"Dracula" - Bram Stoker's Greatest Work (Part I) Quiz

Answer: Borgo Pass

The beginning few chapters deal with Jonathan Harker's well-kept journal about his journey. He mentions many towns that he had been to...Bistritz, Vienna, Munich, and the like, but he is headed to Borgo Pass to meet Dracula's carriage.

Answer: True

"My Friend--Welcome to the Carpathians. I am anxiously expecting you. Sleep well to-night. At three to-morrow the dilligence will start for Bukovina; a place on it is kept for you. At the Borgo Pass my carriage will await you and will bring you to me. I trust that your journey from London has been a happy one, and that you will enjoy your stay in my beautiful land. Your friend, Dracula." Anxiously expecting-- very clever with words, wasn't he?

Answer: his eyes

"I could only see the gleam of a pair of very bright eyes, which seemed red in the lamplight, as he turned to us." This was what Harker could see at first. But then, "As he spoke he smiled, and the lamplight fell on a hardlooking mouth, with very red lips and sharp-looking teeth, as white as ivory." But for some reason Harker does not think this odd at the time. Very interesting.

Answer: his grip

"The strength of the handshake was so much akin to that which I had noticed in the driver, whose face I had not seen, that for a moment I doubted if it were not the same person to whom I was speaking." Perhaps Dracula was trying to make Harker realize that HE was the one driving the coach. Or perhaps he just didn't realize his own grip.

Answer: He made a grab for his throat

"When the Count saw my face, his eyes blazed with a sort of demoniac fury, and he suddenly made a grab at my throat. I drew away and his hand touched the string of beads which held the crucifix. It made an instant change in him, for the fury passed so quickly that I could hardly believe that it was ever there." This is the first reference to religion in the novel (besides Harker with the peasants) and I find it interesting how Dracula is basically portrayed as the opposite of everything religion is and stands for. I wonder what Stoker was getting at?

Answer: making the bed

"He did not come at once into the library, so I went cautiously to my own room and found him making the bed. This was odd, but only confirmed what I had all along thought, that there are no servants in the house." I doubt that Dracula would have even permitted there to be any servants in his castle--even for the rare occasion of a visitor.

Answer: June 29

"He calculated a minute, and then said, 'The first should be June 12, the second June 19, and the third June 29.' I know now the span of my life. God help me!" The first letter was to say that Harker's work here was almost done, the next one assures his friends that he would be starting for home within a few days, and was starting on the next morning from the time of the letter, and the third that he left the castle and arrived at Bistritz.

The Count is quite the slick operator. He knows that if Harker doesn't write home, that his friends will begin to worry about him and possibly come looking for him.

The entry of the diary was May 19, and that is why Harker says he knows the span of his life. We shall see if this is the case.

Answer: He wanted to leave that night

"'Come with me, my dear young friend. Not an hour shall you wait in my house against your will, though sad am I at your going, and that you so suddenly desire it. Come!' With a stately gravity, he, with the lamp, preceded me down the stairs and along the hall. Suddenly he stopped. 'Hark!' Close at hand came the howling of many wolves.

It was almost as if the sound sprang up at the rising of his hand, just as the music of a great orchestra seems to leap under the baton of the conductor. After a pause of a moment, he proceeded, in his stately way, to the door, drew back the ponderous bolts, unhooked the heavy chains, and began to draw it open." Harker's demise (should he allow it to happen) was to be an attack by the wolves which were controlled by Dracula.

But Harker figured this out and told the Count that he would wait until the next day.

Answer: a shovel

"A terrible desire came upon me to rid the world of such a monster. There was no lethal weapon at hand, but I seized a shovel which the workmen had been using to fill the cases, and lifting it high, struck, with the edge downward, at the hateful face.

But as I did so the head turned, and the eyes fell upon me, with all their blaze of basilisk horror. The sight seemed to paralyze me, and the shovel turned in my hand and glanced from the face, merely making a deep gash above the forehead. The shovel fell from my hand across the box, and as I pulled it away the flange of the blade caught the edge of the lid which fell over again, and hid the horrid thing from my sight." As we know, but Harker didn't at the time, there is nothing that can destroy Dracula except a stake. And of course, there was nothing at this place where Dracula lay, so Harker must think of another plan.

Answer: three

And barely 20! Boy, what's her secret? The first to propose was Dr. Seward, a man about 29 years old who ran his own sanitorium. The next was an American, Quincey P. Morris, who was from the South. The final was Arthur Holmwood, with whom Lucy was in love and wanted to marry.

Answer: a cat

"My homicidal maniac is of a peculiar kind. I shall have to invent a new classification for him, and call him a zoophagous (life-eating) maniac. What he desires is to absorb as many lives as he can, and he has laid himself out to achieve it in a cumulative way.

He gave many flies to one spider and many spiders to one bird, and then wanted a cat to eat the many birds. What would have been his later steps?" Renfield asks for a cat, but Seward will not permit this. Spiders and flies are one thing.

Answer: Mina

"Whatever my expectation was, it was not disappointed, for there, on our favorite seat, the silver light of the moon struck a half-reclining figure, snowy white. The coming of the cloud was too quick for me to see much, for shadow shut down on light almost immediately, but it seemed to me as though something dark stood behind the seat where the white figure shone, and bent over it. What it was, whether man or beast, I could not tell." Mina saw the whole thing, but was much too far to decipher any of what happened.

In the days following, Lucy seems to appear better, but this is short-lived.

Answer: old friend

"I have written to my old friend and master, Professor Van Helsing, of Amsterdam, who knows as much about obscure diseases as any one in the world. I have asked him to come over, and as you told me that all things were to be at your charge, I have mentioned to him who you are and your relations to Miss Westenra.

This, my dear fellow, is in obedience to your wishes, for I am only too proud and happy to do anything I can for her." 'Master' would signify instructor, we know this fact because later on in the chapter we find that Dr. Seward had been in a class of Van Helsing's. Van Helsing was more than happy to help out Dr. Seward, and is on his way to London.

Answer: one

Arthur was more than willing to give Lucy his blood. After he gave of his blood, Van Helsing adjusted Lucy's pillow so that he saw the two marks on her throat. He sternly instructed Dr. Seward to stay with her all night and not to take his eyes off of her. He had to return to Amsterdam, but he was very concerned about those two marks.

Answer: He didn't believe him

"Good God, Professor!" I said, starting up. "Do you mean to tell me that Lucy was bitten by such a bat, and that such a thing is here in London in the nineteenth century?" Dr. Seward needed to be convinced that Dracula actually existed, as did all the others--except for Jonathan Harker.