Dr. Jack Seward

Dr. John Seward is twenty-nine years old, and rather gifted, because he's managed to not only become a doctor, but become respected enough to be in charge of a private asylum in London. This is perhaps due, in part, to the reputation of his mentor, Professor Abraham van Helsing, but the fact that the professor favored Jack among his students shows that the fellow was quite worthy to begin with.
Lucy first describes Jack as resolute and calm, a trait he shares with his mentor, but for Jack, this seems like more of a facade. He's an introverted fellow, who tends to bottle up his emotions in favor of getting the job done, but the events of the story wear him thin. He loves Lucy, and as centered as he is on his work, she may be one of the only women who's shown him much affection. When she accepts Arthur's proposal, he publically accepts this quietly, but obsesses over it in his journal, along side his speculations about his curious and troublesome patient, Renfield.

Jack is what Van Helsing may have been like as a younger man. The professor comments that Jack is not like a son to him, but in the context, seems to be trying to say that Jack is too much like -him- for him to consider him a son. Both tend to bury themselves in their work, and both are driven by the desire to serve some higher good.

Jack takes himself far more seriously than the professor does. His work puts him in a lot of stress, and he alludes to drugging himself to deal with this, and worries about it becoming a habit. He's on his own and well established, so there's no mention of his parents, and doesn't really need to be. They're well off enough that they could send their son to medical school under Van Helsing, presumably in Amsterdam.

Jack's a skunk because his unrequited love of Lucy, and insecurity buried under his work made me think of the stereotype of a skunk totally oblivious as to why someone doesn't like him. Not that I think he's a stereotype – he's one of the more complex characters in the book, and for that reason, was very hard for me to cast as any particular animal.