Chapter 8
From Jonathan Harker’s journal, the October 3rd entry. The group plans their attack. All of the houses must be raided in one day, with all of the boxes sterilized and made unfit for Dracula’s habitation. First, they will raid and destroy the lair at Carfax. Then, all of the men should go to the house in Picadilly, where the two doctors and Jonathan will remain while Quincey and Arthur go to the houses in Walworth and Mile End. Before they leave, Van Helsing protects Mina’s room with communion wafers, but when he lays one on her forehead, the Host burns her, leaving a terrible scar. She has been polluted by Dracula, and holy objects now harm her.
The men go to Carfax and place a communion wafer in each box. They then move on to Picadilly, where Arthur and Quincey secure a locksmith to help them break into the house. After a thorough search, they conclude that only eight of the nine expected boxes are there. They find keys to the other two houses, and Arthur and Quincey rush off to destroy the lairs there.
Includes the October 3rd entry of Dr. Seward’s diary; and the October 3rd/4th and October 4th entries of Jonathan Harker’s journal.
While waiting for Quincey and Arthur to return, Van Helsing tries to use wise words and compassionate advice to sooth an increasingly angry and wild Harker. The three men receive an ugent message from Mina: Dracula, in human form (it is daytime, and he is without his powers) has left Carfax and is headed their way. A half hour later, Quincey and Arthur return and report that they have sterilized the twelve boxes at the other two houses. Van Helsing reasons that Dracula has not been expecting them to move so quickly, and that he left Carfax to go to other houses in London. Once he sees those lairs have been rendered useless, he will come to them in Picadilly.
The Count enters the house, and although he is now only a mortal man, he is still exceptionally strong and quick. He manages to evade all of them, and escapes through a window. Before fleeing, he taunts them, promising that all of them will be his servants with time through their women. The men are unable to track him, and they must return home in disappointment.
When they return, Mina thanks them for their efforts, and reminds them that Dracula, too, has a soul. In killing him, they must remember to do so not out of hate. By destroying him, they will be doing an act of mercy. Harker reacts with anger, and Mina reminds him that one day she might need the pity of those she has victimized. That night, Mina wakes suddenly and asks Jonathan to get Professor Van Helsing at once. She asks Van Helsing to hypnotize her now, while it is still dark. She believes that the connection between her and Dracula will allow her to see where he is hiding. Van Helsing does as she asks, and they learn that Dracula is asleep in one of his boxes on board a ship at sea. Van Helsing is determined to find out where the ship is headed. Mina asks why they must find him now that he is fleeing, and Van Helsing responds that Dracula is immortal while she is only mortal. He confirms that if they do not hunt the vampire down and destroy him, when Mina dies, even if it is years from now and no more attacks have taken place, she will become one of the undead.
Includes a message left for Jonathan Harker by Van Helsing on Dr. Seward’s phonograph; the October 4th entry of Jonathan Harker’s journal; the October 5th entry of Mina Harker’s journal; the October 5th entries of Dr. Seward’s diary; and the October 5th and October 6th entries of Jonathan Harker’s journal.
The group learns that the Count and his box are en route to Varna, the port on the Black Sea from which he left Eastern Europe. Van Helsing, invigorated and determined to hunt Dracula down, plans to travel by land and intercept the box at port. Quincey Morris suggests that they bring Winchester rifles to help deal with wolves, and Van Helsing agrees. The old professor believes that the vampire’s retreat is not permanent. Now that the Count has tasted London, with its vast population of potential prey, he will want to return. The vampire can afford to bide his time, but the group cannot. They must go East, like “the old knights of the Cross,” and hunt the monster down.
Van Helsing confides in Seward that time is running out. Mina is already changing; her teeth grow ever sharper, and at times there is hardness in her eyes that was never there before. The scar left by the holy wafer is still there, a constant reminder to the men of what is at stake. Van Helsing also worries that Mina’s spiritual connection to Dracula will work against them; just as Van Helsing was able to use hypnotism to see Dracula’s plans, perhaps Dracula can use Mina to learn everything she knows. Van Helsing proposes that they keep her ignorant of their plans from now on. Independently, Mina excuses herself from the meetings with the group, and she asks Jonathan to keep her in ignorance of what the men plan. But later, she also asks that she be allowed to go with the men. She reasons that she can be of use, since Van Helsing can hypnotize her. More importantly, she must go because if left on her own with no one to guard her, she must go to the Count if he summons her.
Analysis
When the Communion wafer singes Mina’s forehead, the fight against Dracula’s evil takes on added meaning. The men decide that their efforts also represent a fight to restore a woman to her unpolluted, virtuous self. From the beginning of the novel, Mina has proven herself resourceful and dedicated, sticking by both Jonathan and Lucy through their illnesses and faithfully transcribing journal entries in hope of revealing the path to Dracula. Nonetheless, Mina never truly emerges as a complex or particularly believable character. Stoker’s guiding principle in his characterization of Mina is not realism, but idealism. In Mina, Stoker means to create the model of Victorian female virtue. As contemporary readers, we are likely to find fault when Harker says, “Mina is sleeping now, calmly and sweetly like a little child. Her lips are curved and her face beams with happiness. Thank God, there are such moments still for her.” Harker’s words liken his wife to a helpless infant, whose greatest contribution to the world is merely a peaceful countenance.
The prejudices of the Victorian age partly account for Stoker’s reduction of his female characters to mere bundles of virtue. There is another reason for Mina’s two-dimensionality, however—one that is articulated by Dracula himself. Confronted by Van Helsing and his eager hunters, the count explains the planned course of his revenge, declaring, “Your girls that you all love are mine already; and through them you and others shall yet be mine.” This statement describes the full scope of the threat Dracula presents. Van Helsing and company are not fighting for Mina’s soul because they respect female purity in some abstract form, but because Dracula’s influence over English women gives him direct access to both the minds and bodies of Englishmen.
This threat explains the violence that the men—and even Mina—feel is justified in protecting themselves from the count’s spell. Mina urges her comrades to kill her should she slip irretrievably into a demonic and soulless state. Mina’s words—“Think, dear, that there have been times when brave men have killed their wives and their womankind, to keep them from falling into the hands of the enemy”—attempt to explain away a link between male supremacy and violence against women. Men are justified in killing women to preserve their sense of ownership and their conception of female virtue. With the promise of this power in hand, men can rest assured of the patriarchal order of their society and of their own future control.
The novel, marked by Dracula’s flight across Europe, indicates a shift of power : the tables have turned on the count, leaving him on the defensive. The destruction of his resting places exposes Dracula’s greatest weakness, forcing him to flee back to Transylvania. This flight stands as an important though temporary victory, indicating that the count’s attempt to feed upon the English population has failed. For a time, it seems that Van Helsing’s band will capture Dracula quickly. However, his deceptive landing at Galatz enables him to elude his pursuers—a reminder that, despite his weaknesses, the count remains formidable.
