Jonathan Harker Flashcards
“I had all sorts of queer dreams […] a dog howling […] may have been the paprika”
Chapter 1
- declarative noun; paprika
- places rational thought as the main focus
“It was all very ridiculous but I did not feel comfortable”
Chapter 1
- ridiculous logical thinking
- Victorian rationalism
“What sort of place had I come to, and among what kind of people?”
Chapter 2
- beginning to doubt and question
- his view of the world is shaken
“I am all in a sea of wonders. I doubt; I fear”
Chapter 2
- metaphor
- scared to sleep in Dracula’s castle
- European attitudes blinded him to superstition of the East
- oblivious to the supernatural element
“When I found that I was a prisoner, a sort of wild feeling came over me”
Chapter 3
- attitudes to madness
- lost his sense of rationality and composure
- panic has set in, the reality of the situation has become clear
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Some traits to describe Harker
- intelligent: “uncommonly clever”
- rational; “let me begin with the facts”
- quiet, balances out the strangeness of other characters
- least experienced at fighting
- relies on fact and reason : nearly leads to his death
Boundaries Crossed by Harker
- reality vs imagination
- rationality vs irrationality
- supernatural (escaping castle)
- gender (vampire brides)
- geographical
- west vs east (page 1)
Relationship with Dracula
- predator/prey
- possessive
- sensual
- “this man belongs to me”
Relationship with Mina
- very caring and protective
- wants to kill Dracula to save her
Why is the fact that Harker writes in shorthand significant?
- a raw way of writing
- shows he’s skilful and intelligent
- trustworthy and a reliable narrator
“It seems to me that the further East you go the more unpunctual are the trains”
Chapter 1
- uncertainty
- beginning of all the troubles to comf
“What sort of place had I come to, and among what kind of people? What sort of grim adventure was it on which I had embarked?”
Chapter 2
- repetition of rhetorical questions
- beginning to doubt and question: his view of the world has shaken and will continue to
“I only slept a few hours”
Chapter 2
- has changed a lot from the beginning
- used to be put together, becoming nocturnal
“It is very annoying, for I do not see how I am to shave, unless in my watch case or the bottom of the shaving pot”
Chapter 2
- resourceful
- strange reaction: he is more concerned with the lost mirror than the fact that Dracula doesn’t appear in the mirror
- still relying on rationality as an explanation but it is beginning tj fail
- won’t admit to his dears
“Bless that good, good woman who hung the crucifix round my neck!”
Chapter 3
- Dracula hates anything that opposes the darkness of his soul
- beginning to wonder whether the peasant superstition were real occult knowledge
“the unnatural, horrible net of gloom and mystery which seemed closing round me”
Chapter 3
- metaphor
- idea of being prisoner
- Harker feels small, like a small bug in a net
“I am beginning to feel this nocturnal existence tell on me”
Chapter 3
- becoming like Dracula
- sleep deprived
- going mad
- his mind is poisoned
“Then the horror overcame me, and I sank down unconscious”
Chapter 3
- trope often used for a female Gothic protagonist
- since Harker is make, the use of this trope indicates Dracula’s extreme power
“If it be that I had not dreamt, the Count must have carried me here”
Chapter 4
- cannot tell if the previous events were a dream or reality
- Dracula is paternal, treats Harker like a child
“They looked up at me stupidly and pointed”
Chapter 4
- Slovaks are desensitised to such events
- laughing at a hopeless man
- readers sympathise with Harker, he is truly stuck
“All the resolution has gone out of his dear eyes”
Chapter 9
- pre modifier
- rational worldviews have been broken down.
- he is shamed by his experiences in Transylvania
- fundamentally changed
“Today he is a drawn, haggard old man, whose white hair matches well with the hollow burning eyes and grief-written lines of his face”
Chapter 23
- Mina’s attack has changed him
- He failed his primary task to keep his wife safe and it has affected him physically
“On the instant, came the sweep and flash of Jonathan’s great knife”
Chapter 27
- slashes Dracula
- anti climatic: perhaps Stoker wants to focus on the final moment when Morris dies?
“The castle is a veritable prison and I am a prisoner!”
Chapter 2
- semantic field of imprisonment
- exclamatory shows heightened emotion
- suffering , feels trapped
- connotes his view of himself as powerless and vulnerable
- viewing himself as a criminal
- feels guilty as he only wanted to climb socially
- betrayed Christian religion; ignored everyone who warned him
- metaphor, causing distress
“I think I must have been mad at the time, for I behaved as much as a rat does in a trap”
Chapter 3
- crossing boundary of sanity vs insanity
- would rather call himself mad than accept that he has messed up
- secretly documenting his suffering
- self deprecating metaphor
- feels dirty because of metaphorical guilt
- traps are to lure/deceive
