On birthday presents and the Victorians

Shortly before coming to London, I received Dracula as a birthday present. I started reading it although I have yet to complete it since I have been fairly busy during my time here. Yet, the multiple references that have been made to the book throughout the course have made it clear that the novel was an enlightened choice of birthday gift. Just a with other popular novels of the time, including those read in class, there have been several themes of the course intertwined with the plot of the story. First, one of the main characters, Dr. Seward, is a doctor who treats the insane and one of his patients becomes a main character in the story. Although I do not think he specified a certain title for his position, Stoker clearly describes the relationship the doctor has with the insane man Renfield. In the hospital, Seward acts like a Conolly-esque father figure, watching over his patients while also treating them with respect. Another interesting aspect concerning Dr. Seward’s character is that he actually lives in part of the hospital where he works, as John Hunter did. He has part of the house dedicated to his social life big enough for multiple guests to stay and then a portion dedicated to the patients.
More broadly than this, the very style in which the story is written is very much a product of its time. Instead of there being a narrator who tells the entire story from a third party perspective, the story is told through the journals, newspaper clippings, diaries, and telegraphs sent between the characters or saved by them. The post works so efficiently that they can send multiple letters in a morning and the telegraph technology is even speedier. The railway system which facilitated the growth of the telegraphs are also referenced multiple times as Dr. Van Helsing traverses between his home and London and the characters travel throughout England. Still, this all is made apparent through their private records rather than an omniscient narrator. This detail is important because it presents the story in a similar way as Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Without calling it a “case” per se, Stoker tells his story as if it is a case record. Indeed, the characters themselves compile and read the very collection of information which the reader is holding. This self-referential plot detail demonstrates that the characters view the story as a case which they must study and solve, and thus professionalizes the story in a similar way that Stevenson’s “case” does. There are certainly endless ways in which Dracula is a product of its time, yet for me at about half way through both the book and this course, these are the ones that struck me.