We have talked briefly about the symbolic significance of Lucy's violation as a kind of allegorical violation/invasion of England itself. Is there anything different about the way Mina's relationship to Dracula is represented? Specifically, I'm thinking of the scene described on 250-252. In discussing this feel free to comment on the gender politics of this section of the book---for example, the way in which the men attempt to protect Mina from dangerous knowledge.
A related question (which you do not have to answer) returns us to the question of Whiteness in this book. Dracula is always represented as too pale. And, as Mina is being 'turned' people like Renfield notice that she is too pale ("I don't care for pale people"). Can one be too white to be (racially)"white"?
See you Monday,
Dan
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
With Lucy, everything was pure. Doctor's were involved and it was a long drawn out process of Lucy and her health. The men gave her their blood in attempts to save her. Now with Mina, I find the dynamic to be different. The men are worried about her, but seem to be more focused on finding and killing Dracula. On 250-252, I found Harker to be very feminized. He was more the 'damsel in distress' than Mina was. He kept moaning while Mina told the men what had just happened to her with Dracula. "She looked at him pityingly, as if he were the injured one" (251). She even tells Harker,
"Do not fret, dear. You must be brave and strong, and help me through this horrible task" (250). She seemed like the stronger more masculine character at these moments rather than her husband. However, Harker was feminized earlier in the novel when the three vampire women were luring him and Dracula claimed him as his own. So, it should be no big surprise. I don't know what to make of the 'flesh of my flesh' part except that Dracula has created his own woman--his own companion--mate?
The relationship between Mina and Dracula is vastly different from that of Dracula and Lucy, because Lucy was infected by Dracula (he took her blood) yet Mina and Dracula’s blood are intermingled. It is bad when the other has infected your race and left it to die but it is worst when he has made the women who are the heart of a nation take a part of the “other” while he takes apart of them. Thus you are left with an even more tainted nation. In the case of this novel, Mina drinks the blood of Dracula while he drinks her blood and then realizes that their spirits are connected. During this scene, it appears that they shared a certain intimacy which was lost on the others in the novel. She is spiritually in his presence and he in hers. Therefore, she is a more important character than, Lucy. I believe Dracula chooses to inter-mingle spirits with Mina because she represents the English future. Mina has knowledge of technology, short hand writing, and more than once been described as thinking like a man. She is the embodiment of the new woman, one that has a career and raises a family. She is essential to the mystery of the novel because the men, who are over protective of her, discover they can not rid their world of Dracula without her knowledge. For example, when they decided to keep her in the dark and not include her in their journey to Dracula’s first house, Dracula finds her literary in the dark and feasted upon her. Dracula is aware that Mina is the future that he wants his race to be apart of thus she is the connection he must have.
In my opinion I believe the only way a person can be too white to be white is if they are albino, without any melon and pigments in their body. In the non-fiction world, during the time period of the novel, the whiter a person was the better. But people do tend to question if some one is too white because that means something is wrong with them. So I believe it all depends on which century you are referring to because in today’s time no one is trying to be too white. That is why people tan.
Mina is taken, I think, more in spite than anything else. Dracula basically taunts the men and their efforts as he's forcing Mina to drink. Dracula chose Lucy. Though we don't get the details of how or why, it's obvious that he focused in on Lucy. It could be due to her innocense or possibly because he saw that underneath the innocent demeanor there was something a little darker.
If Lucy is the invasion of England, then Minda would represent the small colony you invade just to piss England off. Mina is made to be almost "other" womanly when Van Helsing says "she has the brains of a man". To most proper women this would not be a compliment. Mina is different, not less innocent yet less nieve.
Mina’s relationship with Dracula helps us recognize the masculine role that Mina takes on in the novel. While Lucy is described as angelic and helpless after being infected by the Count, Mina is more worldly and knowledgeable. This is evident in her telepathic link to the Count. She literally has the thoughts of a male. Like Andrea and some others point out, Mina has the mind of a man. Her knowledge of technical writing and her caretaker persona assumed with Lucy and Harker shows us her ability to act and think in the traditional masculine sense. When she drinks Dracula’s blood, she becomes the aggressor (her dark hair also implies this). She takes on the masculine role of action and domination.
Additionally, we see her feminine role mocked as she drinks the blood from the male Dracula’s chest. Traditional gender roles are completely discarded and the structured English society completely undermined. Foreign infection contorts the roles of male and female.
I see Dracula's attack on Mina as more of a case of revenge. With Lucy, he sought her out as a victim, and enjoyed the process of transforming her. With Mina, it is evident that he has been angered by the men meddling with him. He states, "You know now, and they know in part already, and will know in full before long, what it is to cross my path" (251). This statement makes me think that he is only out to get Mina because the men have been trying to thwart his efforts. As we saw earlier in the novel, Dracula did see Mina at Whitby while he was attacking Lucy. He chose to focus solely on Lucy and left Mina alone while he could have easily taken her as well. Only when he is angry does he seek to take Mina as a victim and make her one of his own.
I agree with Tierney's reading of the way in which Johnathan seems to feminized in the scene with Dracula and Mina, Johnathan is depicted as one who is distraught and frantically trying to make sense of the situation where Mina seems strangely calm and "instantly forgetting her own grief", she goes to make efforts to calm Johnathan and protect him from Dracula by keeping Johnathan near her. Mina is also accepting of her "unclean" fate as evidenced in her realization "it is I who am now his worst enemy, and whom he may have most cause to fear". The difference between Lucy and Mina's scenes with Dracula seems to be in the way the men begin to treat Mina almost as an equal where she "should be in full confidence, that nothing of any sort -no matter how painful- should be kept from her". Mina evolves as the only female who is able to be given all the knowledge that the men possess about Dracula. I think what is particularly significant about Mina's incident with Dracula on pgs. 250-252, is that Dracula actually desires her to be his "companion and helper" where she was once righteous and pure and now she is tainted and transformed to something worse than an agent of Dracula but now as one of his own for she is "flesh of my flesh; blood of my blood; kin of my kin". Mina's encounter with Dracula seems to imply that since she was not fully transformed into a vampire, Mina made the decision to drink from Dracula's breast like a child from its mother. She has not only polluted her feminine purity but also her genetic purity and her natural purity as well.
I think Stoker creates an interesting juxtaposition between Mina in the role of a woman and Mina in the role of a man in Dracula. For instance, at one point after she meets with Jonathan in London she experiences crying uncontrollably. She is also described by the other characters as having masculine characteristics. In this way, she is also used to contrast the concept of "too pale" with genuine "whiteness." Also, does the mist she feels closing in on the house also play a role in the ambiguity of the gender and race juxtaposition Mina exemplifies?
Post a Comment