Question

Select the correct answer. What mood is created in this excerpt from Dracula by Bram Stoker? All at once the wolves began to howl as though the moonlight had had some peculiar effect on them. The horses jumped about and reared, and looked helplessly round with eyes that rolled in a way painful to see; but the living ring of terror encompassed them on every side; and they had perforce to remain within it. I called to the coachman to come, for it seemed to me that our only chance was to try to break out through the ring and to aid his approach. I shouted and beat the side of the calèche, hoping by the noise to scare the wolves from that side, so as to give him a chance of reaching the trap. How he came there, I know not, but I heard his voice raised in a tone of imperious command, and looking towards the sound, saw him stand in the roadway. As he swept his long arms, as though brushing aside some impalpable obstacle, the wolves fell back and back further still. Just then a heavy cloud passed across the face of the moon, so that we were again in darkness. When I could see again the driver was climbing into the calèche, and the wolves had disappeared. This was all so strange and uncanny that a dreadful fear came upon me, and I was afraid to speak or move. The time seemed interminable as we swept on our way, now in almost complete darkness, for the rolling clouds obscured the moon. We kept on ascending, with occasional periods of quick descent, but in the main always ascending. Suddenly, I became conscious of the fact that the driver was in the act of pulling up the horses in the courtyard of a vast ruined castle, from whose tall black windows came no ray of light, and whose broken battlements showed a jagged line against the sky. A. suspense B. frustration C. optimism D. terror

Answer 1

D. terror. This is the correct option.

Harker, the lawyer, is arriving at Dracula's castle for the first time. He is really scared. He has not expected this. However, he was given some warnings because he was travelling on the eve of  St. George’s Day. The mood of terror is created by these elements: the sound of wolves howling; the horses looking terrified; the phrase " the living ring of terror"; the fact that the narrator , Harker, felt fear and he could not speak or move ; and  his notion of time was endeless.

These options are wrong:

A. suspense. The writer describes the feelings of Herker's. The writer has not developed the events to make the reader expect  new surprising actions in this excerpt.

B. frustration . The writer describes the narrator's state of fear not his state of frustration.In spite of Herker's fear, he can get to the castle.

C. optimism. The language the writer uses is the language of terror. There is not any optimistic expression .