Dracula 23
Study Guide Questions for Ch. 23 "Dr. Seward's Diary"
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Virtues/Vices/Great Ideas: (Find them in the Text)
Grief, Fortitude, Despair, Love, Compassion, Pity, Hate
Grammar Questions: (The Information of the Text)
What did Dr. Seward observe about Jonathan Harker’s appearance as they faced the terrible ordeal before them?
What did Van Helsing say that Dracula’s long term intentions were with all of his experimentation? What, in other words, was Dracula’s end game?
What were the main experiments which the group had discovered Dracula performing?
About what did Mina’s telegram inform the men?
What did Jonathan’s attack on Dracula reveal that Dracula had been carrying?
What did Mina tell the men about the nature of their work in trying to destroy Dracula? What should it be and not be?
How many of Dracula’s boxes of earth now remained of use to him?
What did Mina ask Van Helsing to do for her before the break of dawn?
What did the group learn about Dracula’s whereabouts?
What did Van Helsing tell Mina as to why the group must pursue Dracula no matter what?
Logic Questions: (Interpreting, Comparing/Contrasting, Reasoning)
What seems to account for why Dracula is so different in his behavior than the other vampires we have seen in the story?
Why is it significant that Dracula learned he could move his own boxes?
What did Van Helsing mean when he told Jonathan, “God does not purchase souls in this wise; and the Devil, though he may purchase, does not keep faith?”
Do you think the “mortal weapons” the men were carrying were capable of hurting Dracula? Why or why not?
What did Dr. Seward mean when he stated “I felt a mighty power fly along my arm?”
Do you think Mina’s perspective on hunting Dracula as “not a work of hate” but rather one of mercy is the right way to think about it? Why or why not?
Why is Mina able to perceive something about the whereabouts of Dracula?
Why must the group still pursue Dracula even though he has left London?
Rhetoric Questions: (The Analysis of Ideas in the Text)
Jonathan expressed his feelings about Dracula passionately, stating, “"May God give him into my hand just for long enough to destroy that earthly life of him which we are aiming at. If beyond it I could send his soul forever and ever to burning hell I would do it!" Dracula himself aside, do you think it is ever appropriate to express the desire that someone should go to hell? Is the kind of anger and hatred that Jonathan expressed ever appropriate? Don’t be too quick to answer, think carefully and biblically, then give your answer.
Define the virtue of fortitude (courage). What are a couple of different examples of fortitude in this present chapter? How does one become a person of real fortitude?
Theological Analysis: (Sola Scriptura)
Bram Stoker wrote of Mina’s situation in his story thus: “Then without letting go her husband's hand she stood up amongst us and spoke. Oh, that I could give any idea of the scene. Of that sweet, sweet, good, good woman in all the radiant beauty of her youth and animation, with the red scar on her forehead, of which she was conscious, and which we saw with grinding of our teeth, remembering whence and how it came. Her loving kindness against our grim hate. Her tender faith against all our fears and doubting. And we, knowing that so far as symbols went, she with all her goodness and purity and faith, was outcast from God.” Though this does, indeed, add great terror to the horror of this story, how do the ideas of this story stack up to what God’s word actually says in Romans 8:28-39?
Consider Mina’s plea to the men that they might reimagine their hunt for Dracula as a mission of mercy. How might this relate to Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 5:43-48?