Dracula Introduction

• English
• Further Education (Key Stage 5)

An Introduction to Dracula

In this introduction we will learn about some of the key characters and themes in Dracula and consider Bram Stoker's use of language

What do you already
know about Dracula?

Harker meets Dracula for the first time

Watch the short video clip which follows and be prepared to discuss with a partner what we learn about the two characters involved

What do we learn about Jonathan Harker and Dracula in the clip?

Now read the passage from the novel where Dracula welcomes Harker to his castle:

Within, stood a tall old man, clean shaven save for a long white moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of colour about him anywhere. He held in his hand an antique silver lamp, in which the flame burned without chimney or globe of any kind, throwing long quivering shadows as it flickered in the draught of the open door. The old man motioned me in with his right hand with a courtly gesture, saying in excellent English, but with a strange intonation:—

 “Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own will!” He made no motion of stepping to meet me, but stood like a statue, as though his gesture of welcome had fixed him into stone. The instant, however, that I had stepped over the threshold, he moved impulsively forward, and holding out his hand grasped mine with a strength which made me wince, an effect which was not lessened by the fact that it seemed as cold as ice—more like the hand of a dead than a living man.

 

Thinking and discussion points for feedback:

1. How has Stoker used lanaguage to present the characters in the passage?
2. What themes are evident?
3. Our key theme for study is 'Crossing Boundaries' so consider what boundaries have been crossed in the extract.

'clad in black' is what type of imagery?

1. olfactory imagery
2. colour imagery
3. tactile imagery
4. auditory imagery

'long quivering shadows' is an example of:

1. gustatory imagery
2. olfactory imagery
3. personification
4. Dracula's poor quality lighting

'stood like a statue' and 'as cold as ice' are examples of:

1. metaphor
2. pathetic fallacy
3. Dracula's poorly heated castle
4. simile

'impulsively' is an example of:

1. a verb
2. an adjective
3. an adverb
4. a noun

How do you feel your Dracula knowledge has developed ?




1 is not so confident and 10 is very confident.

010

Extension task

Read the passage where Harker describes Dracula in detail and using the extract to help, draw a picture and be prepared to show it to the rest of class. Label your picture with examples of descriptive techniques used by Stoker. 

His face was a strong—a very strong—aquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils; with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples but profusely elsewhere.

His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion.

The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth; these protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years. For the rest, his ears were pale, and at the tops extremely pointed; the chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm though thin. The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor.

Take a photo of your drawing and upload it here: