dracula's women

Book Club was awesome Tuesday night. I was my typical awkward self, not talking to anyone when I got there. But then we began on the book, and I had trouble shutting up. Only half of us had finished the book, so there was a fill-everyone-in period. Then we began discussions such as why vampires are such popular figures in fiction, the juxtaposition of Mina and Lucy, the role of Renfield the lunatic, the efficacy of the epistolary narrative, the "rules" of vampires. Yes, Buffy was brought into the conversation, as was Twilight. I loved all the characters, but the comparison of the two female protagonists caught my interest most, perhaps.

Lucy and Mina.

Lucy is "the perfect woman." She receives three proposals in one day. She is perfectly beautiful, perfectly sweet, perfectly perfect. Perfectly BORING. She is the typical Victorian woman, with fainting spells and no gumption. When she starts wasting away of some unknown disease, Dr. Abraham Van Helsing (please say it with a very strong Dutch accent, or it just doesn't count) is called in to be of assistance. He figures out that Dracula is draining her. Over a short period of time, she is given four transfusions--one from each of her admirers, and then from the good Doctor himself--but dies anyway. She turns into a vampire, the four men hunt her, and her fiance has the quite gruesome work of killing her. Quite. Gruesome.

Then they meet Mina, childhood friend of Lucy and wife to recently-escaped intended victim of the Count. Mina is described as having "the mind of a man, and the heart of a woman." She is self-educated and quick-witted, along with being young, pretty and compassionate. She says of herself that she has never been a fainter, or one taken to weeping. Mina uses her husband's diary to aid the vampire hunters, transcribing it from shorthand. She compiles all the varying accounts in chronological order so that she can discern cause and effect. She stands her ground against lunatic Renfield. She and Dr. Van Helsing are the brains of the operation, while the other four men tend to be the muscles. Dracula bites her and forces her to drink his blood, thus gaining mental control over her. However, Mina continues to be vital to the group and figures out that if Van Helsing hypnotizes her, she can read the Count's mind for them. Because of this usefulness, when the men hunt him back to his castle, she goes too. In the final battle, Mina draws a revolver. Yeah, she was toting.

Basically, I love Mina.

Dracula is considered a commentary on Victorian views of sexuality, with the exchanging of blood being a sensual act, etc. In this light, I find these two women to be the height of interest, how Bram Stoker chose to depict my gender. I get the brides of Dracula being voluptuous, sensual and catty; and I get that he would depict the virtuous Lucy opposite them, thus making the post-mortem transformation that much more horrible.

However, I wonder at Mina. Mina, who is revered by the men who know her as having every positive attribute. She is honorable and compassionate, wise and kind. She is called beautiful. But she, too, is bitten by the Count in a scene that can be likened to one of rape. She becomes Unclean and is burned by the Eucharist. Only the Count's death can remove this stigma from her. Yet, she continues to be a power for good, and is Bram Stoker's only female character to show true grit. While the oft-repeated remark that she has the mind of a man may be seen as insulting, it was meant complimentary, followed the first time by the addendum, "or as a man ought to have."

I think, given Mina, that Bram was a feminist. For Mina and Lucy had purity in common, but the one who lived also had a brain.

That, and a gun.

Additional note of interest: Dracula doesn't glitter in the sunlight, but he can go out in it. And when he dies, he turns to dust. One point, Buffy; half point Twilight.