#Also Quincey calls Seward out on treating Renfield oddly so something to be said of that as well

[inblackwoods]

A thank you to @vanhelsingenthusiast for setting my thoughts running on Seward and Dracula parallels and causing a rough, sleep-deprived ramble.

It ties back into the ongoing “Dracula is a story about love” war that I’m waging. At the core of their personalities, I think Seward and Dracula are similarly ambitious, deceitful, and capable of cruelty, but they end up in different places; Dracula alone and hunted and Seward being an essential member of a loving family dynamic.

On lying and toying with others: Dracula teasingly says Jonathan can leave and then calls wolves to the door, obviously making it deadly for Jonathan to actually leave as he wanted and trapping him in the castle [Chptr 4]. He’s not letting Jonathan go anywhere. He’s lying almost constantly in the first four chapters, but this instance is noteworthy in how directly cruel it was and how it seemed mostly just for the fun of it. Later, Seward offers Renfield a cat in an attempt to get an interesting response from him that can be studied in order to gain scientific notoriety. This is more clearly exploitative when considering that Seward only makes this offer after refusing earlier to give him one [”Tonight he will not speak. Even the offer of a kitten or even a full-grown cat will not tempt him” Chptr 9]. Morally, Seward has already admitted to being against giving Renfield a cat, and though his morals can flip multiple times in a single sentence [a post for another time], I don’t think he would’ve gone back on this. I think he’s only interested in lying to Renfield, offering the cat to get information but never delivering. Dracula and Seward have different intentions here, Seward probably thinking he's more justified, but what's happening is similar: toying with the vulnerable for some sort of personal benefit. They’re both ambitious, they both lie, and they are both capable of being cruel because of these traits. 

On love, connectivity, and technology: these topics seem separate but I think tie nicely together. Dracula is barred entirely from any stable or caring society. The locals around the castle fear him and understand him to be a threat, effectively warding him off and warning others against getting close to him. The only people he has, the three women, actively laugh at and defy him [Chptr 3]. More importantly, there is no one to help Dracula in any of his endeavors. He doesn’t even have servants so that he has to drive the coach to get Jonathan himself [Chptr 2]. Seward, though he is occasionally used as a joke [Van Helsing teasing him to cheer up Lucy in Chptr 9], is never treated cruelly or barred from interacting with the rest of the CoL in any way. It’s lighthearted, sweet, and productive. Seward is, more than anything, welcomed into the crew by teasing like this as it shows how close everyone is and how they help each other, Seward and Van Helsing working together to make Lucy feel better [Seward is never upset by this teasing]. If Dracula ever needs someone, he has no one but himself, and when Seward needs someone to help him save Lucy, Van Helsing drops everything to come to him immediately [Chptr 9]. 

Technology also makes Seward more accessible to others. He's able to better connect to the rest of the CoL through his use of the phonograph, allowing Mina to understand the depths of his emotions in a way that even writing out his feeling wouldn’t have accomplished. She mentions that the phonograph is “a wonderful machine, but it is cruelly true. It told me, in its very tones, the anguish of your heart.” The phonograph allows Mina to truly be “more touched than I can say by your grief” [Chptr 17] because it allows her to hear his voice and its variance as he recounts his loss and heartbreak. Before all of this, it also allows Mina and Jack to connect with one another through a shared interest in advancing technology, Mina enthusing about the phonograph and Seward enthusing about teaching her how it works. And, of course, when Seward very poorly attempts to lie to Mina in this chapter, she doesn’t laugh at him or treat him cruelly for how awkwardly he fumbles, she just tries to and succeeds in gaining his trust [they interact differently than Mina and the other two suitors do, but again, another post]. Dracula, being unable to use technology like the telegraph or phonograph, is completely barred from either method of communication! He is implied to be archaic and too deeply stuck in some sort of “old world” to be able to integrate into the “new world” enough to use its technology. [It’s significant that Van Helsing uses the phonograph in Chptr 24 as it shows that Van Helsing can also use technology that Dracula doesn’t yet have access to and makes parallels between them as well. This is also the same chapter where Van Helsing mentions that Dracula is attempting to learn of “new social life; new environment of old ways, the politic the law, the finance, the science, the habit of new land and a new people who have come to be since he was.” It’s not that Dracula can’t learn these things, it’s that he hasn’t yet.]

TLDR: Dracula and Seward are both capable of immoral behavior, but Seward won’t ever fully cross the line into being completely “evil” or even a full-blown “mad scientist” because he's able to connect with other people who love him and remind him of what’s important in life; caring for those who he loves being placed above ambition. If he was as barred from love and community as Dracula was, he would have nothing to keep him from hurting and exploiting others for his own gain, perhaps to an equivalent extent that Dracula does.

#Dracula #Jack Seward #Abraham Van Helsing #This is kind of clunky and could be smoothed out #But that's what 2am gets ya #It's all in the name of fun :》 #If anyone has thoughts please add them #My head is empty #Also Quincey calls Seward out on treating Renfield oddly so something to be said of that as well #Seward's friends keep him in line and won't put up with his nonsense without question #nabalysis