If this was scary in 1897, it’s not very scary now but I can see how the Narrator is trying to get a picture in your head to spook you. Bram Stoker wrote it in 1897; it was scary at the time but not as much as it is now. The simplest way in which Stoker tries to scare his readers is by having his narrator, Jonathan Harker, keeps telling us how scared he is? “I grew dreadfully afraid”, many times Harker writes something inn his journal. The repetition of this idea builds build’s up a picture of fear in the reader’s eyes.
Another method is seen in the description of Harker’s journey to meet Dracula at the Borgo Pass. The horses and the other passengers show a “Strange mixture of fear-meaning movement and make the sign of the cross”. Obliviously they are terrified of meeting the Count, because they know him to be a vampire. The coach part is the scariest part of the story. The driver I racing through the pitch dark night, they go in as fast as they can. They go flat out to get there before Dracula. The driver and passengers are clearly scared of meeting Dracula and this is passed onto Jonathan Harker.
When I saw Dracula, the film and the book, I was not a bit scared, however in 1987, I could imagine the scene it caused especially Jack the Ripper on the run in London, some people were starting to think that vampires really did exist. The most obvious way in which Stoker tries to terrify his readers is by having narrator Harker to keep saying how scared he is himself many of times saying “I grew dreadfully afraid”, this kind of idea builds up a picture of fear in the reader. The passengers were also terrified of meeting Dracula as they say Denn Dic Tadken Reiten Schnell (“For the dead travel fast”).
The weather and the landscape set a scene for a horror movie with the wolves howling and the tree’s blowing, this was sure to be a horrifying journey for Jonathan Harker. Harker tells us that the mountains “Frown down upon us”. He also adds that “There were dark, rolling clouds overhead” and “In the air, the leafy, oppressive sense of thunder”, this is known as the pathetic fallacy. When “Dracula” started to get closer, “The horses began to heigh and snort and plunge”, widely this is often happened in horror films as the animals always feed on something before the humans.
Sinister wolves follow Harker to his destination and only when “Dracula” get off then the wolves surrounded Harker with there white teeth and Harker was still scared of seeing the wolves in England. There are very disturbing aspects about “Dracula”, apparently, such as hairs on his palms, his eyebrows are meeting and his nails are very sharp and he’s got very ling teeth, there were big hints that he was “Dracula”.
Jonathan Harker wrote in his diary about his many fears for example “The time I waited seemed endless, and I felt doubts are fears crowding upon me” this mad everyone afraid and anxious to know what was going o happen next. On the frantic coach journey to meet Dracula’s coach, the driver and all the passengers are obvious and nervous because “The crazy coach rocked in its great leather springs, and swayed like a boat tossed on a stormy sea” The pathetic fallacy- the weather and landscape seems menacing this creates fear in people’s eyes because they start to get scared; to back this up the quote was “amongst the chorus of screams from the peasants and a universal crossing of themselves”. The horses are horror stricken for example “There were dark, rolling clouds overhead, and in the air the heavy, oppressive sense of thunder”.
Sinister wolves shadow the coach then surround Dracula’s Carriage “The Horses Began to strain and rear, but the driver spoke to them soothingly” and the driver of Dracula’s coach has supernatural strength for example “a wild howling began, which seemed to come from all over the country”. The counts coachman has power to calm his frightened horse and the surrounding wolves which means a strange power over animals this creates fear because this doesn’t happen in real life the quote is “The baying of the wolves sounded nearer and nearer, as thought they were closing round no us from every side”.
The reader knows Dracula is a Vampire and knows that he was also the coachman disguised with a beard. It is important that the audience knows this or they won’t know what is going to happen in the novel for example it said “His hand actually seemed like steel vice that could have crushed mine if he had chosen” this is very scary because you don’t know the drivers going to do. The description of Dracula has disturbing aspects like hairs on the palm, meeting eyebrows and sharp, prominent teeth, it said in the novel “As he swept his long arms… the wolves fell back and back further still” this scares a lot of people because of his eyebrows etc are what evil people look like, “His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose and with bushy hair that seemed to curl” and “Rather cruel looking, peculiarly sharp white teeth” “Strange to say, there were hairs in the centre of the palm”.
“The nails were long and fine, and cut to a sharp point”. Dracula had no servants because he was so hideous and vile this crease fear because of the way the writer said about how hideous and vile he was, in the novel it said “It may have been that his breath was rank, but a horrible feeling of nausea came over me”, this makes people start to feel sick because of the way his breath rank or the nausea going over him.
