Dr Abraham Van Helsing

Test your knowledge with free interactive questions on Seneca — used by over 10 million students.

Seward’s mentor and friend, Van Helsing readily accepts his student’s letter to aid with Lucy’s inexplicable condition.

Following Lucy's death, Van Helsing successfully restores Lucy to a state of ‘true’ death before playing a prominent role in the battle against Dracula.

Seward establishes Van Helsing’s credentials in a letter to Arthur.
- Initial parallels can be made with Dracula, whom Jonathan writes of before meeting him in Chapter 2.

Van Helsing is clearly an expert in his field, knowing “as much about obscure diseases as any one in the world.”
The use of the adjective “obscure” is key as the threat they are unknowingly dealing with heralds from, as Jonathan writes in Chapter 1, “one of the wildest and least known portions of Europe.”

“He is a philosopher and a metaphysician, and one of the most advanced scientists of his day; and he has, I believe, an absolutely open-mind. This, with an iron nerve, a temper of the ice-brook, an indomitable resolution, self-command and toleration exalted from virtue to blessings, and the kindlest and truest heart that beats”.
- The multiple superlatives quickly establish Van Helsing as a pivotal figure in the fight against the Count - the virtuous antithesis to his diabolical evil.

Seward’s mentor and friend, Van Helsing readily accepts his student’s letter to aid with Lucy’s inexplicable condition.

Van Helsing is often viewed as Count Dracula’s double or doppelganger and there are numerous parallels between the two:
- Seward speaks of Van Helsing’s “iron nerve”; Van Helsing tells the others in Chapter 18 of Dracula’s “iron resolution".
- Both are capable of physical acts beyond their corporeal figures - able to “hurl” another body a significant distance.

Lucy’s declaration that “He positively frightened me, he was so fierce” could easily be referring to the Count, when in fact she is speaking of Van Helsing.
As a European citizen, Van Helsing is - like Dracula - an outsider in London, and it is perhaps this that enables him to speak outlandish “monstrous ideas” (“I shall cut off her head and fill her mouth with garlic, and I shall drive a stake through her body”) that lead to Seward pondering his mentor’s sanity.

Van Helsing’s role is to act as the Sage, the Proppian helper who supplies the other men with the arcane knowledge required to defeat the forces of evil.
At the novel’s climax, Van Helsing is assigned another of Propp’s archetypal characters - the dispatcher.
Often assigned to the princess’ father as the character who sends the hero on their quest, Van Helsing remains by Mina’s side and watches as his proteges, Arthur, Seward, Jonathan and Quincey, battle Dracula and his gypsy followers.

Owing to his age and expertise in the occult, Van Helsing is presented as the patriarch within the band of heroes.
Even after the defeat of Dracula, this is a position he is shown to retain.
At the novel’s close, Jonathan describes his son being sat upon Van Helsing’s knee - the boy’s grandfather-by-proxy, who owes his very existence to the knowledge Van Helsing shared with the others.