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TripLit with D. Major
TripLit with D. Major - Dracula Country
On the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors at the point where the River Esk meets the North Sea, lies the picturesque coastal town of Whitby, England. A young Captain Cook got an early education in seamanship honing his skills as a merchant apprentice on a whaling fleet. The Whalebone Arch off the West Cliff pays tribute to Whitby’s brutal and very dangerous whaling history. Fishing remains a major industry and every local pub boasts of having the best fish-n-chips, not just in Whitby, but in all of England. Whitby Jet—fossilized wood from the Araucaria Tree commonly referred to as the Monkey Tree—was mined and polished into a black luster to be fashioned into Victorian mourning jewelry and can still be found on the shores of Upgang Beach. For Victorians, Whitby was a favorite holiday destination. In fact, one very famous Victorian author by the name of Bram Stoker stayed in Whitby between 1890-1896. Today, literary aficionados and Goths alike make pilgrimages to the town. Why? Because this otherwise quaint fishing town is the birthplace of a monster. Born from both Stoker’s imagination and the town’s inspiring setting, Whitby is Dracula Country!
As a massive fan of Stoker’s novel Dracula and as a result of being a teenager who barely survived the Satanic Panic due to my penchant for black clothing and my equally dark musical tastes, Whitby has been on my bucket list for years. I wanted to explore the settings Stoker wrote about, to feel his characters’ terror firsthand. And while many tourists take Bram Stoker tours traversing the same footsteps of Dracula’s characters, I desired a more immersive experience.
Of course, I needed to reread Dracula and this hadn’t occurred to me until two days prior to boarding the train to Whitby. If you have read the novel, you know it’s not a quick read and I failed to bring a copy or my Kindle. The only way to undertake this feat in the short amount of time I had was to listen to it on Audible. I am so glad I did! It took my experience to the next level. Stoker did an exceptional job of mapping out Whitby; the town remains largely unchanged since he wrote Dracula. He also captured the haunting quality of the town. Some say the ruins of Whitby Abbey were the inspiration for Count Dracula’s castle in Transylvania. Certainly, Whitby Abbey and the Church of St. Mary’s and its graveyard play significant roles in creating Stoker’s forbidding backdrop. Gothic writers do love a good storm and Whitby is no stranger to violent storms that suddenly rise up off the North Sea with punishing rain that shrouds the entire town in a thick mist.
In fact, one of those fierce storms arrived while I sat on the Bram Stoker Memorial bench taking in the same view Stoker once gazed upon while writing Dracula. I couldn’t have ordered up a more eerie environment. The physical settings were simply ideal for his Gothic masterpiece.
Using the photos from Whitby and passages taken from chapter six, seven, eight, and fifteen of Stoker’s Dracula, I hope that WELL READ readers might undertake a similar journey to my own. It is that time of year after all with Halloween almost upon us. So, please step off the train at Whiby Station with Stoker’s characters, Mina Murray and Lucy Westenra, two young women totally oblivious to the horror awaiting them. Be witness to the shipwrecked Demeter, which was inspired by the Dimitry, an actual Russian schooner that ran aground in Whitby. View a mysterious black dog, the only survivor of the ship, leap from the bow and dash to the East Cliff and St. Mary’s graveyard. Or at the witching hour, like Mina, discover in shock Lucy sleepwalking on the East Cliff. Frantically run through the streets of Whitby in order to save her. You too can enter Dracula Country. If you dare…
Chapter VI
Mina Murray’s Journal: 24 July. Whitby. – Lucy met me at the station, looking sweeter and lovelier than ever, and we drove up to the house at the Crescent, in which they have rooms. This is a lovely place.
Like his characters Mina Murray and Lucy Westenra, Bram Stoker stayed in the Crescent area in inWhitby which was a popular holiday spot for Victorians.
(Continued from Mina’s journal): The little river, the Esk, runs through a deep valley, which broadens out as it comes near the harbour. A great viaduct runs across, with high piers, through which the view seems, somehow, farther away than it really is. The valley is beautifully green, and is so steep that when you are on the high land on either side you look right across it, unless you are near enough to see down. The houses of the old town – the side away from us –are all red-roofed, and seem piled up one over the other…
(Cont.) Right over the town is the ruin of Whitby Abbey, which was sacked by the Danes, and which is the scene of part of ‘Marmion,’ where the girl was built up in the wall. It is a most noble ruin, of immense size, and full of beautiful and romantic bits; there is a legend that a White Lady is seen one of the windows. Between it and the town there is another church, the parish one, round which is a big graveyard, all full of tombstone.
Mina had a favorite bench in St. Mary’s churchyard where she enjoyed taking in the view of Whitby, listening to the locals gossip, and writing.
