Dracula Madness Quotes

When I found that I was a prisoner a sort of wild feeling came over me. I rushed up and down the stairs, trying every door and peering out of every window I could find; but after a little the conviction of my helplessness overpowered all other feelings. When I look back after a few hours I think I must have been mad for the time, for I behaved much as a rat does in a trap.

– Bram Stoker

Dracula, Chapter 3. Jonathan is hit with the realization that Count Dracula is keeping him prisoner in the castle and there is no way out for him. For a time he was overcome by a madness, like a rat in a trap.

Then I stopped and looked at the Count. There was a mocking smile on the bloated face which seemed to drive me mad. This was the being I was helping to transfer to London, where, perhaps, for centuries to come he might, amongst its teeming millions, satiate his lust for blood, and create a new and ever-widening circle of semi-demons to batten on the helpless. The very thought drove me mad.

– Bram Stoker

Dracula, Chapter 4. Jonathan is looking at Dracula lying in his box. He is very troubled that he is helping this creature to move from his base in Transylvania to London and expand his power, creating a new monarchy of vampires to prey on the blood of the English.

Then this so sweet maid is a polyandrist, and me, with my poor wife dead to me, but alive by Church’s law, though no wits, all gone – even I, who am faithful husband to this now-no-wife, am bigamist.

– Bram Stoker

Dracula, Chapter 13. After Arthur compares the transfusion of blood to Lucy to marriage, Van Helsing suggests that Lucy has practiced polyandry (a woman with more than one husband) because she has received blood from four men, including Van Helsing. Van Helsing’s own wife went insane from grief after their son’s death, but as a Catholic he will not divorce her.

You don’t know what you do by keeping me here. I am speaking from the depths of my heart, of my very soul. You don’t know whom you wrong, or how, and I may not tell. Woe is me! I may not tell. By all you hold sacred, by all you hold dear, by your love that is lost, by your hope that lives, for the sake of the Almighty, take me out of this and save my soul from guilt! Can’t you hear me, man? Can’t you understand? Will you never learn? Don’t you know that I am sane and earnest now, that I am no lunatic in a mad fit, but a sane man fighting for his soul? Oh, hear me! Hear me! Let me go, let me go, let me go!

– Bram Stoker

Dracula, Chapter 18. Renfield makes a very articulate and sane-like plea to Dr. Seward to release him from the lunatic asylum, not for his own sake for that of others. He warns that there will be dire consequences if he is not released. This foreshadows something bad to come, if he continues to be confined in the asylum. He says this not as a threat, but as the words of a man who does not wish to be guilty of something. Renfield fears that Dracula may manipulate him and cause him to do harm to Mina.

You will, I trust, Dr. Seward, do me the justice to bear in mind, later on, that I did what I could to convince you tonight.

– Bram Stoker

Dracula, Chapter 18. Renfield to Dr. Seward, asking to be pardoned from the lunatic asylum, which Seward refuses. Renfield begs to be let go, adding that he cannot say why, but that he is now a "sane man fighting for his soul." He actually wants to protect Mina and to escape the manipulations of Dracula. Renfield hints that bad things will result from the refusal to release him.
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