Dracula 3

Study Guide Questions for Ch. 3 "Jonathan Harker's Journal (Continued)"

If you are looking for the beginning of the study of Bram Stoker’s Dracula then you can go HERE for a brief introduction. At the bottom of the introduction you will find the links to each section of the study guide as it becomes available. If you would like to see the growing list of available book studies available for free on this site you can go HERE. Enjoy!

Virtues/Vices/Great Ideas: (Find them in the Text)

Prudence, Indifference, Freedom vs. Bondage, Beauty, Fear, Loneliness, Recklessness, Truth, Temptation

Grammar Questions: (The Information of the Text)

1. What was the “one thing only” about which Jonathan Harker was certain?

2. What had Jonathan formerly considered to be “idolatrous” but which now brought him some help?

3. What did Jonathan notice about the way Count Dracula spoke of matters concerning the history of Transylvania?

4. What was Dracula attempting to ascertain (understand) if he could do concerning the use of “solicitors” in England?

5. What did Dracula ask Jonathan not to do in the letters he encouraged him to write?

6. What did Dracula warn Jonathan not to do concerning going to sleep?

7. What changed Jonathan's feelings to “repulsion and terror” when he saw it?

8. What about the positioning of the castle made it “impregnable” on at least three sides?

9. What danger did Jonathan encounter after falling asleep elsewhere in the castle?

10. What kept Jonathan from his doom that night?

11. What appears to have been in the bag which Dracula gave to the three women?

Logic Questions: (Interpreting, Comparing/Contrasting, Reasoning)

1. What seems to be implied from the fact that Dracula spoke “of things and people, and especially of battles, … as if he had been present at them all?”

2. What did Dracula mean by saying, “The warlike days are over. Blood is too precious a thing in these days of dishonourable peace; and the glories of the great races are as a tale that is told?”

3. Jonathan, in his journal entry on 12 May, attempted to separate the “facts - bare, meagre facts, verified by books and figures” from his own experiences. What does it mean to do this, and why was he trying to?

4. Why might Count Dracula have been asking about whether or not he could make use of multiple solicitors in England? How might this serve his interests?

5. What did Jonathan mean when he wrote in his journal, “unless my senses deceive me, the old centuries had, and have, powers in their own which mere ‘modernity’ cannot kill?”

6. Why did Jonathan “take pleasure in disobeying” the Count’s warning about sleeping elsewhere in the castle?

7. If we were to take a spiritual interpretation upon Jonathan’s encounter with the three women in the castle, what might we say they represent?

8. Why did the count save Jonathan from the women?

9. What is meant by the fair woman’s word’s to the Count, “You yourself never loved; you never love!?”

Rhetoric Questions: (The Analysis of Ideas in the Text)

1. The deficiency of the virtue of love may be called the vice of indifference. Define indifference. How do we see vicious displays of indifference in our current reading? 

2. Jonathan tries to separate his emotions and experience from the facts of his current situation. What are the potential goods and ills of separating personal experience and emotions from the plain facts? Is this something we should routinely do when trying to make sense of the way things really are? Why or why not?

3. Jonathan, in a moment of despair about his captivity, looked out from the castle to the beautiful scenery surrounding it. He noted, “the mere beauty seemed to cheer me; there was peace and comfort in every breath.” In light of this, why is beauty an important part of society? Practically speaking, how should this affect the choices we make when designing a city, a building, or just furnishing a particular room? 

Theological Analysis: (Sola Scriptura)

1. Read Proverbs 5. How might you relate this passage to our present reading Dracula?