NovelGuide: Dracula: Novel Summary: Chapter 24-25

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Chapter 24-25

Summary
Van Helsing makes an entry in Seward's phonograph diary, saying he is certain that the Count is heading for home in Transylvania.
The men find out that the Count has boarded a ship called the Czarina Catherine, bound for the Russian port of Varna. Mina asks Van Helsing if it is really necessary for her husband and his friends to pursue the Count. Van Helsing insists that it is necessary, both for her sake and for the sake of humanity. He says, ". we are ministers of God's own wish: that the world, and men for whom His son die, will not be given over to monsters, whose very existence would defame Him." Van Helsing points out that the Count is made stronger by the scientific mindset of Western Europe: no one believes in him, so no one will oppose him.
Van Helsing warns Seward that Mina is changing into a vampire. Her teeth are sharper, her eyes are growing harder, and she often lapses into silence, as Lucy did after she was corrupted. He also suspects that, just as Mina is able to communicate with the Count under hypnosis and learn his whereabouts, the Count will be able to do the same, using Mina to know the friends' plans. Van Helsing decides that Mina must be kept ignorant of their plans. When the men meet later to plan their strategy, however, Mina spontaneously absents herself in recognition that she may be a threat to them. The men form a plan to intercept the Count in Varna. Van Helsing asks Harker to stay behind in England and look after his wife.
Mina asks Harker not to tell her anything of the men's plans for as long as she retains the scar on her forehead. She insists that she go with them, as she can be of use of them: Van Helsing can hypnotize her and gain valuable information about the Count's movements. Van Helsing agrees that the Harkers can go.
Some days later, Mina asks the men to come to her room before sunset. She asks them all solemnly to promise to kill her by driving a stake through her heart and cutting off her head, if she becomes so changed that it is better that she die than live. They promise. Then she asks them all to read the Burial Service to her, which they do.
On 12 October, Van Helsing's party board the Orient Express train at Paris and arrive at Varna on 15 October. Mina has become nocturnal in habit, sleeping in the day. Van Helsing hypnotizes her before sunrise and sunset to find out where the Count is. Her answer is always the same: she hears waves lapping against a ship, and all is dark. It seems that the Czarina Catherine is still on her way to Varna. Van Helsing makes arrangements with the Vice-Consul to board the ship as soon as she arrives.
Mina grows more lethargic. After two weeks of waiting in Varna, the men learn that the Czarina Catherine has bypassed Varna and has docked at another port, Galatz. Van Helsing's party plans to take the first train to Galatz. Van Helsing momentarily almost loses hope as he realizes that the Count may have learned through Mina of their plan to ambush him at Varna. Van Helsing believes that the Count no longer wants Mina to come to him in her trance, because he knows that she is revealing his whereabouts. The Count has cut her off, and thus was able to fool them into waiting for him at Varna when in fact, he was heading to Galatz. Mina confirms that she feels much freer now.
Van Helsing grows hopeful as he realizes that the Count thinks he has escaped them and that he has cut himself off from Mina. Now, the Count will be unlikely to predict that they intend to follow him to his castle.
Analysis
Van Helsing's description of the band of friends as "ministers of God's own wish" casts their plan to destroy the Count as a holy crusade.
Harker's remarks on his wife sleeping reveal the expectations placed upon women by Victorian society: "Mina is sleeping now, calmly and sweetly like a little child. Her lips are curved and her face beams with happiness. Thank God there are such moments still for her." The highest ideal of womanhood was to express the innocence of a child. Her request to the men that they kill her if she becomes too vampiric shows the extreme lengths that were thought to be morally justifiable in order to preserve sexual purity in women and, by extension, their male partners.
We are reminded of Holmwood's violent destruction of the Un-dead Lucy, applauded by all as the moral and holy thing to do. Naturally, this violence against corrupted women is justified within the context of the novel, since vampires are themselves murderers of the soul. But so insistent is Stoker's implied analogy between sexual promiscuity and vampirism that a disturbing undertone runs throughout the novel. Its message is that sexually promiscuous or aggressive women are a threat to society and must be wiped out; indeed, that this is God's holy will and that the women themselves will ultimately thank their destroyers. Some critics have pointed to the proximity of the publication of Dracula (1897) with the murders and mutilation (in 1888) in London of prostitutes perpetrated by the serial killer known as Jack the Ripper.
The name of the ship on which the Count escapes, the Czarina Catherine, is significant, as it is named after Catherine the Great (1729-1796), Empress of Russia, who was viewed as promiscuous. This is the very quality that the Count would have brought to the women of London if his scheme had succeeded, and it is the fate that threatens Mina if the men fail to destroy him.