Abraham Van Helsing

Professor Abraham Van Helsing, a fictional character from the 1897 gothic horror novel '' Dracula'', is an aged Dutch polymath doctor with a wide range of interests and accomplishments, partly attested by the string of letters that follows his name: " MD, D.Ph., D.Litt., etc.", indicating a wealth of experience, education and expertise. He is a Doctor, Professor, Lawyer, Philosopher, Scientist and Metaphysic. The character is best known through many adaptations of the story as a vampire slayer, monster hunter and the archnemesis of Count Dracula, and the prototypical and the archetypical parapsychologist in subsequent works of paranormal fiction.

''Dracula''

In the novel, Professor Van Helsing is called in by his former student, John Seward, to assist with the mysterious illness of Lucy Westenra. Van Helsing's friendship with Seward is based in part upon an unknown prior event in which Van Helsing suffered a grievous wound, and Seward saved his life by sucking out the gangrene. It is Van Helsing who first realizes that Lucy is the victim of a vampire, and he guides Seward and his friends in their efforts to save Lucy.

Van Helsing had a son who died. He says that his son, had he lived, would have had a similar appearance to Lucy's suitor Arthur Holmwood ("My heart bleed for that poor boy, that dear boy, so of the age of mine own boy had I been so blessed that he live, and with his hair and eyes the same"). Consequently, Van Helsing developed a particular fondness for Holmwood. Van Helsing's wife went insane from grief after their son's death, but as a Catholic, he refuses to divorce her ("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").

Van Helsing is one of the few characters in the novel who is fully physically described in one place. In chapter 14, Mina Harker describes him as:

Van Helsing's personality is described by John Seward, his former student, thus:

In the novel, Van Helsing is described as having what is apparently a thick foreign accent, in that he speaks in broken English and he uses German phrases such as "Mein Gott" ( en, My God).

Adaptations of the novel have tended to play up Van Helsing's role as a vampire expert, sometimes to the extent that it is depicted as his major occupation. In the novel, however, Dr. Seward requests Van Helsing's assistance simply because Lucy's affliction has him baffled and Van Helsing "knows as much about obscure diseases as anyone in the world".

Development

In an 1897 interview in '' The British Weekly'', Stoker said that Van Helsing was "founded on a real character". In Stoker's 1898 introduction to the Swedish and Iclandic versions of ''Dracula'', he writes from an in-universe perspective that "the highly regarded scientist, who appears under a pseudonym here, may likewise be too famous throughout the educated world for his real name − which I prefer not to mention − to remain hidden from the public, especially from those people who have learned firsthand to appreciate and respect his brilliant mind and masterly skill, though they no more adhere to his views on life than I do."

Literary researcher Roger Dobson reported that Van Helsing may have been inspired by Sheridan Le Fanu's Dr Martin Hesselius from '' Carmilla'' (1871–72), "who makes little comment upon the strange narrative he introduces".

Narrative

Count Dracula, having acquired ownership of the Carfax estate near London through solicitor Jonathan Harker, moves to the estate and begins menacing England. His victims include Lucy Westenra, who is on holiday in Whitby. The aristocratic girl has suitors such as John Seward, Arthur Holmwood, and Quincey Morris, and has a best friend in Mina Murray, Harker's fiancée. Seward, who works as a doctor in an insane asylum – where one of the patients, the incurably mad Renfield, has a psychic connection to Dracula – contacts Professor Van Helsing about Lucy's peculiar condition. Van Helsing, recognizing marks upon her neck, eventually deduces that she has been losing blood from a vampire bite. He administers multiple blood transfusions. Van Helsing, Seward, Arthur, and Morris each donate blood to her, but each night she continues to lose blood. He prescribes her garlic, makes a necklace of garlic flowers for her, and hangs garlic about her room. He also gives her a crucifix to wear around her neck. Lucy's demise was brought by her mother, who cleared the room of garlic and opened the window for fresh air; a servant had stolen the gold crucifix. Lucy dies and after the funeral returns as a vampire, seeking out children. Eventually, Van Helsing, Arthur, Morris and Seward free the undead Lucy from her vampiric curse: Arthur uses a hammer to drive the stake through her heart and Van Helsing cuts off her head and puts garlic in her mouth.