(Cont.) There are walks, with seats beside them, through the churchyard; and people go to sit there all day long looking at the beautiful view and enjoying the breeze. I shall come and sit here very often myself and work. Indeed, I am writing now…
(Cont.) The harbour lies below me, with, on the far side, one long granite wall stretching out into the sea, with a curve outwards at the end of it, in the middle of which is a lighthouse. A heavy sea-wall makes runs along outside of it. On the near side, the sea-wall makes an elbow crooked inversely, and its end too has a lighthouse. Between the two piers there is a narrow opening into the harbour, which suddenly widens.
In true Gothic style, Count Dracula’s schooner arrives during a violent storm off the North Sea.
Chapter VII
CUTTING FROM The Dailygraph, 8August (Pasted in Mina Murray’s Journal) From a Correspondent Whitby.
Then without warning the tempest broke. With rapidity which, at the time, seemed incredible, and even afterwards is impossible to realize, the whole aspect of mother nature at once became convulsed. The waves rose in growing fury, each over-topping its fellow, till in a very few minutes the lately glassy sea was like a roaring monster. White-crested waves beat madly on the level sands and rushed up the shelving cliffs; other broke over the piers, and with their spume swept the lanthorns of the lighthouses which rise from the end of either pier of Whitby Harbour.
Dracula shapeshifts into a black dog and races up the 199 steps to the graveyard overlooking the East Cliff:
(Cont.) But, strangest of all, the very instant the shore was touched, an immense dog sprang up on deck from below, as if shot up by the concussion, and running forward, jumped from the bow on to the sand. Making straight for the steep cliff, where the churchyard hangs over the laneway to the East Pier so steeply that some flat tombstones – ‘thruff-steans’or ‘through-stones,’as they call them in them in the Whitby vernacular – actually project over where the sustaining cliff has fallen away, it disappeared into the darkness… Dracula has arrived in Whitby and with him his reign of terror. His first victim—Swales—comes from the last name of a man’s tombstone Stoker found in St. Mary’s graveyard. Later, Lucy, lured outside by Dracula’s hypnotic power, begins sleep-walking from Crescent to the churchyard where he feeds upon her. Lucy eventually dies and turns into one of his vampiric brides.
Chapter VIII
Mina Murray’s Journal 11August, 3 a.m.
The clock was striking one as I was in the Crescent, and there was not a soul in sight. I ran along the North Terrace, but could see no sign of the white figure which I expected. At the edge of the West Cliff above the pier I looked across the harbour to the East Cliff, in hope or fear – I don’t know which – of seeing Lucy in our favorite seat. There was a bright full moon, with heavy black, driving clouds, which threw the whole scene into a fleeting diorama of light and shade as they sailed across. For a moment or two I could see nothing, as the shadow of a cloud obscured St. Mary’s Church and all around it. Then as the cloud passed I could see the ruins of the Abbey coming into view; and as the edge of the narrow band of light as sharp as a sword-cut moved along, the church and the churchyard became gradually visible. Whatever my expectation was, it was not disappointed, for there, on our favourite seat, the silver light of the moon struck a half-reclining figure, snowy white. The coming of the cloud was too quick for me to see much, for shadow shut down on light almost immediately; but it seemed to me as though something dark stood behind the seat where the white figure shone, and bent over it. What it was, whether man or beast, I could not tell; I did not wait to catch another glance but flew down the steep steps to the pier and along by the fish-market to the bridge, which was the only way to reach the East Cliff. The town seemed as dead, for not a soul did I see; I rejoiced that it was so, for I wanted no witness of poor Lucy’s condition. The time and distance seemed endless, and my knees trembled and my breath came laboured as I toiled up the endless steps to the Abbey.
Lucy’s love interest, Dr. Seward, whose proposal she rejects, will also see Dracula at St. Mary’s Church. He will subsequently be the one who drives a stake through Lucy’s heart.
Chapter XV
Dr. Sewards Diary
Suddenly as I turned round, I thought I saw something like a white streak, moving between the two dark yew-trees at the side of the churchyard farthest from the [Lucy’s] tomb; at the same time a dark mass moved from the [Van Helsing] Professor’s side of the ground, and hurriedly went towards it. Then I too moved; but I had to go round headstones and railed-off tombs, and I stumbled over graves. The sky was overcast, and somewhere far off an early cock crew. A little way off, beyond the line of scattered juniper trees, which marked a pathway to the church, a white, dim figure flitted in the direction of the tomb.
Like his two characters, Mina and Lucy, Stoker also had a favorite view of the town and Abbey. A memorial bench was erected to honor him.
If you travel to Dracula Country, make sure you visit the WhitbyAbbey Museum and gift shop which features a first edition signed copy of Dracula. Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a brilliant work of metafiction. The narrative feels authentic as though it occurs in real time with the reader experiencing it firsthand. Its effectiveness is partly due to Stoker writing it as an epistolary novel; it is comprised of his characters’ diary entries, newspaper clippings, and ship logs. But it also owes its realistic feel and its dark atmospheric tone to Stoker’s imagination, particularly to the setting of Whitby from which the author drew his inspiration.
Note: All passages were extracted from the following: Stoker, Bram. Dracula. Sterling Publishing Co., Inc. 1996.
