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Dr. Van Helsing In Bram Stoker's Dracula

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In the novel Dracula, during the nineteenth century, a Dutch professor by the name of Van Helsing not only acknowledges but understands the supernatural. During this time period, it was very common for people to deny the supernatural from fear of it. Van Helsing becomes the antagonist to one of these supernatural creatures, Count Dracula, because he is the most threatening to this evil being. The Professor starts to find Dracula's weaknesses and uses them in order to bring him to his doom. While Van Helsing is able to follow the vampire, Dracula still finds diabolical ways to confuse and hurt the Professor. They go back and forth, fooling the other's plans and keeping the reader guessing as to who will succeed. Van Helsing is the most dangerous …show more content…
Van Helsing is able to have alacrity towards these when they are thrown his way. For example when Lucy is suspected to be a vampire, his course of action recommends what he thinks is most logical. He suggests that, "I shall cut off her head and fill her mouth with garlic, and I shall drive a stake through her body," (Stoker 176) Where others were lackluster about this idea, Dr. Van Helsing knew that this was how to handle the situation. When one of the women, Mina, was bitten in the jugular by Dracula, Van Helsing determined whether she is unholy when he, "...placed the Wafer on Mina's forehead, it had seared it—had burned into the flesh as though it had been a piece of white-hot metal." (Stoker 249) He discovers that any holy symbol rejects anyone that is not pure or unholy. The Professor is the one to discover that if Dracula is killed, then Mina will be released from her unhallowed ties to him and cease being languid. After Dracula is killed, the scar that was left from Dr. Van Helsing's communion wafer has disappeared and Quincey Morris exclaims, "Now God be thanked that all has not been in vain! See! the snow is not more stainless than her forehead! The curse has passed away!" (Stoker 325)This again showcases just how well Van Helsing recognizes the supernatural and is able to take control of their

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