Jonathan Harker  

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-'''''Nosferatu the Vampyre''''' is a 1979 West German [[horror film]] written and directed by [[Werner Herzog]]. Its original German title is '''''Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht''''' (''Nosferatu: Phantom of the Night''). The film is set primarily in 19th-century [[Wismar]], Germany and [[Transylvania]], and was conceived as a stylistic [[remake]] of [[F. W. Murnau]]'s 1922 German ''[[Dracula]]'' adaptation ''[[Nosferatu]]''. The picture stars [[Klaus Kinski]] as [[Count Dracula]], [[Isabelle Adjani]] as Lucy Harker, [[Bruno Ganz]] as [[Jonathan Harker]], and French artist-writer [[Roland Topor]] as [[Renfield]]. There are two different versions of the film, one in which the actors speak English, and one in which they speak German.+'''Jonathan Harker''' is a [[Character (arts)|fictional character]] and one of the main [[protagonist]]s of [[Bram Stoker]]'s 1897 Gothic horror novel ''[[Dracula]]''. His journey to [[Transylvania]] and encounter with the [[vampire]] [[Count Dracula]] and his [[Brides of Dracula|Brides]] at Castle Dracula constitutes the dramatic opening scenes in the novel and most of the film adaptations. Stoker appropriated the surname from his friend Joseph Cunningham Harker (1855-1920), a set designer at the [[Lyceum Theatre, London|Lyceum Theatre]] and father of actor [[Gordon Harker|William Gordon Harker]] (1885-1967) as well as great-grandfather of actress [[Polly Adams]], whose actress-daughters [[Susannah Harker]] and [[Caroline Harker]] adopted the Harker surname for their [[stage names]].
-Herzog's production of ''Nosferatu'' was very well received by critics and enjoyed a comfortable degree of commercial success. The film also marks the second of five collaborations between director Herzog and actor Kinski, immediately followed by 1979's ''[[Woyzeck (1979 film)|Woyzeck]]''. The film had 1,000,000 admissions in West Germany and grossed ITL 53,870,000 in Italy. The film was also a modest success in Adjani's home country, taking in 933,533 admissions in France.+==In the novel==
 +Harker is a recently admitted [[solicitor]] from England, who is deputed by his employer, Mr. Peter Hawkins, of [[Exeter]], to act as an [[estate agent]] for a foreign client named [[Count Dracula]] who wishes to move to England. Harker discovers in Carfax Abbey, near [[Purfleet]], [[Essex]], a dwelling which suits the client's requirements and travels to [[Transylvania]] by train in order to consult with him about it.
-The 1988 Italian horror film ''[[Nosferatu in Venice]]'' is an "in-name-only" sequel, again featuring Kinski in the title role.+At [[Bistrița|Bistritz]], Harker takes a coach to the [[Borgo Pass]] where at midnight another coach drawn by four black horses, waits to take him to Castle Dracula high in the [[Carpathian Mountains]]. At the castle Harker is greeted by the mysterious and ominous Count Dracula and finalises the property transaction. Soon, however Harker realises he has been made a prisoner by his host who is revealed as a [[vampire]]. Harker also has a dangerous encounter with the three seductive [[Brides of Dracula]], whose designs on him are only thwarted by the intervention of the Count.
-==Plot==+Later, he manages to escape, finding refuge at a [[convent]]. He suffers a [[mental breakdown]] after his experiences with the vampires; his fiancée, [[Mina Harker|Mina Murray]], comes to nurse him back to health with the [[nun]]s' help and marries him there. He returns home to England and later sees Dracula in [[London]]. After learning Dracula killed [[Lucy Westenra|Lucy]], he joins [[Abraham Van Helsing|Van Helsing]], [[John Seward|Seward]], [[Arthur Holmwood|Holmwood]], and [[Quincey Morris|Morris]]. His [[clerk|clerical]] skills prove very useful for collecting information and for tracking down Dracula's London lairs by means of paperwork. He vows to destroy Dracula and, if he could, to send "his soul forever and ever to burning to hell[..]!" even if it be at the cost of own soul. When confronted with Mina's curse, however, he is unsure how to react; Mina asks the others in the group to kill her if the need comes. While Harker says he would, in the privacy of his journal says that if it is necessary, that he would become a vampire himself out of his love for her. However, Harker manages to avoid that because along with Van Helsing and the others he manages to hunt down and destroy Dracula. At the book's climax, he pries open Dracula's coffin mere moments before sunset and slashes open Dracula's throat with a [[kukri]] knife, possibly decapitating him, while Quincey Morris stabs him in the heart with a [[Bowie knife]].
