NovelGuide: Dracula: Novel Summary: Chapter 11

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Chapter 11

Summary
Seward and Van Helsing arrive at Lucy's home the next morning. They are greeted by Lucy's mother, Mrs Westenra, who tells them that Lucy is better. She claims some of the credit herself, because she went into Lucy's bedroom in the night, noticed that the room was stuffy with a strong smell of garlic flowers, and took them all away. Mrs Westenra leaves the room, and Van Helsing breaks down and sobs. Van Helsing cannot tell Mrs Westernra what she has done, because the shock would kill her, and the shock of that in turn would kill Lucy.
Van Helsing and Seward enter Lucy's room and see that far from being better, she is greatly weakened. Van Helsing has Seward perform another blood transfusion. This time, Van Helsing gives his own blood to Lucy, who recovers a little. Van Helsing tells Mrs Westenra that she must not remove anything from Lucy's room without consulting him.
Lucy records in her diary that she feels stronger and that her nightmarish nocturnal experiences - the flapping at her window and the strange noises - have ceased since Van Helsing has been with her.
A newspaper cutting reveals that a wolf has escaped from the Zoological Gardens. On the day of the escape, his keeper had noticed a tall thin man with red eyes near the enclosure who seemed to drive the wolf into a frenzy by his mere presence. When the keeper chats to the man, the wolf calms down and allows the man to stroke him. The man says he has kept several wolves as pets. Later, when the moon comes up, the wolves howl, and around midnight the keeper notices that one has broken out of the enclosure. Hours later, the wolf returns of his own accord, with a head full of broken glass.
Seward's diary records that Renfield attacked him with a knife, cutting his wrist. Renfield then licks up Seward's spilt blood from the floor, repeating over and over, "The blood is the life!"
Van Helsing sends a telegram to Seward, telling him to stay with Lucy that night, but the telegram is misdirected and does not arrive until the next morning. Seward, concerned, sets off for Lucy's house.
Lucy records in her diary her experiences of the previous night, the night of the wolf's escape. She was woken by a flapping at the window and a howling from outside. She looks out of the window, but sees only a big bat. Then the window shatters and the head of a wolf appears. Lucy's mother, who is with her, is terrified. She tears off the wreath of garlic flowers around Lucy's neck, points at the wolf, and dies of shock. The wolf withdraws his head, but then a cloud of little specks blows in through the window. Lucy loses consciousness, with the dead body of her mother on top of her. Lucy regains consciousness to the sound of the neighborhood dogs howling. The maids come in and lay out Mrs Westenra's body. The door flies open and shuts again, and the maids, frightened, rush into the next room for a glass of sherry. The sherry turns out to be drugged with Mrs Westenra's laudanum (opium), and the maids all fall asleep. Lucy is left alone with the mysterious specks. In despair, she hides her diary in her bodice in the hope that someone will find it when they come to lay out her dead body.
Analysis
This chapter highlights the restricted role of women in the novel. With the notable exception of the vampire women and with the partial exception of Mina, they are helpless creatures who rely on men to rescue them. We have already seen how the men of the novel hide Mrs Westenra's heart condition from Lucy, and Lucy's condition from Mrs Westenra, on the grounds that neither could stand the shock of reality. Here, Mrs Westenra, who again has been kept in ignorance, this time of the value to Lucy of the garlic flowers, takes matters into her own hands, removes the garlic and thus endangers Lucy's life. When this is revealed to Van Helsing, yet again, he cannot tell Mrs Westenra the truth about what she has done, as the truth would kill her, and Mrs Westenra's death would in turn kill Lucy.
We cannot blame Van Helsing for over-protecting women due to his prejudices about them, since Mrs Westenra does indeed prove to be delicate in the extreme when she apparently dies of fright at the sight of the wolf. As well as considering the delicacy of the female constitution, Van Helsing must also tread carefully around the prejudices of the Western scientific mind: it is for this reason that he does not explain the significance of the garlic to Seward. In a sense, therefore, the closed minds of Seward and Harker make them as vulnerable as the helpless women in the face of the Count's evil. Seward and Harker, like the women, become passive victims. It is Van Helsing, with his open mind and universal knowledge, who brings the power to vanquish the Count by driving a large stake through his heart. The stake is, of course, a phallic symbol, masculine power at its most dominant. In leading the other young men to destroy the Count with stakes (as we shall see in later chapters), Van Helsing is awakening them to manhood.