Van Helsing Flashcards
“I have written to my old friend and master, Professor Van Helsing […] who knows as much about obscure diseases …”
Chapter 9
- abstract noun
- intellectually gifted
“Philosopher and metaphysician, and most advanced scientist of his day”
Chapter 9
- resolute, self possessed and tolerant
- open minded; strong nerves and cool temper
“Noble work […] for mankind”
Chapter 9
- moral opposite of Dracula
- VH is a healer
- but they share things in common: powerful, strong, willed, determined
“Knowledge is stronger than memory and we should not trust the weaker”
Chapter 10
- true knowledge is more important than memory
“A brave man’s blood is the best thing on earth when a woman is in trouble”
Chapter 12
- pre modifier
- implies the most useful thing to an endangered woman is the presence of a man
Boundaries crossed by Van Helsing
- science vs religion
- syntax vs reverse syntax
- superstition vs medicine
Traits to describe Van Helsing
- moral
- faithful
- open minded
- knowledgable
What are the connotations of Van Helsing’s name?
- ‘Abraham’ connotes upper class, name of author, Biblical,
- ‘Van’ means ‘son of’
- ‘Helsing’ connotes hell
“You keep watch all night; see that she is well fed, and that nothing disturbs her”
Chapter 10
- imperative
- states for the first time that some person/entity is capable of disrupting Lucy
“There is peace in its smell; I feel sleep coming already”
Chapter 11
- the garlic comforts her
- even though it has an unpleasant smell, it protects her so she likes it
- personification of sleep
“The first gain is ours! Check to the King!”
Chapter 12
- reference to chess compares the struggle with life and death
- presents Dracula as a fierce enemy who attacks at different times
“Here he held up the little golden crucifix. ‘This was stolen in the night.’”
Chapter 13
- possible metaphor; Lucy becomes vulnerable when her protectors fail her, the Church is her final protector
“See, I have cried even when the laugh did choke me”
Chapter 13
- not in touch with his emotions
- personification of laughter
“Van Helsing is the man to unmask him and hunt him out, if he is anything like what Mina says”
Chapter 14
- Mina admires him
“I have an idea that Van Helsing thinks he knows too”
Chapter 14
- omniscient, has knowledge of everything (link to Feste)
- mysterious and powerful
“We see around us every day the growth of new beliefs, which think themselves new; and which are yet but the old, which pretend to be young!”
Chapter 14
- suggesting that new beliefs are old ideas recycled
- personification of beliefs
“There are some who would stand between you and death. You must not die.”
Chapter 22
- Said by Van Helsing
- Mina cannot cross the boundary of death otherwise she’ll become a vampire
- killing herself would be giving up
“He placed the Wafer on Mina’s forehead”
Chapter 22
- the Crew of Light give Mina holy communion to purify her impurities and to restore her honour
“I think of them placid each in her full sleep of death”
Chapter 27
- kills the vampire sisters
- eliminated a source of temptation for Mina and himself
- killing the sisters has saved them
“Believe in things you cannot”
Chapter 14