-[[Jonathan Harker]] is an [[estate agent]] in [[Wismar]], Germany. His boss, [[Renfield]], informs him that a nobleman named [[Count Dracula]] wishes to buy a property in Wismar, and assigns Harker to visit the Count and complete the lucrative deal. Leaving his young wife Lucy behind in Wismar, Harker travels for four weeks to Transylvania, to the castle of Count Dracula. He carries with him the deeds and documents needed to sell the house to the Count. On his journey, Jonathan stops at a village, where locals plead for him to stay clear of the accursed castle, providing him with details of Dracula's [[vampirism]]. Harker ignores the villagers' pleas as [[superstition]] and continues his journey unassisted ascending the [[Tihuța Pass|Borgo Pass]]. Harker arrives at Dracula's castle, where he meets the Count, a strange, almost rodent-like man, with large ears, pale skin, sharp teeth, and long fingernails.+
-The lonely Count is enchanted by a small portrait of Lucy and immediately agrees to purchase the Wismar property, especially with the knowledge that he and Lucy would become neighbors. As Jonathan's visit progresses, he is haunted at night by a number of dream-like encounters with the vampiric Count. Simultaneously, in Wismar, Lucy is tormented by night terrors, plagued by images of impending doom. Additionally, Renfield is committed to an [[Psychiatric hospital|asylum]] after biting a cow, apparently having gone completely insane. To Harker's horror, he finds the Count asleep in a coffin, confirming for him that Dracula is indeed a vampire. At night, Dracula leaves for Wismar, taking with him a number of coffins, filled with the cursed earth that he needs for his vampiric rest. Harker finds that he is locked in the castle, and attempts to escape through a window with a makeshift rope. The rope, fashioned from bedsheets, is not long enough, and Jonathan falls, severely injuring himself. He awakes on the ground the next morning, stirred by the sound of a young [[Romani people|Gypsy]] boy playing a violin. He is eventually sent to a hospital and raves about 'black coffins' to doctors, who then assume that the sickness is affecting his mind.+In a note following the end of the novel, it is revealed that seven years have passed. Jonathan and Mina have a son whom they have named after all four members of the part, but call Quincey, after Quincey Morris. Noting Quincey Harker's birthday is the day Quincey Morris died fighting Dracula, Mina likes to think that some of Morris's spirit is in their son. Jonathan Harker eventually visits Dracula's castle along with his wife and son and their surviving friends to reminisce. He returns home with his wife and son and is told by Van Helsing that one day his son will learn the whole story.
-Meanwhile, Dracula and his coffins travel to Wismar by boat, via the Black Sea port of Varna, thence through the Bosphorus and Gibraltar straits and around the entire west European Atlantic coast to the Baltic Sea. He systematically kills the entire crew, making it appear as if they were afflicted with [[Bubonic plague|plague]]. The ghost ship arrives, with its cargo, at Wismar, where doctors – including [[Abraham Van Helsing]] – investigate the strange fate of the ship. They discover a [[Ship's log|log]] that mentions their perceived affliction with plague. In turn, Wismar is flooded with rats from the ship. Dracula arrives in Wismar with his coffins, and death spreads rapidly throughout the town. When Jonathan is finally transported home, he is desperately ill, and does not appear to recognize his wife. Lucy later has an encounter with Count Dracula; weary and unable to die, he demands some of the love that she gave so freely to Jonathan, but she refuses, much to Dracula's dismay. Now aware that something other than plague is responsible for the death that has beset her once-peaceful town, Lucy desperately tries to convince the townspeople, but they are skeptical and uninterested. She finds that she can vanquish Dracula's evil by distracting him at dawn, but at the expense of her own life. She lures the Count to her bedroom, where he proceeds to [[Haematophagy|drink her blood]].+==Portrayals==
