i n f i n i t e    s u m m e r

if you were mr. harker in chapter one, at what point would you decide you didn't need to visit the count right away? at what point would you DEMAND to know what the hell everyone was talking about?
-when the innkeepers looked terrified and wouldn't speak about him?
-when the old lady BEGGED you not to go and said evil was rampant?
-when a crowd of people were all peeping at you and talking about satan, hell, and evil creatures?
-when your escort arrived, and everyone else in the carriage screamed?

i'm not trying to disrupt the story, because i'm enjoying it. i just wish i could choose not to know all i know about vampires and horror plots. maybe if we were reading this back in the day, as pragmatic englishmen, i could discount all the warnings as foolishness.

It could just be morbid curiosity.

Or, maybe a Londoner like Harker just takes the warnings of the gypsy masses with a grain of salt.

It's the classic horror trick of making the reader aware that something bad is about to happen, but the character is completely unaware.

I think that Harker just believes all the warnings are just superstitious nonsense. He also is is a new lawyer on an assignment, so perhaps he is more afraid of harming his professional reputation than all the ominious signs he is getting from the less educated native population.

I was amused by this also and was considering a post. To tack on to what Medusa said, I've been considering how late 19th/early 20th century readers might have found it a little more believable just because of a general ignorance of other lands or cultures that all but fortunate travelers had then. I guess what I mean is that in an age before mass communication how would Harker or the reader know this was abnormal behavior? Maybe then it was less obvious and more ominous.

okay, i could see that.
"ah, in this country, people cross themselves constantly, and they stare at newcomers. they're also very nervous."

Agreed. Even buyers of Dracula back in the day knew it was a horror novel. We all know bad things will transpire, but the fun is in the details and Stoker's style.

Would buyers of Dracula back in 1897 have known that it was a horror novel? Not unless someone had told them. There was nothing about the physical appearance of the book that would have even hinted at it (unless the potential buyer were to browse through the text). There were no illustrations (the cover contained just the title and name of the author), no pithy remarks/endorsements on the dust jacket. Most important is that the title "Dracula" would have meant nothing to the Londoner picking up the book at the local bookstore.

As an aside, Stoker originally had planned to name his vampire "Count Wampyr." Can you imagine the Count welcoming Harker with "I am Wampyr"! Talk about a dead giveaway! Thankfully, Stoker made the change, having found the name "Dracula" in an obscure history book entitled An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia (1920) by a former British consul to Bucharest named William Wilkinson. Stoker found the book in the public library in Whitby where he was vacationing in the summer of 1890.

I think they would have known for the most part and have just posted about this over at Infinite Zombies - http://infinitezombies.wordpress.com/20 ... way-ahead/.
Joan

but harker is getting suspicious and uneasy...he says so on several occasions. but i think it's less about a horror tactic and more about some insight into harker's mind. he's kind of oblivious...he knows stuff isn't right but he won't let himself be convinced that he must "break" his role as the dutiful lawyer and fend for himself until it's already too late.

it makes me think that his obliviousness has to do with the disconnect produced by really, really deep-seated repression. and we know he's got repression issues because of his reaction to the lady vamps pawing at him in preparation to bite his neck that night that he falls asleep in the wrong wing of the castle.

so: he's a moral tightwad, and he regulates himself quite strictly. probably means he has to cut himself off from his emotions and his senses generally. ergo: kinda oblivious to environment, intuition, the significance of personal safety in the face of many many signs that he should ditch his "duty," etc.