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Marty Busse

Here is another instance of Stoker being sloppy: I personally didn't notice it until I read Fred Saberhagen's The Dracula Tape.

Who drugged the wine?

Why would Dracula bother with using the wolf as a battering ram when he could just fling a rock and break the window to let himself in? (The Count, many times, seems to demonstrate a penchant for the overly dramatic.)

Was the late Mrs. Westerna under Dracula's influence, somehow? Otherwise, the Count must have some great luck, because otherwise, all his work would have been for nothing.

As Elizabeth pointed out before, Dracula is a very flawed book. Its popularity shows how good Stoker was at getting readers to suspend their disbelief.

Baby Jinx

"Who drugged the wine?"

I always took it that one of the maids did it, her mind mesmerized by Dracula. (Or perhaps it was Mrs Westenra...who might have been under D's influence for quite some time, hence her removal of the garlic the night before and her grabbing the garlic from Lucy's neck when the wolf jumped through the window.) What I found interesting was that, here again, we have a case of Dracula being able to control minds from afar.

Baby Jinx

"Why would Dracula bother with using the wolf as a battering ram when he could just fling a rock and break the window to let himself in?"

Or turn himself into a wolf and jump through the window? He'd already been invited into the house by Lucy, and surely Drac wasn't afraid of getting a few glass cuts. Using a poor, tame, zoo wolf to do his dirty work seems like a bit of overkill.

Larco

Hmmm. Seems to me that the sequence is: Dracula breaks window (yes, this is stupid, why didn't he just throw a rock?). Lucy's mother dies, Lucy faints. Dracula enters, drugs the sherry. Lucy recovers, screams, enter maids. Exeunt maids. Maids drink and drowse.

But this is still stupid. I can see that Dracula might like an uninterrupted few hours with Lucy, but it is sheer luck for him that laudanum is present in the house and handy. And if the Count's hypnotic presence can keep Lucy unconscious or unable to call for help, why go to the rigamarole of drugging the sherry? Just enter through the window, keep Lucy pliable, lock Lucy's room door in case of interruption, and enjoy.

The answer, I think, is that Stoker was willing to forgo logic for effect. Emotionally, the piling up of horror upon horror -- mother dead, maids drugged, the house open and the evil within -- is very effective.

Elizabeth

Re dramatic effect. Remember that Stoker was a theatre man - often he likes to go for the grand gesture. Of course, staging the wolf breaking through the window would not be easy. but one movie does it exceptionally well - "Count Dracula" with Louis Jourdan (if memory serves me well)?

Baby Jinx

Reading over Lucy's entry once more, I agree with Larco's observation that Dracula entered the room before the maids were drugged, so it is highly probable that Dracula himself drugged the wine. But why engage the wolf?

Here's one possibility: Dracula did not know who was to be in Lucy's room that night -- mom, Van Helsing, Dr Seward, maids? -- so he commissioned Berserker to create a diversion or even to kill Lucy's hapless chaperone(s). Allowing the wolf to do the attacking/killing would provide the police with a tidy explanation for the killing without raising their suspicions that foul play was involved.

Elizabeth

Re wolf. This is no ordinary wolf. Lucy's room is on the second floor. Not only does he have to leap - he has to bash in the window.

Re Mrs Westenra. Note her two final actions: she tears the garlic flowers from Lucy's neck and she hits Lucy's forehead with her own head. A case can indeed be made that Mommy Dearest is under the power of the Count.

Baby Jinx

I would almost wonder whether the escape of Berserker from the zoo was simply a coverup for the fact that it was really Dracula who broke through the window, except for the following:

1. Lucy mentions at least twice in her journal that she heard the flapping at the window and the howling of the "dog" at the same time. Unless Drac was rapidly changing forms or was outside practicing his animal sounds, it would appear that the wolf was separate from the bat, and

2. When Berserker finally returns to the zookeeper, the keeper mention picking glass out of the wolf's fur.

Baby Jinx

Two other things that give me notice are Lucy writing:

1. "The door flew open for an instant and closed again."

Is this to be understood that Dracula was in the room in invisible form at the time?

2. "It smelt of laudanum, and looking on the sideboard, I found that the bottle which Mother's doctor uses for her--oh! did use--was empty."

That's where the laudanum came from but when did Drac get it? Did he take it after he followed (invisibly) the maids from Lucy's room or could he have gotten it long before by paying Mrs Westenra a visit in her bedroom, as it has been suggested that Mrs W was functioning under Drac's power?

Baby Jinx

Or did Mrs W do it herself (under Drac's power, of course)?

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