Chapter 6 - Mina Murray's Journal

This chapter includes the journal entries of Mina (Jonathan's fiancee) and of Dr Seward who was one of the men who proposed to Lucy in the previous chapter. Mina's first journal entries show that she has moved to Whitby to stay with her friend Lucy for a little while. She describes the area and finds a lovely place to sit, overlooking the harbour. It is here that she meets the old man, who she asks questions about some local legends and myths but he says that he doesn't believe in any of them. He also tells Mina and Lucy about the graves that don't have any bodies in them because they have been lost at sea. This is followed by Dr Seward's diary, which shows his continual observation of Renfield who has become obsessed with animals. He has begun to catch flies and eat some of them. Then he catches spiders and feeds the flies to them, then he catches some sparrows and feeds the spiders to them. He then asks Dr Seward for a kitten, that he obviously intends to use to kill his sparrows but Dr Seward denies his request. The next day the sparrows are gone and there are some feathers scattered around his room, when asked what's happened he says "they all flew away". Later that day he is sick and more feathers are found in it, giving more evidence to the fact that he himself has eaten his sparrows. Dr Seward comes to the conclusion that Renfield is a homicidal maniac and considers experimenting to see how far he would have gone if he'd met his demand of a kitten and gone further. After this, it returns to Mina's journal and she says of her worries for Jonathan who hasn't written to her for ages. This sets up the return of Jonathan's story very well as you now see the fear for his safety from another point of view (his fiancee). Then she goes back to her seat near the harbour and is once again approached by the old man who apologizes for his earlier behaviour and comments he made about the dead. He talks about not being scared of death himself and then shakes Mina's hand and leaves. She is then approached by the coastguard who is looking out at a Russian boat behaving very weirdly as a storm rapidly approaches.