So what about the ending to this 27 chapter book?
I’ve heard many different opinions on the ending of Dracula. To me, I felt rather disappointed in how this fairly long book had come to an end. Because it was so long and the so many long climaxes throughout the story, which didn’t lead up to much, it felt like it was at least building up to something big and exciting at the end, but then there just wasn’t. Especially because I found the story getting dry again right before the ending, I predicted a “calm before the storm” affect and was still expecting something dramatic/exciting at the end but there wasn’t.
There were a few dramatic moments nearing the end of the book –> Mina and Van Helsing killing Dracula’s 3 women vampires, Jonathan aiding Quincey in “officially” killing Dracula. Jonathan slashes Dracula’s throat while Quincey stabs him Quincey dies from getting stabbed in the side with a knife by someone in a group of Szgany, who wanted to protect Dracula.
However, with those events that you could imagine being quite dramatic, they were glossed over pretty quickly and it wasn’t nearly as exciting as you’d imagine. It quickly went back to details and journals of the characters instead of hearing exactly what was happening when it was going on, which takes a lot of the pull to want to keep reading away.
Something in this ending keeps me thinking… Why is it Quincey who dies? Is there a reason that Bram Stoker made him die right at the end rather then any of the others? It could simply be because at that point in the novel he still wasn’t a big character. For the readers he’s probably the one who is the least attached-to because we never really learned much about him.
One thing that I really liked about the very ending of the novel was Jonathan’s note. His note was written as the conclusion, and it was written 7 years later, which I like because I always feel curious of what’s happening in the character’s lives long after the story. In the note he says that him and Mina had a son, which didn’t surprise me much (for a 7 year stretch). He also mentioned that both Arthur and Dr. Seward were now married.
When I think about it, it’s kind of funny that the book is called “Dracula” because Dracula himself doesn’t make too many appearances and even when the group killed him, which was a big point in the story, it was gone over very quickly and the spotlight was more on Quincey rather then anything else. This book was more about the forming relationship between the group of people, and showing the growing friendships between this group who had little in common to begin with.
