves that live in the forest around the castle.
Later on, the point of view is switched to that of Harker’s fiancé, Mina Murray. In her journal she includes newspaper articles concerning an odd occurrence during a storm at sea. During this storm, a large ship drifts into the harbor and it looks like there is no one on board. When investigators enter the ship, an “immense dog” (87) jumps off of the ship onto the beach and runs off. They find the captain dead at the wheel, tied to it with a crucifix. In the ship’s log, the captain wrote of mysterious happenings on the ship. All of the men disappeared inexplicably, one by one. When just the captain was left, he saw a man (fitting the description of Dracula) walk across the deck. Determined not to die like his men, he decided to tie his hands with what “He-It!-dare not touch” (94). From the captain’s journal entries, the reader can assume that Dracula was on the ship and that he was able to escape undetected by transforming into a dog.

Most of these characteristics I have heard of before. Dracula has no reflection, doesn’t come out in sunlight, doesn’t eat, has been alive for a very long time, drinks blood, and has other qualities typical of what most people associate with vampires. However there are a few things that stand out. Most people hear of vampires transforming into bats, but Dracula takes the form of a dog. In recent books I’ve read, vampires don’t transform into animals at all. The box that Dracula sleeps in isn’t unusual, but the soil in the box seems a bit odd. I’ve heard of some kind of relationship between wolves and vampires; however, I’m not certain what this relationship is. So far, the vampires of the late nineteenth century seem like modern-day horror movie vampires.