Madness, Illness & Confinement
English Lit: OCR A Level Dracula, topic 5.1.5
Madness, Illness and Confinement
Common Gothic tropes and closely associated with Gothic ‘terror’, Dracula presents these three concepts as interrelational.
Confinement
- Typically for the 19th century, the ‘treatment’ for what the characters consider 'madness' and illness in Dracula often takes the form of confinement.
Jonathan's insanity
- Jonathan, when confined within Dracula’s castle, believes he’s going insane.
- He has visions of Dracula turning into a bat and isn’t quite sure what’s real or imagined when he sees the three vampire women.
- Jonathan escapes but falls ill “with a violent brain fever” and is nursed by nuns, who are able to contact Mina back in England.
Lucy's somnambulism
- Lucy suffers from somnambulism (sleepwalking) which leads to Dracula attacking her and her contraction of a mysterious ‘illness’.
- Lucy is confined to her room by Dr Seward who eventually calls in Van Helsing to help with her case.
Mina's hypnotic visions
- Mina’s blood connection to Dracula causes her to have hypnotic visions of the Count’s whereabouts.
- Van Helsing wants her confined during this ‘illness’ at first, but later she’s brought along on the mission to Transylvania to track down the Count.
Arthur's fit
- Arthur is so horrified at Lucy death that he collapses in Mina’s arms in a fit of hysterics approaching madness.
- “Sad and broken”, he is imprisoned by his own grief, only finding release once he has saved Lucy’s soul.
Questioning sanity
- Van Helsing and Seward question their own sanity at times as they are ‘men of science’ tracking down Dracula according to the ‘laws’ of superstition.
Test yourself on Madness, Illness & Confinement
What illness does Jonathan suffer from after his stay at Castle Dracula?
Who sleepwalks in Dracula?