 +Actors portraying Harker include:
 +* [[Gustav von Wangenheim]] (as Thomas Hutter) in ''[[Nosferatu]]'' (1922)
 +* [[David Manners]] (as John Harker) in ''[[Dracula (1931 English-language film)|Dracula]]'' (1931)
 +* [[Barry Norton]] (as Juan Harker) in ''[[Drácula (1931 Spanish-language film)|Drácula]]'' (Spanish version, 1931)
 +* [[John Van Eyssen]] in ''[[Dracula (1958 film)|Dracula]]'' (1958)
 +* Fred Williams in ''[[Count Dracula (1969 film)|Count Dracula]]'' (1970)
 +* [[Bosco Hogan]] in ''[[Count Dracula (1977)|Count Dracula]]'' (1977)
 +* [[Bruno Ganz]] in ''[[Nosferatu the Vampyre]]'' (1979)
 +* [[Trevor Eve]] in ''[[Dracula (1979 film)|Dracula]]'' (1979)
 +* [[Keanu Reeves]] in ''[[Dracula (1992 film)|Bram Stoker's Dracula]]'' (1992)
 +* [[Steven Weber (actor)|Steven Weber]] in ''[[Dracula: Dead and Loving It]]'' (1995)
 +* [[Hardy Krüger, Jr.]] in ''[[Dracula (2002 film)|Dracula]]'' (2002)
 +* Johnny A. Wright in ''[[Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary]]'' (2002)
 +* [[Rafe Spall]] in ''[[Dracula (2006 film)|Dracula]]'' (2006)
 +* [[Unax Ugalde]] in ''[[Dracula 3D|Dracula]]'' (2012)
 +* [[Oliver Jackson-Cohen]] in ''[[Dracula (TV series)|Dracula]]'' (television series, 2013)
-Lucy's beauty and purity distract Dracula from the call of the rooster, and at the first light of day, he collapses to the floor, dead. Van Helsing arrives to discover Lucy, dead but victorious. He then drives a stake through the heart of the Count to make sure that Lucy's sacrifice was not in vain. In a final twist, Jonathan Harker awakens from his sickness, now a vampire, and arranges for Van Helsing's arrest for the murder of Count Dracula. He is last seen traveling away on horseback, garbed in the same fluttering black as Dracula, stating enigmatically that he has much to do.+A few of the adaptions have Harker succumbing to vampirism (either from Dracula or the brides) and having to be killed.
-==Cast==+In most adaptations, Harker's role is reduced from that of the novel's hero and the focus (and sympathy) is drawn to other characters, notably Van Helsing or Dracula himself. While Harker and Mina are the central romance of the novel and Mina shares no other man's affections, she is often portrayed as Dracula's love interest and not as Harker's.
-* [[Klaus Kinski]] as [[Count Dracula]]+ 
-* [[Isabelle Adjani]] as Lucy Harker+In the Frank Wildhorn musical, ''[[Dracula, the Musical (Wildhorn)|Dracula, the Musical]]'', Jonathan was played by [[Darren Ritchie (actor)|Darren Ritchie]]. In the St. Gallen Switzerland and Graz Austria productions, Jonathan was played by the Swedish musical theater actor, [[Jesper Tydén]].
-* [[Bruno Ganz]] as [[Jonathan Harker]]+
-* [[Roland Topor]] as [[Renfield]]+
-* [[Walter Ladengast]] as Dr [[Abraham Van Helsing]]+
-* [[Dan van Husen]] as Warden+
-* [[Jan Groth]] as Harbormaster+
-* Carsten Bodinus as Schrader+
-* Martje Grohmann as Mina+
-* [[Rijk de Gooyer]] as Town official+
-* [[Clemens Scheitz]] as Clerk+
-* John Leddy as Coachman+
-* Tim Beekman as Coffin bearer+
-* Lo van Hensbergen+
-* Margiet van Hartingsveld+
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Jonathan Harker is a fictional character and one of the main protagonists of Bram Stoker's 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula. His journey to Transylvania and encounter with the vampire Count Dracula and his Brides at Castle Dracula constitutes the dramatic opening scenes in the novel and most of the film adaptations. Stoker appropriated the surname from his friend Joseph Cunningham Harker (1855-1920), a set designer at the Lyceum Theatre and father of actor William Gordon Harker (1885-1967) as well as great-grandfather of actress Polly Adams, whose actress-daughters Susannah Harker and Caroline Harker adopted the Harker surname for their stage names.

