Dracula: Chapter 7

 Chapter 7

Key points:

  • Personification of the natural world /Importance of Setting and how it affects people of a "sensitive nature."
  • Juxtaposition of God vs Hell
  • Passing of time / The storm takes its time to arrive
  • Multiplication of voices/narrators to increase credibility of these scenes.


In the afternoon, the weather is initially "sultry/holiday-makers/steamer and day-tripper weather," and "particularly fine."

Then, those in the churchyard could see a "sudden show of mares' tales" and "an old fisherman" noted the "coming of a sudden storm."

Then we have a sunset which is "so very beautiful" `. See the colourful descriptions, full of golds and yellows and oranges and then note the "mass of seemingly absolute blackness" that surrounds it (p86).

At midnight, the sea is "dead calm" and the air filled with a "sultry heat" which effects who? People of a "sensitive nature." (p86).

At this point Dracula's boat is "as idle as a painted ship on a painted ocean" which is a reference to Coleridge's Rime of an Ancient Mariner. Note the reference to the sublime !

At 10am, there is an "oppressive silence" and the narrator (who is the narrator at this point?) comments on the "great harmony of nature's silence" (p86) before he hears "a strange faint, hollow booming." 

Then the "tempest broke" and "nature convulsed." 

Indeed, the sea became like a "roaring and devouring monster" (87).

The "masses of sea fog" surrounds the boat in a "ghostly fashion," as if the "spirits of those lost at sea were touching their living brethren with the clammy hands of death" (p87).

The narrator talks about "the footsteps of the storm".

A way to defeat the storm? "The new searchlight was ready to experiment, but had not yet been tried" (p87).

It was (sometimes) "most effective" and gave rise to "a shout of joy" (p87).

Dracula's ship: the Demeter.

Arrived at high tide, like a mirabile dictu, (wonderful to say), the "strange schooner" "unsteered by the hand of a dead man" began "leaping from wave to wave"... and so made its way into the harbour.

Then the "immense dog" leaps off the boat, onto shore, and away.

Log of the Dementer:

Note: multitude of different voices telling the story, especially at this point, encourages reader to believe what is fiction to be fact.

Note also the langauge which contrasts God on one side and Hell on the other.

The crew of the boat could feel "something strange" is aboard , and then in an "awestruck way" they start talking about a "strange man" who is aboard, who is tall and thin.

Members of their crew disappear, and they enter a storm and spend "days in hell."The weather then clears, before they enter two days of fog. They feel as if they are "drifting to some terrible doom" (p94).

Narrator declares "God seems to have deserted us" (p94).

One crew member describes putting a knife through the tall, thin man but he was "as empty as air."The same man opens the boxes of silver earth, learned of the "secret" and threw himself into the sea to die an honorable death.

Captain ties himself to the ship's wheel, and places a crucifix beside himself.

Mina's Journal

She is STILL fearful abou Jonathon and about Lucy's sleeepwalking.

Mr. Swales has been found dead (p97)

The dog which is in a "pitiful state of terror"

Key quote to close this chapter: "Lucy was full of pity, too, but she did not attempt to touch the dog, but looked at it in an agonized sort of way. I greatly fear taht she is of too super-sensitive a nature to go through the world without trouble" (p98)


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