NovelGuide: Dracula: Novel Summary: Chapter 6

Select a Chapter:

Chapter 6

Summary
The chapter opens with entries from Mina's journal. She is staying with Lucy in the seaside town of Whitby in Yorkshire. She notes various picturesque areas of the town, including the ruin of Whitby Abbey, which is supposed to be haunted, and a graveyard, which overlooks the town. She describes an old man she has met, Mr Swales, who claims to take a rational view of life and is skeptical of all the supernatural legends that Mina has heard about the area.
Swales believes that gravestones lie, since most of the bodies they purport to commemorate have been lost at sea. He is scornful of the traditional Christian belief that on the Day of Judgment, dead bodies will rise again, grasping their tombstones, to receive heavenly reward or punishment. Swales points out that they will have to return from the bottom of the sea and will not be able to grasp the stones because their hands will be too slippery.
Swales leaves, and Lucy tells Mina about her wedding plans. Mina feels sad, as she has not heard from Harker for a month.
Seward's diary entry records his observations of Renfield. He is fascinated with animals, and uses sugar to attract flies, which he collects and eats. Later, he starts to collect spiders, to which he feeds the flies. Then he catches sparrows, to which he feeds the spiders. He asks Seward if he can have a kitten, evidently planning to feed it with the sparrows. Seward catches sight of a sudden fierce "sidelong look which meant killing." Renfield also appears to be keeping account of how many lives go to feed one life higher up the food chain. Seward concludes that Renfield is an undeveloped homicidal maniac - more specifically, a zoophagous (life-eating) maniac, who wishes to devour life. Seward ponders using the study of Renfield to advance his own branch of science.
Mina reflects in her journal that she is worried about Harker. Though it is August, she has not heard from him for some time. Hawkins has only received a short note saying that he has started from home - one of the post-dated letters the Count ordered Harker to write. Mina is suspicious of the note, as it does not read like Harker's. Mina is also concerned about Lucy, who has been sleepwalking. Mina believes that Lucy is anxious because she is separated from her fianc� Holmwood, who is away looking after his sick father.
While out walking, Mina meets Swales, who is eager to talk. He believes that he will die soon and wants Mina to know that he did not mean all the "wicked things" he said about the dead and other things. He has only been making light of them to ward off fear. He lifts his arms to heaven and prays, then blesses Mina, says goodbye, and departs.
The coastguard chats to Mina while looking at a strange ship, apparently Russian, approaching the bay. He is mystified, as the ship does not seem to be being steered but is blown about by the wind.
Analysis
Another line of suspense is set up by the revelation that Mina and Lucy are staying in Whitby, as we know from Chapter 3 that the Count has a contact there.
Swales, with his claimed skepticism about all things supernatural, resembles Harker and Seward in his embrace of the rationalist assumptions of nineteenth-century Western Europe: "Them things be all wore out. It be all fool-talk, lock, stock, and barrel; that's what it be, an' nowt else. These bans an' wafts an' boh-ghosts an' bar-guests an' bogles an' all anent them is only fit to set bairns an' dizzy women a'belderin'." (Curses and ghosts and apparitions and harbingers of death and hobgoblins and all concerning them are only fit to set children and half-witted women a-crying.)
However, Swales' rationalism does not last even until the end of the chapter. Knowing that he is dying, he tells Mina that he had only made light of supernatural and religious matters to ward off fear. Mina last sees him praying devoutly. We are frequently reminded in Dracula that the paraphernalia of Christianity that previously aroused Swales' scorn also have the power to ward off the vampire. Swales' confession of his devoutness comes immediately before Mina and the coastguard see a strange unsteered ship approaching the bay - our first hint of the Count's foray into England. The battle lines - between the evil of the Count and the good of Christian faith - are drawn up.
Swales' dialog is remarkable for another reason: it reveals Stoker's interest in local dialect. Stoker researched the Whitby dialect thoroughly, and Swales' speech is considered authentic. We shall see further evidence of Stoker's interest in dialect in the dialog of Professor Van Helsing, a character whom we are yet to meet.
The character of Renfield parallels the Count, whom he believes to be his "master." Like the Count, he feeds off the lifeblood of living creatures. Also like the Count, he is a mixture of polite but devious charm and bestial desires. He is an example of how very fine a line divides madness from polite, civilized society. The characters of Renfield and the Count reflect a nineteenth-century neurosis that grew up around the publication of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species (1859) and The Descent of Man (1871). These works challenged centuries of belief that man was created instantaneously by God in His own image, to enjoy superiority over all other species by virtue of his rational faculty and possession of a divine soul. Darwin argued instead that man and apes evolved over time from a common ancestor and that man was no more than another link in the chain. One one hand, Darwin's ideas were seen as a great scientific breakthrough that ended years of slavery to outdated theological doctrines. But on the other hand, they made people anxious because they removed man from his position as king of creation and made him seem like just another animal, governed by base instincts. In an added irony, it was rational science that was revealing man's bestial nature. Dracula reflects this crisis of identity: it asks, are we rational beings or bestial beings? For this reason, the characters of Renfield and the Count would have been profoundly unsettling to the readership of Stoker's time.