[edit]

In the novel

Harker is a recently admitted solicitor from England, who is deputed by his employer, Mr. Peter Hawkins, of Exeter, to act as an estate agent for a foreign client named Count Dracula who wishes to move to England. Harker discovers in Carfax Abbey, near Purfleet, Essex, a dwelling which suits the client's requirements and travels to Transylvania by train in order to consult with him about it.

At Bistritz, Harker takes a coach to the Borgo Pass where at midnight another coach drawn by four black horses, waits to take him to Castle Dracula high in the Carpathian Mountains. At the castle Harker is greeted by the mysterious and ominous Count Dracula and finalises the property transaction. Soon, however Harker realises he has been made a prisoner by his host who is revealed as a vampire. Harker also has a dangerous encounter with the three seductive Brides of Dracula, whose designs on him are only thwarted by the intervention of the Count.

Later, he manages to escape, finding refuge at a convent. He suffers a mental breakdown after his experiences with the vampires; his fiancée, Mina Murray, comes to nurse him back to health with the nuns' help and marries him there. He returns home to England and later sees Dracula in London. After learning Dracula killed Lucy, he joins Van Helsing, Seward, Holmwood, and Morris. His clerical skills prove very useful for collecting information and for tracking down Dracula's London lairs by means of paperwork. He vows to destroy Dracula and, if he could, to send "his soul forever and ever to burning to hell[..]!" even if it be at the cost of own soul. When confronted with Mina's curse, however, he is unsure how to react; Mina asks the others in the group to kill her if the need comes. While Harker says he would, in the privacy of his journal says that if it is necessary, that he would become a vampire himself out of his love for her. However, Harker manages to avoid that because along with Van Helsing and the others he manages to hunt down and destroy Dracula. At the book's climax, he pries open Dracula's coffin mere moments before sunset and slashes open Dracula's throat with a kukri knife, possibly decapitating him, while Quincey Morris stabs him in the heart with a Bowie knife.

In a note following the end of the novel, it is revealed that seven years have passed. Jonathan and Mina have a son whom they have named after all four members of the part, but call Quincey, after Quincey Morris. Noting Quincey Harker's birthday is the day Quincey Morris died fighting Dracula, Mina likes to think that some of Morris's spirit is in their son. Jonathan Harker eventually visits Dracula's castle along with his wife and son and their surviving friends to reminisce. He returns home with his wife and son and is told by Van Helsing that one day his son will learn the whole story.

[edit]

Portrayals

Actors portraying Harker include:

A few of the adaptions have Harker succumbing to vampirism (either from Dracula or the brides) and having to be killed.

In most adaptations, Harker's role is reduced from that of the novel's hero and the focus (and sympathy) is drawn to other characters, notably Van Helsing or Dracula himself. While Harker and Mina are the central romance of the novel and Mina shares no other man's affections, she is often portrayed as Dracula's love interest and not as Harker's.

In the Frank Wildhorn musical, Dracula, the Musical, Jonathan was played by Darren Ritchie. In the St. Gallen Switzerland and Graz Austria productions, Jonathan was played by the Swedish musical theater actor, Jesper Tydén.


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