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Chapter 24
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Dracula, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Writing, Journaling, and Messaging
Illness, Madness, and Confinement
Christianity, Science, and the Occult
Romantic Love, Seduction, and Sexual Purity
Life, Death, and the Un-Dead
Summary
Analysis
Seward's Diary. October 11. Evening. Mina calls one more meeting of the group, as their travel has been delayed for some time, based on a lack of information about the whereabouts of the Count's vessel bound for Varna. Mina announces, around dusk (she is, for some unknown reason, more "free" around dawn and dusk, perhaps because Dracula's hold is less powerful then), that each man of the group must promise to kill her, if the time comes and she turns into a vampire. She asks this in the name of the group, and for the safety of those around her. Each of the men agrees, in turn, including Harker.
Mina falls into the dawn and dusk schedule that has been seen, earlier in the novel, with regard to Dracula, Renfield, and Lucy. Mina appears to be less under Dracula's thrall during these transitional times, perhaps because Dracula himself is undergoing changes (he can only be active at night), and his hold upon Mina's psyche is less pronounced during these times of transition. Now it is Mina who demands that the men kill her should she change into a vampire. She wants the contagion to be stopped; she places the value of the group above her own.
Themes
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Jonathan Harker's Journal. October 15. Varna. Harker reports briefly on the group's trip to Varna, from England to Paris by boat and then train, and then by the Orient Express east to Varna. The trip takes, in total, three days. When the group arrives in Varna, however, there is no word of Dracula, and Mina reports, from her hypnotic state, only the sound of more waves lapping against the Count's ship.
The continual vision of waves lapping against Dracula's boat is fed into Mina's consciousness as though it is a repeating loop of tape or film—this will appear more true once it is revealed that Dracula has been intentionally deceiving Mina as regards his actual location in Romania.
Themes
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Jonathan Harker's Journal. October 16. No more news of the Count's ship; Mina still reports the "lapping of waves" from her trance-state.
The short bursts of narrative here mimic the monotony of a ship's log in which nothing changes.
Themes
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Jonathan Harker's Journal. October 17. Harker recounts briefly the plans for attacking the Count, once his ship arrives at Varna—Harker will stab him through the heart, and Van Helsing and Seward will quickly cut off his head to ensure that he is dead. No news of the Count's arrival at Varna.
The members of the group play-act their roles as they approach the scene of killing Dracula. One senses that they are excited to dispatch the thin man from this earth.
Themes
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Jonathan Harker's Journal. October 24. Still no news of the Count's arrival at Varna, and Mina reports, again, only the sound of waves from the Count's ship.
Telegram, October 24, from Lloyd's of London to Arthur. The London ship-company reports that the Czarina Catherine has been reported crossing the Dardanelles, a small channel en route to Varna.
One wonders whether Stoker needs all this "filler" at the end of the novel, but the pace of the book is maintained despite these final sections—it is a quick and exciting end to the novel.
Themes
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Seward's Diary. October 25. Seward announces his worry that the Count has not arrived sooner, and says that it is frustrating actually to write in his diary, as he is accustomed to dictating his entries via phonograph. Seward notes that Mina has become more lethargic, although she is still capable of channeling the Count via her hypnotic trances.
Seward expresses, again, his preference for speaking his thoughts than for writing. In a book where so much is taken down in writing, Seward is an exception—one who prefers talking and listening to recorded speech. Meanwhile, the race against time continues.
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Seward's Diary. October 26. Still no news of the Count, although Seward reports that a fog has fallen over Varna in the past day.
Seward's Diary. October 27. Still no news of the Count. Seward reports that Mina's lethargy is increasing.
Mina's condition worsens in a manner similar to Lucy's condition, as she approached the undead state.
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Telegram, October 28, from Lloyd's of London to Arthur. The Czarina Catherine is reported at Galatz, another port far from Varna, at one p.m. that day.
As it turns out, Dracula is not where the group expected, but at another port far away.
Themes
Seward's Diary. October 28. The group decides to catch the next available train to Galatz. In the meantime, Van Helsing, Seward, Harker, and Mina talk, and Van Helsing relates to them a theory he has of the Count's deception—that the Count was aware of the "connection" he had with Mina's mind, and deliberately fed Mina incorrect visions for her hypnotic trances, ones that would make it seem the ship was headed for Varna, when in reality the Count had already arrived at Galatz. Van Helsing curses the Count for his misdirection, but having figured it out, vows to track the Count, with the rest of the group, to his castle, and to find him and truly kill him.
Van Helsing develops a theory, which the reader might have imagined all along—that Dracula was giving Mina false information in order to buy time on his flight back to the castle. Although Van Helsing tends to respect Dracula, he also tends to underestimate Dracula's intellect in key moments—although Van Helsing believes Dracula has a "child's brain," Dracula is nevertheless capable of a few surprises before he is ultimately caught outside his castle.
Themes
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