Abraham Van Helsing

"van Helsing" redirects here. For other uses, see van Helsing (disambiguation).
Abraham van Helsing
Dracula character
Created by Bram Stoker
Information
Aliases van Helsing
Professor van Helsing
Dr. van Helsing
Gender Male
Occupation Professor, doctor, lawyer, vampire hunter
Religion Roman Catholic
Nationality Dutch

Professor Abraham van Helsing is a character from the 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula. Van Helsing is a Dutch doctor with a wide range of interests and accomplishments, partly attested by the string of letters that follows his name: "M.D., D.Ph., D.Litt., etc." The character is best known as a vampire hunter and monster hunter, and the archenemy of Count Dracula.

Dracula

Main article: Dracula

In the novel, van Helsing is called in by his former student, Dr. 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 Dr. Seward and his friends in their efforts to save Lucy.

According to Leonard Wolf's annotations to the novel, van Helsing had a son who died. Van Helsing says that his son, had he lived, would have had a similar appearance to another character, Arthur Holmwood. Consequently, Van Helsing developed a particular fondness for Holmwood. Van Helsing's wife went insane 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 describes him as:

“ a man of medium height, strongly built, with his shoulders set back over a broad, deep chest and a neck well balanced on the trunk as the head is on the neck. The poise of the head strikes me at once as indicative of thought and power. The head is noble, well-sized, broad, and large behind the ears. The face, clean-shaven, shows a hard, square chin, a large resolute, mobile mouth, a good-sized nose, rather straight, but with quick, sensitive nostrils, that seem to broaden as the big bushy brows come down and the mouth tightens. The forehead is broad and fine, rising at first almost straight and then sloping back above two bumps or ridges wide apart, such a forehead that the reddish hair cannot possibly tumble over it, but falls naturally back and to the sides. Big, dark blue eyes are set widely apart, and are quick and tender or stern with the man's moods. ”

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

“ He is a seemingly arbitrary man, this is because he knows what he is talking about better than any one else. He is a philosopher and a metaphysician, and one of the most advanced scientists of his day, and he has, I believe, an absolutely open mind. This, with an iron nerve, a temper of the ice-brook, and indomitable resolution, self-command, and toleration exalted from virtues to blessings, and the kindliest and truest heart that beats, these form his equipment for the noble work that he is doing for mankind, work both in theory and practice, for his views are as wide as his all-embracing sympathy.[1] ”

In the novel van Helsing is described with what is apparently a thick foreign accent, in that his English is broken, and he uses German phrases like, "Mein Gott" (My God).

Adaptations of the novel have tended to play up van Helsing's role as the vampire professional-expert, sometimes to the extent that it is depicted as his major occupation. The novel, however, gives no support for such interpretations. 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 any one in the world". Indeed, van Helsing takes too much time (weeks and months) to recognise Lucy's illness, and seems to have no practical knowledge about vampires. Until her funeral, he tells no one his theory of Lucy's death.

Count Dracula, having acquired ownership of England’s Carfax estate through solicitor Jonathan Harker, moved to the estate and began menacing England. His victims included 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, Jonathan Harker’s fiancée. Seward, who worked as a doctor in an insane asylum — where one of the patients, the incurably mad Renfield, has a psychic connection to Dracula — contacts van Helsing about Lucy Westenra’s peculiar loss of blood. Van Helsing, recognizing the mark of the vampire, tries to save Lucy, but she dies and returns as a vampire. Eventually, van Helsing and a heartbroken Arthur destroy the vampiric Lucy.

Van Helsing and his band of vampire hunters pursue Dracula back to Transylvania. There, they chase him down the Borgo Pass and corner him. Armed with knives, Jonathan Harker and Quincey Morris slit Dracula's throat and impale his heart. Dracula's body then crumbles to dust.

Later, van Helsing takes a grandfatherly role in regard to the young Quincey Harker, Jonathan and Mina's son.

Film adaptations

Nosferatu, a Symphony of Horror 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 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 never meets the vampire face to face.

Peter Cushing's character in the Hammer movies does not have the first name "Abraham" as his case reads J. van Helsing, as seen in The Brides of Dracula. In the series of Hammer Dracula films set in the 1970s, Dracula battles Lorrimar van Helsing, a grandson of the original vampire hunter, who appears as Lawrence van Helsing in the prologue to Dracula AD 1972. In The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires Cushing plays the original van Helsing from the Hammer series.

Anthony Hopkins portrays van Helsing in Bram Stoker's Dracula in 1992. Already implied to be an experienced vampire hunter. He often comes across as insane, casually discussing how to kill the un-dead despite the brutal methods involved, as well as his ruthless methods when dispatching Dracula's brides, but he nevertheless leads the group to victory over Dracula's forces.

Christopher Plummer portrayed Professor Abraham van Helsing in Dracula 2000 (he had previously appeared as a vampire hunter, Professor Paris Catalano, in Vampire in Venice). After defeating Count Dracula (Gerard Butler), van Helsing finds that the vampire lord cannot die in the conventional means of destroying a vampire and he only succeeded in paralysing him in a deathlike state. Knowing that Dracula would inevitably rise again, van Helsing imprisoned the vampire beneath his Carfax Abbey estate, using leeches to dilute Dracula's blood and transfuse it into himself as a means of preserving his own life until he can find a means of destroying Dracula. This has the unintentional side-effect of creating a link between Dracula and van Helsing's daughter. When Dracula escapes after his coffin is stolen, van Helsing's daughter and his assistant are able to use this connection to deduce Dracula's true identity and defeat him after the elder van Helsing's death.

Hugh Jackman played Gabriel van Helsing, the eponymous hero of Van Helsing (2004), loosely based on Bram Stoker's character. Having been found on the steps of a church seven years ago with total amnesia, Gabriel hunts monsters for a secret organization made up of the world's religions (known as the Knights of the Holy Order) to rid the world of evil "that the rest of mankind has no idea exists", although he is the most wanted man in Europe for his conspicuous actions. In the movie he is sent to Transylvania to kill Count Dracula. When he arrives, Dracula tells Gabriel that they have already met and have quite a history together, with Dracula revealing over the course of the film that van Helsing was the one who originally murdered him, as well as claiming ownership of a distinctive ring that van Helsing has worn as long as he can remember. It is implied that Gabriel is actually the angel Gabriel, with vague references to Dracula's murderer as the "Left Hand of God".

Notable actors to have portrayed van Helsing in film adaptations of Dracula include:

Appearances in other media

Novels

In the 2009 Dacre Stoker novel Dracula the Un-dead, van Helsing is now a 75-year-old man with heart problems, having apparently been disgraced in the medical profession for deaths caused by improper blood transfusions (Although he defends his reputation by arguing that nobody knew about blood types until much later); he was also briefly a suspect in the Jack the Ripper murders due to his knowledge of anatomy and reputation for mutilating corpses for unspecified reasons. He later becomes a vampire himself after a battle with Dracula.

In Kim Newman's series Anno Dracula, van Helsing has failed to kill Dracula. As a result, the vampire lord has conquered the United Kingdom after marrying Queen Victoria and becoming her Prince Consort. Van Helsing, meanwhile, was killed at the hands of Dracula, and his head is displayed at Buckingham Palace.

In Fangland by John Marks, the re-imagined van Helsing is split into two separate characters, namely Clementine Spence and Austen Trotta. He also appears in the Department 19 series by Will Hill.

Comics

Dracula and Rachel van Helsing: The Tomb of Dracula #40 (Jan. 1976). Art by Gene Colan and Tom Palmer.

Abraham van Helsing was also portrayed in the The Tomb of Dracula Marvel Comics series, which was based on the characters of Bram Stoker's novel.

In the Marvel Comics miniseries X-Men: Apocalypse vs. Dracula, van Helsing joins forces with the immortal mutant Apocalypse and his worshipers, Clan Akkaba, in order to destroy Dracula, their common enemy. It is noted that van Helsing had encountered Apocalypse before and previously believed him a vampire.

In Italian comic book Martin Mystère, van Helsing's name is Richard. He became a vampire after being bitten by one, and after destroying Dracula he came to London to solve the case of Jack the Ripper.

Media involving descendants of van Helsing

There have been numerous works of fiction depicting descendants of van Helsing carrying on the family tradition.

Films

Television

Books and stories

Comics

Games

Trivia

In 2003 film League of Extraordinary Gentlemen the chemist Mina Harker, quotes in the script A. van Helsing while explaining her transformation into a vampire :

"My husband was Jonathan Harker. With a professor named van Helsing, we fought a dangerous evil. It had a name, Dracula. He was Transylvanian." .

References

  1. ↑ Bram Stoker. Dracula, chapter 9.

External links