A famous vampire, a real prince from Romania — and a love story that someone invented for the cinema.
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These are the new words. Match each word (1–8) to its meaning (A–H). Say your answers out loud — "I think 1 is D" — then check.
1 = D (a castle) · 2 = G (blood) · 3 = A (a coffin) · 4 = H (a shadow)
5 = B (to bite) · 6 = E (to invite) · 7 = C (a lawyer) · 8 = F (a mirror)
Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992). Read each part. Then try the questions from memory, and talk about the last one. (There are spoilers — that is fine, we want to talk about it.)
The film starts in the year 1462. A prince from Romania, called Vlad Dracula, goes away to fight a war. He wins. But his enemies send a false message to his home: they say that he is dead. His wife, Elisabeta, believes the message. She is so sad that she jumps into the river and dies.
When Dracula comes home, a priest tells him that his wife's soul cannot go to heaven. Dracula is very angry with God. He says terrible words in his own church, and he drinks blood there. From that day, he is not a man any more. He is a vampire, and he lives for four hundred years.
Now it is 1897. A young English lawyer, Jonathan Harker, travels to Transylvania. He must help Count Dracula buy some houses in London. Harker arrives at the castle. The Count is polite, but strange: nobody sees him in the day. Then the Count sees a photo of Harker's girlfriend, Mina — and he stops. Her face is the face of Elisabeta. The Count leaves Harker as a prisoner in the castle. He puts boxes of Romanian earth on a ship and sails to England.
1. Why does Elisabeta die in 1462?
2. What does the Count see in Harker's photo?
1. Dracula's enemies send a false message. They say he is dead. Elisabeta believes it, and she jumps into the river.
2. He sees Mina, Harker's girlfriend. She has the same face as his dead wife Elisabeta.
In London, Dracula hunts at night. Mina's rich young friend, Lucy, becomes ill. She walks in her sleep. She loses a lot of blood, and no doctor understands why. So the doctors ask an old professor, Abraham Van Helsing, for help. He looks at Lucy and he says the word: vampire.
Van Helsing explains the rules. A vampire has no shadow in a mirror — the glass shows nothing. A vampire is afraid of the cross. And a vampire cannot come into your house: he must wait outside until somebody invites him in. Lucy dies. Then she comes back as a vampire, and the men who love her must stop her.
In the day, Dracula looks like a handsome young man. He meets Mina in the street in London. He is kind and interesting and very sad, and Mina likes him a lot. Then she hears news: Jonathan is alive! He is safe in a convent in Romania. Mina travels there and marries him.
1. What are three rules about vampires in the film?
2. Why does Mina leave London?
1. A vampire does not appear in a mirror; he is afraid of the cross; and he cannot enter a house — somebody must invite him in.
2. She hears that Jonathan is alive in a convent in Romania. She goes there and marries him.
Mina comes back to London with her husband. Van Helsing and his friends find Dracula's boxes of earth and destroy them. Then Dracula comes to Mina. He tells her everything he has done. Mina is angry and very sad about Lucy — but she says that she loves him too. She asks him to make her a vampire. He starts, but then he stops. He does not want the same terrible life for her.
The men follow Dracula back to Romania. It is winter and there is deep snow. Near the castle they find the cart with his coffin, and there is a fight. One of the men, Quincey Morris, dies there. Dracula is badly hurt.
Mina takes him into the old church — the same church where he said those terrible words in 1462. He becomes a young man again, and he asks her for peace. Mina puts the knife into his heart, and it is finished. The mark on her face disappears. Is this a happy ending or a sad one? The film lets you decide.
1. Why does Dracula stop, and not make Mina a vampire?
2. Who kills Dracula at the end?
1. He does not want her to have the same terrible life that he has. He stops, even though she asked him to continue.
2. Mina does. She kills him in the old church, the same place where he said the terrible words in 1462.
This film is full of rules and habits: what a vampire does every night, what the villagers do every evening. For facts and habits, English uses the present simple.
Put the verb in brackets into the present simple. Remember the -s!
1. Dracula (live) in a big castle in Transylvania.
2. Jonathan (work) for a lawyer's office in London.
3. Mina and Lucy (write) letters to each other.
1. lives (he / she / it → add -s)
2. works (he → add -s)
3. write (they → no -s)
Use don't or doesn't and the verb in brackets.
1. Dracula (not / eat) normal food.
2. Vampires (not / come) out in the day.
3. Lucy (not / feel) well.
1. doesn't eat (he → doesn't + base verb)
2. don't come (they → don't + base verb)
3. doesn't feel (she → doesn't + base verb)
Facts, negatives and one question. Read it out loud when you finish.
Jonathan writes in his diary: "The Count (not / eat) with me. He (sleep) all day and he (work) all night. The village people (not / go) near the castle. they (know) something about him?"
doesn't eat · sleeps · works · don't go · Do … know
Remember: add -s for he/she/it, but after don't, doesn't, do and does the verb has no -s.
Everybody says the same thing: "Dracula is based on a real prince, Vlad the Impaler." It is a famous fact. But it is mostly not true — and the story of how people started to believe it is very interesting.
Vlad III was a real ruler of Wallachia, a country that is part of Romania today. He lived from about 1431 to 1476, and he was the ruler three different times. He fought a war against the Turkish armies of the Ottoman Empire, and he punished his enemies in very cruel ways. His name comes from his father, who was a knight of the Order of the Dragon. Dracul means "the dragon", so Dracula means "son of Dracul". But in the Romanian language today, dracul also means "the devil".
We know exactly what the writer Bram Stoker read, because his notes for the book still exist. They are in a museum library in Philadelphia, in the United States. On 8 August 1890, on holiday in the English town of Whitby, Stoker borrowed an old book from the library. It was written in 1820 by a British diplomat called William Wilkinson.
In that book, Stoker found a few lines about a ruler called "Dracula" who crossed the river Danube and attacked Turkish soldiers. And he found a small note at the bottom of the page: "Dracula" in the Wallachian language means "devil". Stoker copied that note. Before this, his vampire had a different name: "Count Wampyr". He crossed it out and wrote "Dracula". He liked the name because it sounded like the devil — that is all. Vlad the Impaler is not in Stoker's notes at all. The old book does not even say his first name.
Stoker never visited Romania. He never saw Transylvania. He built it from books in libraries in England. The connection with Vlad came much later. In 1972, two American history professors wrote a very popular book called In Search of Dracula. It put the prince and the vampire together, and millions of people read it. Later, the two writers said they were not so sure any more. But it was too late: everybody believed it.
Then came the films — and Coppola's film of 1992 is the big one. The wife Elisabeta, the year 1462, the idea that Mina is his lost love: none of this is in Bram Stoker's book. Somebody invented it for the cinema. Today, this invented love story is what most people in the world think "Dracula" means.
Do all three tasks out loud. Use the timer to keep talking.
Tell the story of Bram Stoker's Dracula in your own words. Use these steps to help you: 1462, the false message and the death of Elisabeta → a lawyer travels to the castle → the photo of Mina → London, Lucy and Professor Van Helsing → the end in the old church.
Try to use five key words (castle, blood, coffin, shadow, bite, invite, lawyer, mirror) and the present simple for the rules: "he sleeps in the day", "he doesn't come in until you invite him".
In the film, Dracula does terrible things — but he is also very sad, because he lost his wife. Is he a monster, or a sad man? Can we feel sorry for him? Say what you think and why.
Talk about stories that people believe. Use the present simple.
Not sure what to say? Choose one: