Chapters 13-14

English Lit: OCR A Level Dracula, topic 3.1.6

Chapters 13-14: Summary and Analysis

Here's a summary and an analysis of Chapters 13-14:

In death, Lucy’s beauty seems to return and Seward struggles to accept Van Helsing’s explanation that she has become a vampire.
Back in London with Mina, Jonathan catches sight of a younger, rejuvenated Count Dracula in Piccadilly.

Seward’s prominence as a narrator is key to this part of the novel where his scientific beliefs are shaken, and Van Helsing urges him to accept more a superstitious or mystical outlook.
The two doctors engage in a debate over the case of Lucy’s death although, without sufficient “data on which to found a conjecture”, Seward is at a loss to explain what happened.

Van Helsing is patient, although it is clear he is urging Seward to suspend his own disbelief.
The perception of scientific discoveries as being heretical (“there are things done today in electrical science, which would have been deemed unholy by the very men who discovered electricity – who would themselves not so long before have been burned as wizards”) is a pertinent argument - especially in light of the theory (and initial reception) of Darwin’s evolutionary discoveries in the Victorian era.

The novel also begins to channel aspects of Gothic ‘horror’ as Van Helsing bluntly states how “I want to cut off her head and take out her heart.”
This would not acceptable language for Victorian gentlemen such as Seward and Arthur, yet as a ‘foreigner’, heralding from Amersham, Van Helsing is not accountable to such etiquette.

Here's an analysis of Chapters 13-14:

In Mina’s meeting with Van Helsing, Stoker perhaps shows his support to the concept of the ‘new woman’ as the newly-married Mrs Harker makes a copy of Jonathan’s journal.

The light and religious symbolism used by Van Helsing when referring to Mina establish the dualistic conflict between good and evil that is at the heart of the novel’s narrative.
Mina is one of “God’s women” - unequivocally a force for good.
In contaminating her later in the novel with the ‘Baptism of Blood’, Dracula serves a symbolic proxy for Satan, endeavouring to corrupt as many heavenly souls as possible.

The differing presentations of Lucy (and her vampire-state) and Mina may also be a reflection of attitudes towards the class system.
From a Marxist perspective, Lucy belongs to the privileged upper classes, similar to the aristocracy who was removed from power during the French Revolution of the 18th century.

Mina, as a working woman, makes a more telling and valuable contribution to society - to which the band of heroes could be seen to act as a microcosm for.
This may also explain why, at the end of the novel, Mina is cured of her vampiric-taint, whilst Lucy can only be saved through her death.