Dracula
Bram Stoker
Contains spoilers for the entire book.
Discussion topics
Topic 01 of 08
A guest at the castle
At what point did you realise Jonathan Harker was a prisoner, and what made his politeness to the Count so unsettling?
Keep the conversation going
- What do the Count's manners and hospitality hide, and what do they reveal?
- How does Jonathan's ordeal at the castle change him for the rest of the book?
There is no single right answer. Bring your own reading.
Discussion topics
At what point did you realise Jonathan Harker was a prisoner, and what made his politeness to the Count so unsettling?
Keep the conversation going
- What do the Count's manners and hospitality hide, and what do they reveal?
- How does Jonathan's ordeal at the castle change him for the rest of the book?
How does telling the story through diaries, letters, telegrams and newspaper cuttings change the way the horror reaches you?
Keep the conversation going
- What does Mina's work of typing and ordering the papers add to the fight against the Count?
- Whose voice is missing from the record, and why might that be?
Why do you think Lucy, of all the characters, is the one the Count destroys first?
Keep the conversation going
- What did you make of the blood transfusions from the men who love her?
- How did you react to the scene in the tomb, and to Arthur being the one to bring her peace?
Is Mina treated by the men as a partner or as someone to be protected, and does that change over the story?
Keep the conversation going
- What does it cost the group when they decide to keep her out of their plans?
- How does her bond with the Count become both a danger and the key to finding him?
How does Van Helsing persuade a group of modern, educated men to believe in the Un-Dead?
Keep the conversation going
- Why does Dr Seward resist for so long, and what finally convinces him?
- Does the novel side with modern science, with old belief, or with neither?
What role does Renfield play in the story, and how much did you sympathise with him?
Keep the conversation going
- What do his flies, spiders and birds tell you about the Count's kind of hunger?
- Why do you think he turns against his master in the end?
What makes the Count's arrival in England so frightening to the characters?
Keep the conversation going
- How does the novel use the shipwreck at Whitby and the boxes of earth spread across London?
- What do you think the story suggests about fear of outsiders in its own time?
How did you feel about the way the Count is finally destroyed, and about what it costs the group?
Keep the conversation going
- What does Quincey Morris's death add to the ending?
- How do you read the closing note about Jonathan and Mina's son, and the papers that are all that remain?
There is no single right answer. Bring your own reading.