Mina, now married to Harker, becomes increasingly worried about his brain fever. Van Helsing reviews his journal and Harker's health returns when he learns that his experiences in Transylvania were real. Mina discovers that various letters and accounts provide further intelligence on Dracula's movements, and shares these with Harker, Seward, Morris, and Van Helsing. They learn that Dracula's residence in Carfax is near Seward's, and Van Helsing's research reveals Dracula's weaknesses and strengths. Seward and Van Helsing also write to a university acquaintance to aid in further research. Staying at Seward's residence to better plan strategies in their efforts to deal with Dracula, they have frequent meetings and each member is assigned duties. At a later meeting a bat is seen at a window.

To destroy Dracula and prevent further spread of evil, the party enters his estate at Carfax and as a group encounters him for the first time. They discover that he has been purchasing properties in and around London, with plans to distribute 50 boxes of Transylvanian earth to them, used as graves so each property would become a safe lair. They visit these lairs and place sacramental bread in the boxes of the earth to "sterilize" them, preventing Dracula from further using them. Dracula entices Renfield to invite him into Seward's residence. Renfield is found critically injured by Seward and Van Helsing who operate on him, and Renfield informs them that Dracula went to see Mina. They go to Mina's room and find Harker hypnotized while Dracula is giving Mina the ' Vampire's Baptism of Blood', cursing her and the group for plotting against him. The party uses sacred items to repel Dracula, who flees into a different room as a vapor. Dracula then destroys all the texts Mina had produced, except for one which was hidden, and breaks Renfield's neck before leaving.

Van Helsing places a wafer of sacramental bread upon Mina's forehead to bless her but it burns her flesh, leaving a scar. Mina, feeling that she is now connected with Dracula, asks Van Helsing to hypnotize her before dawn, the only time she feels she could freely speak. Through this hypnosis they learn that Mina has a telepathic link with Dracula, that she could tell everything he hears and feels, which could be used to track his movements. Mina agrees that any plans should be kept from her for fear that Dracula could read her thoughts. The group has additional encounters with Dracula as they continue to search for his residences throughout London and sterilize the boxes. Learning that his final grave is aboard a boat, Van Helsing deduces that Dracula is fleeing back to his castle.

When the party pursues Dracula to Transylvania, they split into groups. While Mina and Van Helsing travel straight to Dracula's castle, the others attempt to ambush the boat on which Dracula is a passenger. Van Helsing's influence over Mina diminishes each day, and her behavior changes as she sleeps more during the day, loses her appetite for food, and ceases to write in her journal. He finds that she cannot cross a circle of crumbled sacramental bread. Later, Dracula's vampiric wives approach their camp but they too are unable to cross into the circle of bread. Failing at their attempts to lure Van Helsing and Mina out of the circle, they flee back to Dracula's castle just before sunrise. Van Helsing binds Mina at a cave to keep her from danger as he goes into Dracula's castle to kill the vampires.

As Van Helsing runs through the castle searching its rooms, he finds Dracula's empty tomb and the three female vampires he saw earlier. He begins to do his operation on the first vampire but finds himself entranced by her beauty and unable to bring himself to harm her. In his feelings of enchantment, he even contemplates love for her. He is broken out of this enchantment when he hears a "soul wail" from Mina, awakening him. He proceeds to drive stakes into their hearts and sever their heads, one by one.

Van Helsing returns to Mina and they see the rest of their party as they chase a group of gypsies down the Borgo Pass and corner them. Armed with knives and firearms they overtake the gypsies and open the final box of Dracula; Jonathan Harker brings his Kukri knife down on Dracula's throat as the bowie knife of Quincey Morris simultaneously impales Dracula's heart in the final moments of daylight. At this moment Dracula's body crumbles to dust. After the struggle, Quincey is seen to have been fatally wounded.

Six years later, Van Helsing takes a grandfatherly role in regard to the young Quincey Harker, Jonathan and Mina's son.

Equipment

Van Helsing is seen utilising many tools to aid him and his party in fending off Dracula, warding off vampires and in general defeating the undead:
* Skeleton keys used for lock picking to open the doors to many of Dracula's lairs located throughout London.
* Wreath of withered garlic blossoms
* Silver crucifix
* Sacred wafer brought from Amsterdam contained in an envelope or crushed and sprinkled around him in a circle as a protective barrier.
* Electric lamps which could be attached or secured against the chest.
* Revolver and knife for use against enemies weaker than Dracula.
* The branch of a wild rose could be placed on top of a coffin containing a vampire; immobilising it.
* Mountain ash used to repel the undead.
* Wooden stake and hammer to pierce a vampire's heart.
* Golden crucifix necklace, given to Lucy.

