Transformations

Another important aspect to vampire stories is the transformation. How does one become a vampire? The answer to this question, as seen in most movies and novels, is that someone becomes a vampire by being bitten by a vampire.

This is what seems to be the case in Dracula. Lucy Westenra, Mina’s best friend, gets into the habit of sleepwalking. One night, Mina finds her gone. She runs around town and when she finds Lucy, there is a large red-eyed figure looming over her. As Mina comes closer, the figure runs off leaving Lucy asleep and unaware of what happened. Mina walks Lucy home and notices that she has two small puncture wounds on her neck near one of the major veins. Over the next few weeks, Lucy starts to weaken. She complains of nightmares and is sometimes frightened of sleep.

Eventually Lucy becomes so weak that her mother becomes concerned. She calls Dr. Seward who notices that Lucy has lost a lot of blood. The doctor is unsure what is happening to her as she shows no signs of anemia. He calls his friend Dr. Van Helsing. He comes and upon examining her, starts to fill the room with garlic. Lucy starts to recover in the days afterwards. Seeing her daughter’s noticeable improvement, Mrs. Westenra removes the garlic despite Van Helsing’s orders.

Van Helsing returns the next morning to find Lucy looking worse that she did before. He and Seward place the garlic back and hope for the best. That night, a wolf breaks into the house and gives Lucy’s mother a fatal heart attack and Lucy loses consciousness. Seward and Van Helsing find them but it is too late. They try to keep Lucy alive, but she dies despite their efforts. As she dies, they notice her face is extremely pale, her canine teeth are elongated, and the puncture wounds on her neck have disappeared.

From what happened, it is obvious that Dracula bit Lucy multiple times. Lucy became weak and eventually died. She appears to have become a vampire by the time she died. The vampire transformation in Dracula appears to require enough blood loss to weaken the victim considerably but leave them to die on their own. I have read many books with transformations similar to this. However, there is one book I have read that claims otherwise. The Cirque du Freak series says that vampires are created when the vampire and the victim exchange blood willingly. Dracula seems to follow the typical pattern as far as transformations are concerned.