In a moment of desperation towards the end of Chapter 4, Jonathan Harker attempts to leave the Castle Dracula but is prevented from doing so by his host, whom Jonathan likens to Judas in a Biblical allusion:
In silence we returned to the library, and after a minute or two I went to my own room. The last I saw of Count Dracula was his kissing his hand to me; with a red light of triumph in his eyes, and with a smile that Judas in hell might be proud of.
Judas was one of Jesus's original 12 apostles—men who lived, traveled, and worked with Jesus, spreading his teachings. These 12 men were also close friends with Jesus, akin to brothers. On the eve of the crucifixion, Judas committed the ultimate betrayal by selling Jesus to the Romans for 30 pieces of silver. When the Romans arrived to take Jesus away for execution, Judas identified him by giving him a kiss—hence Jonathan's reference to Dracula "kissing his hand." This allusion, equating Dracula to Judas, occurs immediately after Dracula refuses to let Jonathan Harker leave. Jonathan sees this as a betrayal; Dracula, after all, had promised that Jonathan could leave when he pleased. For Christians, Judas's betrayal is the gravest offense imaginable. Equating Dracula's actions to Judas's demonstrates the severity of Jonathan's disappointment.
Towards the end of Chapter 6, Stoker uses a combination of foreshadowing, imagery, and simile to generate a sense of dread and foreboding:
Today is a grey day, and the sun as I write is hidden in thick clouds, high over Kettleness. Everything is grey - except the green grass, which seems like an emerald amongst it . . . . Dark figures are on the beach here and there, sometimes half shrouded in mist, and seem "men like trees walking."
Mina's description of the physical landscape of Kettleness - its menacing ambience - creates a mysterious and unsettling image. Like the "dark figures" obscured by mist, the dark events of the future are obscured from both Mina and the reader, though the ominous mood created by this natural imagery foreshadows some series of menacing supernatural events.
Furthermore, the simile/image of "men like trees walking" reinforces the fact that supernatural forces are at work, conjuring up the image of enchanted trees walking up and down the beach. The statement "men like trees walking" is also an allusion to a Biblical passage in the Gospel of Mark, wherein Jesus heals a blind man. This biblical allusion contributes to the foreshadowing in this passage, implying that something that's unclear will soon be revealed.
In a Chapter 10 excerpt from Dr. Seward's diary, Van Helsing alludes to Greek mythology while giving Lucy protections to ward off Dracula:
This is medicinal, but you do not know how. I put [the garlic flowers] in your window, I make a pretty wreath, and hang him round your neck, so that you sleep well. Oh yes! they, like the lotus flower, make your trouble forgotten. It smells so like the waters of Lethe.
In Greek mythology, the Lethe is a river in the underworld, the waters of which cause forgetfulness when drunk. This allusion makes an interesting connection between the work the characters are engaged in and superstitions regarding the afterlife. In order to vanquish Dracula, Van Helsing must fight him using not modern science but techniques derived from ancient superstitions. In likening his medicine (garlic) to the river Lethe, Van Helsing acknowledges that he has had to stray from modern science to find the tools to cure Lucy.
Van Helsing's reference to Lethe takes on a more paternalistic, infantilizing tone when one considers his assertion that the garlic will "make [Lucy's] trouble forgotten." Throughout Lucy's illness up until the moment of her death, Van Helsing does not trust her enough to share with her the particulars of her affliction, nor any important information about vampires. He instead leaves her in the dark, treating her as a little child who would do better to forget and be absolved of responsibility instead of remembering. This infantilization of female protagonists continues throughout the novel.
Towards the end of her life, in a diary entry at the beginning of chapter 11, Lucy likens herself to Ophelia, a character from the Shakespeare play Hamlet:
Well, here I am tonight, and lying like Ophelia in the play, with 'virgin crants and maiden strewments.' I never liked garlic before, but tonight it is delightful!
