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June 29: WOLVES!!!

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You want me to pass my exams??? The thing that nearly got Jonathan Harker killed????

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You can fit so much trauma in this bad boy.

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Dracula's amalgamation of the human and animal marks him as being in the 'semblance of a man', of being not quite human, but Harker later suggests that Dracula and himself are physiologically similar, if not the same, when he considers how to gain access to the vampire's bedroom: 'Where his body has gone may not another body go?' (p. 40). The use of the noun 'body' to describe both himself and Dracula collapses the distinctions between the two men, and implies that surely his own body is capable of the same acts: 'I have seen him myself crawl from his window; why should I not imitate him, and go in by his window?' (p. 40). By imitating Dracula, Harker is able to achieve a feat that may have been impossible for him before, and we can perceive this relationship in terms of the abhuman condition that Kelly Hurley describes: The abhuman subject is a not-quite-human subject, characterised by its morphic variability, continually in danger of becoming not-itself, becoming other.

source

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“He is young and strong; there are kisses for us all.” I lay quiet, looking out under my eyelashes in an agony of delightful anticipation. (...) for nothing can be more dreadful than those awful women, who were—who are—waiting to suck my blood.

I am alone in the castle with those awful women. Faugh! Mina is a woman, and there is nought in common. They are devils of the Pit! I shall not remain alone with them

Thinking about Jonathan's emphasis on how the three Sisters want to give him "kisses", his repulsion and fear of them, how he chooses certain death over staying with them, and how this all will be read by Mina. And it will be internalised when she starts turning to become like them:

I must touch him or kiss him no more. Oh, that it should be that it is I who am now his worst enemy, and whom he may have most cause to fear.

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“I shall try to scale the castle wall farther than I have yet attempted…God's mercy is better than that of these monsters, and the precipice is steep and high. At its foot a man may sleep—as a man. Good-bye, all! Mina!”

Happy Shovel day (for wherever it’s is still June 30th)! And in typical fashion (at least for myself) I drew another piece of the entry. This time going with when Jonathan starts his scaling of the castle for his escape!

As much as I adore the shovel, I could not think of a new angle to take the scene. Thus this drawing instead.

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Dracula: sleeping peacefully, knowing he can set his roommates on that hollow husk of a Johnathan soon

Johnathan, surviving on nothing but adrenaline and sheer desperation:

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I am alone in the castle with those awful women. Faugh! Mina is a woman, and there is nought in common. They are devils of the Pit!

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The first US edition of Dracula (1899)

Which has an excellent depiction of how high up Castle Dracula is

Jonathan must survive climbing down that, and then the wolf mountains

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Can we just appreciate for a moment that Johnathan Harker, proper little Victorian man, built-like-a-twig solicitor, would probably die from sour apple jolly rancher, sad wet cat du jour, basically rock climbed/parkoured HUNDREDS OF FEET IN THE AIR to face the UNDEAD ENTITY TORMENTING HIS EVERY NOT-SO-RESTFUL NIGHT

HE'S the lizard fashion climber now

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“He is young and strong; there are kisses for us all.” I lay quiet, looking out under my eyelashes in an agony of delightful anticipation. (...) for nothing can be more dreadful than those awful women, who were—who are—waiting to suck my blood.

I am alone in the castle with those awful women. Faugh! Mina is a woman, and there is nought in common. They are devils of the Pit! I shall not remain alone with them

Thinking about Jonathan's emphasis on how the three Sisters want to give him "kisses", his repulsion and fear of them, how he chooses certain death over staying with them, and how this all will be read by Mina. And it will be internalised when she starts turning to become like them:

I must touch him or kiss him no more. Oh, that it should be that it is I who am now his worst enemy, and whom he may have most cause to fear.

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Jonathan says on June 29 that wishes he had a gun but that he doubts any "weapon wrought alone by man's hand" would harm Dracula.

Yet, despite his doubt, the very next morning he picks up a shovel and tries it anyway.

And that's another reason why no adaptation having Dracula get scarred by this scared human facing something that he believes to be untouchable by mortal hand misses the entire point.

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Where his body has gone why may not another body go?

Loving all the imitation and play of doubles in Dracula these days. This is a remarkably bold statement because Jonathan knows now that Dracula is a supernatural being and yet asks of himself an almost superhuman act - to climb out the window and crawl across the castle wall on a narrow ledge. Really speaks to what a human can do for their own survival, running on pure adrenaline and desperate hope. And this in the face of being thought a monster by the woman at the gates just the previous day. The crawling itself was deemed monstrous by Jon earlier, but now it is a last ditch attempt - with the risk of death - for survival. He takes on characteristics of his captor in order to escape.

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"Good-bye, all! Mina!"

The fact that this is the final journal entry Jonathan makes knowing that it may be the last thing he leaves behind in the world, and what's his last word? MINA

Don't mind me just:

This entry made me lose it over them

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going nuts

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I’m really glad that, after all the trauma and fear Jonathan experiences in his time at Castle Dracula, Bram Stoker decided, “You know what this poor man deserves? Hitting Dracula in the face with a shovel. Let him get some revenge for this stupid vampire’s nonsense.” And he was absolutely right.