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07th of February 2016
Bram Stoker Draculas Guest
This passage from Bram Stokers Draculas Guest continues his general trend in
writing in an epistolary genre. The main feature of the passage at hand is the fact that we, in
fact are prisoners of our own brain. This is mainly manifested in the fact how we behave
when we fear or are afraid of something. Fear is the main feature to be focused on here. Of
course, a tremendous part is played by mystery. However, this passage clearly deals with the
fears a person may or may not experience.
The discussed paragraph was quite difficult to analyze and focus on one character
only because this whole piece is a description of a conversation that happened between
Harker and Johann. If one kept his cool, the other almost jumped out of his pants because of
being afraid. This is not a two-way conversation, neither is the piece a description of the story
Johann was retelling as then it would have made things easier and more understandable.
Thus, we found it best to focus on Harker the Englishmen who seemed oblivious to the
dangers of the location he was at. However, after a short stroll, in fact he did not even know
for how long he was walking, no demon or vampire or any other monster approached him.
Just observe the way Harker responds to Johanns laments and his story. Apparently,
Johann wanted to make an impression on the foreigner and make him actually scared. This
did not work on Harker; in fact, it had a countering effect as Johann himself became too
excited to do anything.
The whole horror story, the atmosphere of the surroundings did not have any effect on
the traveler, as he simply did not believe into anything Johann had told him. Neither was
Harker interested in the graves with awful sounds coming from them. The sounds could have
been anything from the grazing cattle to the sound of the wind rushing through the branches
of a nearby forest.
The author though does not stop here as he shows the agitation of horses and
evidently, their behavior did not help calm Johann. However their restlessness seemed not to

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be because of their being afraid, but simply because they stood too long and would like a
move on. Running a little ahead to the end of the passage the moment when Johann was
unable to control the horses is easily explained by the fact that he himself, though not rushing
them lost control for a moment. It seemed like a man was standing at the bend. One minute
he was there, another he disappeared. At least this is how Harker describes the situation in his
diary.
Stoker did not hesitate and just cut off some of the story lines in the most interesting
places, very accurately observing that the most terrible monster lives in the depths of the
human mind, causing us to shiver in fear and generally not being able to do anything. The
obvious example is Johann almost shivering in fear (Stoker and Hebblethwaite).
Johanns whole narrative seems to be amusing Harker, as the letter positions himself
as a true Englishman not afraid of anything. For Harker it seems that if he lost his head, he
would have been ashamed. However, upon closer reading we see that instead of acting
Harker in fact never did lose his head for a moment. Instead, he smiled and was amused at the
way his stagecoach behaved. More so, the Englishman said he would like to walk back. This
simple phrase shocked Johann so much that Harker had to show him which way Munich was
as the stagecoach boy was too scared. This is the trick our brain plays on us. We imagine, we
believe it to be true and we become scared. Well at least some do. The Englishman seemed to
be OK with taking a stroll through the hostile territory with only his oak walking stick
(Stoker and Hebblethwaite).
Harker makes an impression of a man, who thinks in a logical way and he is a realist
He will not believe anything unless he sees it with his own eyes. Despite seeing a man at the
bend, he did not think of it too much, as in a moment the latter was gone.
The style of the story is a bit heavy in writing, the characters communicate in a rather
pathetic and convoluted way making their conversations look like a theatrical production.
Isnt this a sign of the era, the style of the XIX century? But why did Doyle, Kipling, Verne
managed to make their characters speak normal human language? As much as "Dracula" is

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great for its fantastic assumption, so great is its weakness in terms of "pure literature". There
are a large number of tautology elements as in the living lived, the dead were dead and so
on.
The structure of the book is rather unusual - it is a compilation of diary written by one
of the characters. This enables the author to show what is happening from a different
perspective, focusing the reader's attention on different aspects of the same event. There are
not as much actors in the text, but each character is described most texturally. It should of
course make allowances for the fact that the book was written more than a century ago and
some things are formed under the strong influence of romanticism, or more than can be
explained by the fact that almost all the male characters periodically begin to sob with grief,
joy or fright. In general, the text turned out to be quite logically valid and not inconsistent.
There evil terrifies almost everyone, victims suffer, and characters with varying success fight
against evil, tuna away from it and hope to win eventually (Stoker and Hebblethwaite).
This is an interesting passage that has a tremendous impact on the whole story. The
reader start to understand what power the evil has on the people from this region and how the
manipulations with fright deal a lot of damage. However, at the same time we also see a
person who was unafraid to take a stroll in the same zone and not even being afraid of the
dark forces meeting him. Despite having an impact on the whole story, we hardly do see the
evil in this passage. Harker seems to have seen a man at the bend and the horses, Johann were
too scared and sped off in fright. This hardly had any effect on Harker, as he was more
preoccupied with Johann, rather than the mystery man. Apparently, the latter was Dracula
himself. Harker, though, just did not seem to care.
Works Cited
Stoker, Bram, and Kate Hebblethwaite. Dracula's guest and other weird stories: with the lair
of the white worm. London New York: Penguin Books, 2006. Print.