Study Guide for Dracula Summary

Study Guide for Dracula

Summary

A young Englishman named Jonathan Harker travels through Transylvania on a business trip to help Count Dracula, a nobleman, in buying an estate. Harker finds Dracula charming, bright and generous. Harker becomes a prisoner in Dracula’s castle and realizes that Dracula is out to seize and prey on the people of London. Harker’s fiancée Mina is visiting her best friend, Lucy Westenra and the two go on a vacation in Whitby, a seaside town in England. While Mina and Lucy are vacationing, a boat is shipwrecked that carried 50 boxes of soil from Dracula’s castle. Lucy begins to act strange, for example, sleepwalking and begins to grow pale and weak. Jonathan Harker does escape from Dracula’s castle and word gets back to Mina that he is found and is very sick. Mina goes to nurse Jonathan back to health and help him return to England. Mina and Jonathan marry after her arrival. Arthur Holmwood is Lucy’s fiancée and he is very concerned about her health and Professor Van Helsing is called in to help keep Lucy alive with blood transfusions and various charms. Van Helsing’s attempt to keep Lucy alive fail and Lucy’s mother also dies due to a heart attack during one of Dracula’s plots to get Lucy. Van Helsing takes Lucy’s diary and wants to make contact with Mina Harker. Van Helsing visits Mina and asks questions about Lucy. Mina gives Van Helsing Jonathan’s journal and now knows how the vampire came to England. Arthur Holmwood, Quincey Morris, Dr. Seward, Mina and Jonathan all join together to destroy Dracula. Dracula cannot survive unless he sleeps in one of the 50 boxes of earth for at least part of the day. The group who is on the mission to destroy Dracula tries to track down the boxes. Dracula feeds on Mina and she is forced to drink blood from Dracula. The team must destroy Dracula and begins sterilizing all of the boxes, with the exception of one with holy water. Dracula is in the one box that the group does not sterilize and flees to Transylvania. The group of friends track Dracula at the end of the novel and kill him.

Characters

Dracula

Dracula is a vampire. At the beginning of the novel he is an old man that plans to move to London where he will have millions of people for his prey. As he feeds he grows younger and stronger. Dracula pursues young women and Lucy and Mina become targets in the novel. Some of his powers include the following: superhuman strength and speed; he can transform himself into a bat or wolf; he must sleep in soil made sacred by the burial of dead from his own family.

Mina Harker

Mina is spiritually strong, pure of heart and bright. Her best friend is Lucy Westenra and they are both targets of Dracula. She marries Jonathan Harker and her letters and journal entries contribute a large part to the novel. Mina is cursed by being forced to drink Dracula’s blood.

Jonathan Harker

Jonathan is the first character in the novel to meet Dracula. In the beginning of the novel he is on a business trip to Transylvania to help Count Dracula purchase an estate in England. He marries Mina and his letters and journal entries contribute a large part to the novel.

Professor Van Helsing

Professor Van Helsing is a great scientist and a mentor of Dr. Seward’s. He is knowledgeable about vampires and also wants to track down Dracula. He understands that Dracula is a threat to mankind and must be destroyed.

Quincey Morris

One of Lucy’s three suitors who gives his life in the battle against Dracula.

Dr. John Seward

One of the three who want to marry Lucy, but is rejected in favor of Arthur Holmwood. He runs an insane asylum near Dracula’s estate.

Arthur Holmwood

Lucy’s husband and good friends of Dr. Seward and Quincey Morris.

Lucy Westenra

Lucy is Arthur’s fiancée and Mina Harker’s best friend. She is also Dracula’s first victim in the novel and becomes a vampire. She then terrorizes children and is known as the “bloofer lady.”

Renfield

A supporter or follower of Dracula. He is a madman that lived in Seward’s asylum.

Test Yourself!

1. 
   Who wrote Dracula and when was the book written?
   

2. 
   How is the story told?
   

3. 
   Jonathan is meeting Dracula to?
   

4. 
   What is in the boxes that came from Dracula’s castle?
   

5. 
   Who in the novel knows the most about vampires?
   

6. 
   What is Jonathan’s career and how does this bring him to Count Dracula?
   

7. 
   At the inn in Bistritz, what does the innkeeper’s wife give Harker to help him on his journey to Castle Dracula?
   

8. 
   Harker reports that the count’s English estate is rather isolated, and neighbored only by what institution?
   

9. 
   What surprising thing happens when Jonathan is shaving and Dracula approaches?
   

10. 
    How does the captain of the Demeter arrive in Whitby, England? What cargo arrives?
    

11. 
    What is the relationship between Mina, Lucy, and Harker?
    

12. 
    Which three characters propose to Lucy and who does she agree to marry?
    

13. 
    Who is Renfield?
    

14. 
    How does Mrs. Westenra die?
    

15. 
    How does Lucy die the first time? The second time?
    

16. 
    Who stabs Dracula in the heart and where does this happen?
    

17. 
    Who knows all about vampires and tries to kill Dracula?
    

18. 
    Lucy is in the habit of doing what in the novel and what is she called after she dies?
    

19. 
    What character in the novel begins to transform into a vampire?
    

20. 
    What is Jonathan Harker doing in Transylvania?
    

Adapted from www.gradesaver.com