On screen

Film adaptations of the novel

* '' Nosferatu, a Symphony of Horror'' (1922) was the first film version of ''Dracula''. Although it followed the same basic plot as the novel, names were changed: Van Helsing is 'Professor Bulwer' ( John Gottowt) and appears only in a few scenes. Unlike the book, he is a friend of 'Thomas Hutter' (the film's version of Jonathan Harker) before he meets ' Count Orlok' (a renamed Count Dracula), and he never meets the vampire face to face.
* In the initial 1931 Universal version of '' Dracula'' starring Bela Lugosi as the Count, Professor Van Helsing was portrayed by the actor Edward Van Sloan, who had previously played the part opposite Lugosi on stage. Van Sloan was the only cast member to reprise his role in the sequel ''Dracula's Daughter'' (1936).
* Eduardo Arozamena portrayed Van Helsing in Universal’s simultaneously shot Spanish '' Dracula'' (1931).

* Peter Cushing's Doctor Van Helsing in the initial 1958 Hammer '' Dracula'' movie and its 1960 sequel ''The Brides of Dracula'' differed from the novel's in that the actor portrayed the character as a visibly younger man (as did Christopher Lee as the Count), and also one whose main vocation appears to be vampire hunting. His first name is never mentioned, though in the later Hammer Dracula films set in the 1970s (which apparently exist on a different timeline) Lee's Dracula battles Cushing's 'Lorrimer Van Helsing', a grandson of a previous vampire hunter, who appears as 'Lawrence Van Helsing' (also Cushing) in the prologue to '' Dracula A.D. 1972''. In the final Hammer Dracula production '' The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires'' (set mainly in 1904) Cushing again plays the original Van Helsing from the Hammer series.
* Herbert Lom played Van Helsing in ''Count Dracula'' (1970). At the time of its production, the movie was declared to be the closest adaptation of the novel, though it actually differs from the plot of the book significantly.
* Walter Ladengast played Van Helsing in ''Nosferatu the Vampyre'' (1979), a remake of the 1922 film.
* John Badham's 1979 version of '' Dracula'' saw Laurence Olivier portray Van Helsing as a frail old man whose daughter becomes one of the undead, drawing him into a conflict with Frank Langella's Count that eventually costs the Professor his life.
* Anthony Hopkins portrayed Professor Van Helsing in '' Bram Stoker's Dracula'' in 1992. Once again implied to be a knowledgeable, and immensely experienced vampire hunter, this Van Helsing often comes across as somewhat eccentric and unbalanced, casually discussing how to kill the un-dead despite the brutal methods involved, and displaying ruthlessness when dispatching Dracula's brides, but he nevertheless leads a group of friends to victory over the Count.
* In the 1995 spoof film '' Dracula: Dead and Loving It'', the movie's director Mel Brooks plays Professor Van Helsing.
* David Moroni portrayed Van Helsing in '' Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary'' (2002), a black and white movie version of the Royal Winnipeg ballet adaptation of the novel.
* Rutger Hauer in ''Dracula 3D'' (2012). In this version it is revealed that he used to control an insane asylum called Carfax, and it was there that he first encountered vampires.
* Keith Reay in ''Dracula Reborn'' (2012). The setting is modernized to present-day California and Van Helsing here is a relatively young and brutal vampire hunter, who is ready to kill people if they get in the way of vanquishing vampires.
* Christine Prouty in ''Dracula: The Original Living Vampire.'' Here, Van Helsing is gender-swapped, now being a detective who is Mina’s girlfriend, and a friend of chemist Jonathan Harker and Doctor Jack Seward. She doesn’t believe in vampires and always relies on logic in contrast to Harker, who is convinced that there are vampires among them. She only believes this when she is forced to near the end of the film, and even then she is reluctant. After the battle with Dracula, it is revealed she has become a vampire.

TV adaptations of the novel

* Bernard Archard in '' Dracula'' (1968)
* Ota Sklenčka in '' Hrabe Drakula'' (1971)
* Nehemiah Persoff in ''Dracula'' (1973)
* Nigel Davenport in '' Bram Stoker's Dracula'' (1974)
* Frank Finlay in the BBC
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