Considering Ophelia's untimely demise via drowning, it is curious that Lucy should compare herself to that character. Indeed, towards the end of her life, Ophelia goes mad; Lucy's own situation will eventually parallel Ophelia's, as she is stricken with the curse of being a vampire—tantamount to a kind of madness. Both young women die "before their time," subject to the whims of men who exert an excess of power and control over their lives.
As with Renfield's character, it is important to note the association Stoker forms between madness, mental illness, and immorality. Ophelia "goes mad" at the end of her life and drowns herself; Renfield worships Dracula as his master until he is murdered, in the meantime facilitating Mina's injury; and Lucy becomes a vampire, preying on innocent children throughout the English countryside. All three characters exhibit a kind of "madness" and are consequently either dehumanized or killed.
In Chapter 13, Seward notes the devotion of a young maid to the remains of her mistress, Miss Lucy; in doing so, he alludes to the Bible:
Here was a poor girl putting aside the terrors which she naturally had of death to go watch alone by the bier of the mistress whom she loved, so that the poor clay might not be lonely till laid to eternal rest.
In the Bible, people are often described as "dust" or "clay"; having been made from dust by God, humans' bodies will someday return to dust, while their souls pass on to the heavenly realm. Stoker references this biblical assumption, describing Lucy's remains as the "poor clay" from whence her soul is lately departed. This allusion is important in establishing a distinction between the soul and the physical body. Though the latter may be corrupted, may wither and decay, the soul can remain pure and untarnished. Given that Lucy later turns into a vampire, a process which corrupts her earthly body, it is all the more important that Stoker maintain this religious distinction between spiritual and physical. Allowing for such separation, Lucy's soul remains pure, permitting a narrative wherein four of the male protagonists rescue her soul from the supernatural evil inhabiting her earthly body.
Mina Harker asserts both her dominance and her intelligence in Chapter 14 by handing Van Helsing first the shorthand version of her notes (which she knows he will not be able to read). The temptation she feels to assert this dominance is likened to Eve being tempted by forbidden knowledge in the Garden of Eden:
I could not resist the temptation of mystifying him a bit - I suppose it is some of the taste of the original apple that still remains in our mouths - so I handed him the shorthand diary.
Just as Eve was forbidden by God to eat an apple from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, Mina is prevented by social, cultural, and institutional forces from asserting her intellectual agency at a man's expense. Mina is a heroine with surprising agency and intellect, given the four male protagonists she must share the narrative with, as well as the fact that she is written by a man (Stoker) at the turn of the twentieth century. This biblical allusion places said agency in a morally grey area, demonstrating that Mina doubts her own right to assert herself. The temptation to claim her own intelligence in a male-dominated space is highlighted as mischievous, yet necessary; just as the position of women was broadly contentious at the turn of the twentieth century (when Stoker wrote this novel, in 1897), so is Mina's power and intelligence contentious throughout Dracula.
In Chapter 16, after blocking the passageway to Lucy's tomb, Seward, Van Helsing, Quincey, and Arthur corner Lucy (in vampire form). Upon viewing her changed appearance, Seward makes an apt allusion:
Never did I see such baffled malice on a face; and never, I trust, shall such ever be seen again by mortal eyes. The beautiful color became livid, the eyes seemed to throw out sparks of hell-fire, the brows were wrinkled as though the folds of the flesh were the coils of Medusa's snakes, and the lovely, bloodstained mouth grew to an open square.
Seward describes the furrows on Lucy's brow as the "coils of Medusa's snakes," alluding to the Greek myth of the monstrous Medusa. This simile/allusion also plays off of the overt sexuality and impurity of the female vampire Lucy (as well as the other female vampires): in the myth, Athena turns Medusa's hair into snakes because she slept with Poseidon in Athena's temple. In other versions of the tale, Medusa was raped by Poseidon and Athena turned her hair into snakes as a form of protection. Medusa's snakes are, in either case, associated with sexuality—not only that, but impurity. Undoubtedly Seward intended the comparison as negative, dismissing the immoral vampire in tandem with Medusa (regardless of her circumstances).
