fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3588 ]

[ SECRET POST #3588 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3588 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

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Victorian morality and sentiment is one thing. But I honestly didn't expect it to this degree in something that is basically a pulp thriller with blood-sucking villains and monster hunting. It's not 'serious' literature at all. And while it is present at the beginning, it's present as background noise, unlike the rest of the book, where the reader is constantly hit over the head with it. It really exceeded my tolerance level in the later chapters, I'm afraid.

Van Helsing is complicated. I can - ever so slightly - see the potential why some people might like him, in theory. You have the quirky, dotty foreigner thing who turns out to be right with his crackpot theories.

However, in practice, he doesn't work at all. I, personally, couldn't understand at all, why everyone was in such a rage to believe, trust, obey, and even love him. It doesn't make sense to me, at all. There is not one dissenting voice against him among the main characters, not one. He doesn't actually have to overcome anything to establish himself. That's not a hero for me, that's a bad joke. But yeah, my dislike certainly colours my opinion in this case. And his fucking annoying, non-sensical accent really didn't help.

Yes, as the big bad and titular character, Dracula fell pretty flat. Which is even more sad, because the potential, the lovely details, so much material to play with, it's all there. And Stoker barely uses it.

The straw hat was awesome, though. I loved that, too. :D

To be fair to VH, the characters object to his ideas multiple times, which is precisely why he takes them on expeditions to the churchyard to prove his theories. You're right though, they do seem to trust him implicitly afterwards.

As far as Victorian morality... well, it's like I said in my own post, Mina herself definitely seems to be Stoker's vehicle for a pushback against a more modernized view of women and gender roles, which in 1897 would have been seeing prominence in things like suffragism, the New Woman movement (which Mina explicitly does the rhetorical equivalent of rolling her eyes at) and various women's campaigns. And I suspect he chose Mina for it precisely because she's a woman.

You're right, I oversimplified the Van Helsing thing a bit. They do a kind of pro forma questioning, when his suggestions are too out there or go too far, but that always only lasts five seconds, after which they do it anyway, because they all trust him to know what's best for everyone. Even if it entails staking and decapitating a dead loved one in a weird, rape-like ritual.

That's a great point about Stoker commenting on his current climate regarding women's liberation. I haven't looked into his biography or other writings at all, so that's interesting.

I've seen plenty of people calling Stoker a feminist, which baffles me. Because I think that's really not what he's getting at. That's actually one reason, why Mina (though great potential in theory as well) leaves me utterly cold. Because she doesn't read like an actual (though fictional) Victorian woman. She reads like the fantasy of a Victorian man. She is Stoker's perfect woman, because she is an empty container who spouts her creator's pearls of wisdom. There is nothing genuine about her, she has no thought of her own, she is a tool that does exactly what it's supposed to do. So yeah, I don't understand the love for her either. But I know I'm holding the minority position here.

I think on the whole Dracula as a novel makes for an interesting cultural artifact, if really showing its age at this point. It's not a GREAT novel, but it's an important one. That it went into public domain almost immediately in the US (mostly due to Stoker screwing up when he was getting it published here) is likely the reason why characters like Dracula, Van Helsing and Mina have all seen reuse in later media, often in revised forms. There's real potential in Mina as a character as long as she's not being used as a vehicle for the author's own sociopolitical views.

Aww, I didn't know that. Poor Bram! That must have sucked.

I totally agree, it's an iconic novel. Which is why we're still reading it, to see what the all the fuss is about. What made it so frustrating for me, is exactly the potential in it. Because it could have been an iconic as well as a great novel. But the preaching broke it for me.

Really? I was actually pleasantly surprised by how much agency Mina had for a fictional Victorian woman. If anything Lucy was the fantasy woman, the perfect, quiet, sweet, meek, beautiful woman who never really did anything on her own. Mina argued with the men and even won one of the arguments, did work towards their cause without being directed, and made intellectual contributions to their conversations. There's a lot to be desired, and again this is relative to my expectations for the time period, but she was clearly very bright (even if it was written off as having a "man's brain", rme) and determined.

lol @ thinking Stoker is a feminist though. I would definitely not say that, at least from reading Dracula.

I can totally see, why someone would like her based on what you said. And I'm not trying to argue that my own interpretation is somehow more right than anyone else's. I really wanted it to click with me, it just didn't happen. :(

I'm definitely reading it with modern goggles and sensibilities, but my problem is not really with what Mina does, but what she is as a 'character'.

The male characters are proper characters. Even though I think they are a bunch of borderline idiotic douches, who sadly become more and more indistinguishable the longer they work together, they are still proper characters. None of them, not even Morris, is one-dimensional. They all have their own thoughts, motivations, conflicts etc.

Mina (and Lucy as well) on the other hand never goes beyond being an empty mouthpiece. She is clever and resourceful and morally upstanding, yes, but she is all that only because she is supposed to be the perfect companion for Harker and later Van Helsing and the others. Every thought, action, motivation she has is 100% focussed on and subservient to the male characters and their stories. She has no story herself.

She only knows shorthand, maps, schedules etc. to assist Harker. There is no hint at all, that those are her own interests. Later on the guys need someone to justify their planned, cold blooded murder as the morally superior and above all Christian thing to do, so Mina swoops in with her 'we should have compassion with Dracula's lost soul and free it from its undead body' spiel. Then she solves the puzzle, because the men need the puzzle solved. But she might as well be a machine. That's why I called her a tool. She is a plot device who has no motivation, thought or conflict of her own.

I have no idea who Mina is, if you take the male characters out of the equation. Because she's a facade with nothing behind it.

Even her supposedly so deep friendship to Lucy is utterly empty to me. It's like Stoker watched two female acquaintances having a chat for five minutes, and then believed he suddenly knew everything about female friendships. I mean, calling someone a sweet, poor dear roughly 200 times doesn't make it a friendship. How are two empty vessels supposed to connect to each other?

I'm still kinda happy though, that so many people like her, tbh. Because the general consensus that Mina is the true hero instead of Van Helsing makes me feel a lot better with my hatred for him. :D

I just really didn't interpret it that way! Fair enough I guess.

One other thing, it really wasn't "cold-blooded murder" to destroy Dracula. He was already dead; they were destroying a vampire, not killing a human being. You make it sound like what they were doing was bad. Not sure if that was your intent.

Not seriously, no. :)

Although I do find the semantics interesting, when you have to sneak 'undead' into the dead/alive dichotomy to justify your actions. But that's certainly not specific to Dracula, pretty much all monster fighting fiction does that or something similar. And I think it's generally worth questioning why the third category is there, when its necessity is questionable. Nevertheless, I wouldn't bother with that for Dracula, maybe if we were discussing more 'serious' lit, but nah, not for this.

Stoker himself obviously felt like it needed further justification, since he put the whole releasing the original soul business on top of it.

when its necessity is questionable.

Really? I think it's a useful distinction. Vampires (like zombies, etc.) are dead. They have died and they no longer metabolize or grow. But they're animated and dangerous, unlike the corpses of most people who have died. "Undead" may or may not be the best word, but having a descriptor for creatures in that limbo is useful IMO.

I thought the "original soul business" was part of the overall incorporation of traditional and dogmatic Anglicanism and Catholicism in the overall story. I also thought it was kind of nice that even Dracula had peace at the end, and that a distinction was made between the living man Count Dracula, as he had been however many centuries ago when he was actually alive, and the vampire, whose cruel actions were part of the feature of his being undead, and not a reflection on what the actual man was like. In other words, the choices a vampire makes are not in any way made by the person who the body belonged to before it died.

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[ SECRET POST #3588 ]

Re: Book club - DRACULA discussion post!

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Re: Book club - DRACULA discussion post!

Re: Book club - DRACULA discussion post!

Re: Book club - DRACULA discussion post!

Re: Book club - DRACULA discussion post!

Re: Book club - DRACULA discussion post!

Re: Book club - DRACULA discussion post!

Re: Book club - DRACULA discussion post!

Re: Book club - DRACULA discussion post!