Analysing the Greatest Horror Novel - Dracula by Bram Stoker - Premonitions of Death: Lucy's Sleep-Walking & Jonathan's Letter

The Intimacy of One’s Written Word

We continue with the analysis of Bram Stoker’s masterpiece of a novel, Dracula.

“I am anxious, and it soothes me to express myself here; it is like whispering to one’s self and listening at the same time.”

This is how the novel continues, as Mina records her sentiments about journaling with this being a fascinating and intriguing thought. The notion of whispering to one’s self and listening also to oneself is one I had never considered before, but makes a certain sense.

As journals are intimate things. They are a means by which one might record forevemore one’s sentiments, one’s conflicts, and one’s successes. It is also a means by which one might at a later date return to them so that it is as though one were spoken back to oneself across time.

It is one of the most interesting things some people can do. It is also something that if I’m honest I never got into… until recently. In a lot of ways as those who are familiar with my Fiction Guide series will know they are essentially my attempt to write to myself an instructions’ guide on how to write stories, archetypes and the like.

There is something profoundly strange and yet comforting to have one’s own voice whispering across time from the past to oneself in the present. It is also a fact that the notion of doing so is a comfort to a great many people and always has been.

Some records of this time have been known to be how we centuries later are able to make sense of distant ancient events. So that there’s an intimacy that one gets when one reads some of the letters from the soldiers of WWI, WWII, or even those from the Medieval Age. As these allow entry into their private world, and Journals/Diaries are even more of this than most might think. It is why such things ought to be preserved so that we might always have them and some vague memory of the person in question.

Long Time no Read…

“I had not heard from Jonathan for some time, and was very concerned; but yesterday dear Mr. Hawkins, who is always so kind, sent me a letter from him.”

This is a heart-warming part of the book. Now, Mr. Hawkins is the man who took in Jonathan as his heir and thus dotes upon him quite a bit. It was the old man who recommended Jonathan to Dracula, and who had in this way inadvertently done him harm. We know however that had the old man known of the danger that the youth was to be thrust into he would never have sent him whither to Dracula’s keep in Transylvania.

It is however for this reason that Jonathan doesn’t hold a grudge against Mr. Hawkins. That being said Jonathan has left his orphaned future wife in the hands of his surrogate father. It should also be noted that Mr. Hawkins takes his duty to Mina pretty seriously, with this bond between the two being reminiscent in some ways of the manner in which Penelope the bride of Odysseus’ is portrayed with regards to her relations with his father.

Penelope as said has been portrayed as being like a daughter to her father-in-law, and there’s plenty of stories across the ages that have done their utmost to put special emphasis on this sort of bond.

In cinema there’s National Treasure Parts 1 & 2 where the son’s gf and then later on his wife in the second part is shown to be on good terms with his father. There’s the relationship between Lois Kent in Superman with her father-in-law, there’s also FFX’s portrayal of Yuna’s bond with Auron, the foster-father of Tidus.

Heck, she’s shown as being closer to his father on some level than he was throughout the game (though that had something to do with his father having beaten him in a drunken fury as a kid).

Bram Stoker does something very sneaky here, he places special emphasis on the importance of family, of good relations with one’s in-laws. It is also kind of shown in passing, so that it happens kind of ‘off-screen’, with the idea being to not let such a meeting slow down the plot.

“I had written asking him if he had heard, and he said the enclosed had just been received. It is only a line dated from Castle Dracula, and says that he is just starting for home. That is not like Jonathan; I do not understand it, and it makes me uneasy.”

This here is one of the most sloppily sentimental and moving parts of the Dracula novel. It is something that uses a very old trope. The trope being that if you really love someone you’ll detect something off in one of their letters.

That being said, Stoker had set this up earlier with Jonathan having written we know a letter that seemed uncharacteristic for him, one that Dracula sent out. It was a terse letter that mentioned only that Jonathan was on his way. This is entirely unlike the fairly friendly and chatty Jonathan whom it has already been established is quite enchanted by his fiancé.

So Jonathan’s behaved himself in a manner highly uncharacteristic for him, has only sent a single line and has not followed up with any other letters. It is only natural that Mina would be uneasy. Sad thing is there are plenty of couples out there that wouldn’t catch on to the possibility that something’s happened.

One theory that I’ve only recently come into contact with is that of Mina being autistic. It’s one that doesn’t seem plausible to me though. And the reason is fairly simple; the social incompetence, the inability to properly guess at or read the emotions of others is not a flaw that Mina suffers from. This is a major flaw that autists suffer from.

It’s one of the main problems with the condition. A good historical example of someone who was likely autistic is Robert E. Howard, with other possible examples given their obsession with routines, inability to read others’ emotions, the heightened IQ, attention to detail, problem of basically living in their own skulls and other emotional problems and other issues are Beethoven and Julian the Apostate as both seem to have really struggled to grasp how to be social, how to read others and struggled in a variety of ways (though it’s harder to properly pin down a diagnosis on Julian as he did live in the 4th century and was generally pretty incompetent despite his intellect).

All that aside, Mina is most certainly NOT autistic. She is however prone to a great deal of ‘attention to detail’ naturally because this was the expectation many men had for their wives back in the day. So Mina is someone who has for her mission to be the best possible assistant to her husband, so that she’s learning to perfect all the skills that will be necessary for his work. Later when it comes time for traveling back to Eastern Europe she’ll demonstrate her obsession for details and her excellent memory.

Some Sleeping Kill’d…

“Then, too, Lucy, although she is so well, has lately taken to her old habit of walking in her sleep. Her mother has spoken to me about it, and we have decided that I am to lock the door of our room every night. Mrs. Westenra has got an idea that sleep walkers always go out on roofs of houses and along the edges of cliffs and then get suddenly wakened and fall over with a despairing cry that echoes all over the place. Poor dear, she is naturally anxious about Lucy, and she tells me that her husband, Lucy’s father, had the same habit; that he would get up in the night and dress himself and go out, if he were not stopped.”

The sleeping habits of Lucy are easy to overlook but as this is literature it is a preparatory scene. One in which we see Lucy as the tragic sacrifice being prepared for the proverbial chopping block. This is one in which we first get a premonition that she will die.

The key lies in the sleep-walking which as all know is a common habit. Sometimes it is stress induced, and is something that manifests in an uneasy mind. Lucy as all know was a person who was extremely uneasy with her choices on some level, as she had hurt some of her friends pretty badly in spite of how it was not her intention.

The sad part is that the real hint is the fear Mina has of her best friend sleepwalking over the side of the cliff. This is a natural thing to fear, given that Lucy’s condition is very particular and apparently acute.

The fact that the father had had the same habit is interesting, and quite worrisome for the ladies who suspect that it might have been passed down (which it definitely was, as these things sometimes are).

“Lucy is to be married in the autumn, and she is already planning out her dresses and how her house is to be arranged. I sympathise with her, for I do the same, only Jonathan and I will start in life in a very simple way, and shall have to try to make both ends meet. Mr. Holmwood— he is the Hon. Arthur Holmwood, only son of Lord Godalming— is coming up here very shortly— as soon as he can leave town, for his father is not very well, and I think dear Lucy is counting the moments till he comes. She wants to take him up to the seat on the churchyard cliff and show him the beauty of Whitby. I daresay it is the waiting which disturbs her; she will be all right when he arrives.”

An Autumn Marriage is strangely something that sounds both auspicious and ominous to me when it comes to literature. I’m of a mind that it can be used to portray that Lucy is in the Autumn of her life, so that she’s on the cusp of entering the ‘Winter’ of her life which is to say that she is being prepared for death.

At times such a literary choice can be auspicious as it can mean that the character will undergo a terrible trial before she comes out of it reborn. The trouble with Lucy is that there’s no possible snow-ball’s chance of this being what Stoker had in mind when he wrote this part.

This is a deliberate choice by Stoker, who hoped to hint at what was to come. That he succeeded in this should shock no one. It is a great artistic choice and one that authors should pay more attention to as seasons can have an influence in how a scene is not only portrayed but also in the coding put into the scene. Basically it means that you can say a lot without needing to say a lot.

Lord Godalming the father of Arthur Holmwood, is in ill-health and will remain so throughout this part of the novel with the ‘rule’ or shall we say responsibility for his estates falling to his heir to oversee. But what is not said here as Mina doesn’t yet know it is that Arthur’s father is dying.

Tragedy often strikes in threes, with the first one being the death of Lucy, the second the death of Lord Godalming and the third being the violation of Mina as we all know. Thankfully as terrible as the winter can be, spring is always around the corner…

If you enjoyed this particular article do check out Varcola, which is our attempt at this sort of novel except in a Fantasy setting.

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