Dracula 5

"I feared she might catch cold sitting there, and asked her to come in and sleep with me, so she came into bed, and lay down beside me; she did not take off her dressing gown, for she said she would only stay a while and then go back to her own bed. As she lay there in my arms, and I in hers the flapping and buffeting came to the window again. She was startled and a little frightened... I could hear her poor dear heart still beating terribly. After a while there was the howl again out in the shrubbery, and shortly after there was a crash at the window, and a lot of broken glass was hurled on the floor. The window blind blew back with the wind that rushed in, and in the aperture of the broken panes there was the head of a great, gaunt grey wolf. Mother cried out in a fright, and struggled up into a sitting posture, and clutched wildly at anything that would help her. Amongst other things, she clutched the wreath of flowers that Dr. Van Helsing insisted on my wearing round my neck, and tore it away from me. For a second or two she sat up, pointing at the wolf, and there was a strange and horrible gurgling in her throat; then she fell over—as if struck with lightning, and her head hit my forehead and made me dizzy for a moment or two. The room and all round seemed to spin round. I kept my eyes fixed on the window, but the wolf drew his head back, and a whole myriad of little specks seemed to come blowing in through the broken window, and wheeling and circling round like the pillar of dust that travellers describe when there is a simoon in the desert. I tried to stir, but there was some spell upon me, and dear mother's poor body, which seemed to grow cold already—for her dear heart had ceased to beat—weighed me down; and I remembered no more for a while."
Chapter 11, Page 157

This is the passage in which Lucy witnesses her mother's death, described in grisly detail. First, the mother lying next to the daughter as thought the daughter was protecting her, and then the mother dying, is symbolic of the daughter being dangerous and a foreshadowing of how Lucy is almost a magnet for danger, and she is becoming that danger herself. The wolf is a tool, used by Dracula as a method of breaking into Lucy's room and frightening the mother into removing her protective garlic necklace. The mother herself has proven before to be a danger to her daughter, by previously removing the garlic in her room, and even in death she causes her danger by freaking out and falling on top of her almost as though she wanted to pin her to the ground. Once Lucy is pinned and incapable of resistance, something resembling a sandstorm flies into the room, compared to a simoon, or a harsh Arabian wind. The entire passage is tailored to effect a mood of horror, and when Lucy finally passes out, the scene immediately, almost physically, stops.

Dracula 4

"...I saw Van Helsing break down. He raised his hands over his head in a sort of mute despair, and then beat his palms together in a helpless way; finally he sat down on a chair, and... began to sob, with loud, dry sobs that seemed to come from the very racking of his heart. Then he raised his arms again, as though appealing to the whole universe. “God! God! God!” he said. “What have we done... that we are so sore beset? Is there fate amongst us still, sent down from the pagan world of old, that such things must be, and in such way? This poor mother, all unknowing, and all for the best as she think, does such thing as lose her daughter body and soul; and we must not tell her... or she die, then both die. Oh, how we are beset! How are all the powers of the devils against us!” Suddenly he jumped to his feet. “Come,” he said, “come, we must see and act. Devils or no devils, or all the devils at once, it matters not; we fight him all the same.”"
Chapter 11, Page 147-148

In this passage, we see a humanity in Van Helsing we have not seen before in the book. Previously he has been very aloof and calculating character, but now he finally expresses his emotions. The author uses simile to describe Van Helsing's emotions, "as though appealing to the whole universe". His dialect in the way he talks is also noticeable: "as she think" instead of "thinks", and "or she die" instead of "dies". He describes the powers they are set against as "pagan" and that fate works against them, as though his actions are actively contested by a manifestation of evil. In reality he is, which is dramatic irony.

Dracula 3

"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... Then as the cloud passed I could see the ruins of the abbey coming into view; and as the edge of a narrow band of light as sharp as a sword-cut moved along, the church and churchyard became gradually visible...the silver light of the moon struck a half-reclining figure, snowy white...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...The town seemed as dead, for not a soul did I see;...it seemed to me as if my feet were weighted with lead, and as though every joint in my body were rusty. When I got almost to the top I could see the seat and the white figure...There was undoubtedly something, long and black, bending over the half-reclining white figure. I called in fright...and something raised a head, and from where I was I could see a white face and red, gleaming eyes."
Chapter VIII, page 102

This passage, where Mina witnesses Lucy under the thrall of Dracula for the first time, is rife with Gothic imagery. The bright moon and shifting clouds, as well as the setting of a crumbling church and graveyard, are staples of Gothic tone. The authors diction makes heavy use of sharp consonants i.e. "as sharp as a sword-cut" and "light of the moon struck...", thus lending the scene a lot of tention and a sense of unease and what might be described as "the need to move quickly". Lucy is consistently described as white, a color with the connotation of innocence and child-like qualities; the count is described as a black figure leaning over the fallen white one, unmistakable imagery of an evil man taking advantage of an innocent girl. The recurring motif of death in this passage, and the metaphor of "a sword-cut", and the similes which Mina uses to describe her body as "weighted with lead", all add more to the mood of fear, tension, and all-around panic of the scene.