Could Bram
Stoker have been a feminist? In Dracula, Mina at first appears as a
typical Victorian woman, but as the story unfolds she is transformed into a thoroughly
modern woman even by today’s standards.
Dracula was published during the Victorian Era and set in London,
England. The women of that time
and place were expected to be meek and mild and in need of male protection if
not domination. They were expected
to suppress their sexuality to the point of practically denying it
altogether. At the same time, they
were expected to make themselves into objects of male adulation. At first, Mina perfectly fit this
period stereotype.
However, once
Dracula begins to prey upon Mina, she becomes the de facto leader of the band of vampire hunters. Her telepathic link to Dracula allows
the team to track the enemy, and it is safe to say that without Mina’s brave
intrusions into the vampire’s mind, the team’s mission would have failed.
The end of the
story depicts Mina as nothing less than a swashbuckling hero. With her own hand, she drives a horse
and carriage across Europe in pursuit of a deadly enemy. That any woman of the Victorian Era let
alone one of high social standing would do such a thing was unthinkable. In addition, Mina is armed with a
revolver, which she does not hesitate to brandish in a way that makes it
obvious that she means business--again, such a thing would have been unheard of
in her epoch.
At the climax of
the novel, the armed and dangerous Mina recounts in her journal, “...the ardour
of battle must have been upon me...; I felt no fear, but only a wild, surging
desire to do something.” Such a
statement could easily have come from Angelina Jolie in Tomb Raider. We see
that Bram Stoker has transformed Mina from feminine to feminist.
Source: Dracula by Bram Stoker with an Afterward by Jonty Claypole
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