The Women of Dracula

Recently, while reading an article which discussed what mistakes they hope the new BBC “Dracula” series will avoid (but probably won’t), I realized something about one of my favourite novels which I had never realized before, despite taking a class at college about vampires in literature which heavily featured Stoker’s book: the whole story hinges on the two female leads - Mina Harker (née Murray) and Lucy Westenra.

“Dracula,” for those of you who have only seen the movies and not read the book (it’s not an easy read, but I happen to like the epistolary style), starts off with Jonathan Harker on his way to Dracula’s castle and then switches focus to Mina, when Jonathan is about to be left to the three brides while Dracula makes for England. At that time, Mina is with her best friend Lucy and she is there when Lucy is first attacked by Dracula. She is already with Jonathan, though, when Lucy dies, turns into a vampire, and is killed by her fiancé and three other men. However, the group of fearless vampire hunters is only kept together through the two women in the story. You can define every one of them through their relationship to Lucy, even Mina and Jonathan. So let’s do that first.

Arthur Holmwood - Lucy’s fiancé

Quincey Morris - Lucy’s suitor

Dr. Jack Seward - Lucy’s suitor and doctor

Prof. Abraham van Helsing - Lucy’s doctor

Mina Harker - Lucy’s best friend

Jonathan Harker - the fiancé (later husband) of Lucy’s best friend

Admittedly, Jonathan is Mina’s proxy, but through her, he, too can be defined through Lucy. And Jonathan and Mina have no other connection to the other vampire hunters than Lucy. Without Mina knowing her, Jonathan and she would never join the group, the castle Dracula came from would never be found, the list of his houses in England never be laid open. The hunt on Dracula would be bound to fail, because none of the other hunters knows enough about Dracula’s background to trace him.

It’s also Mina’s inner strength and her strong mind (‘the mind of a man,’ which is meant as a compliment by van Helsing) which keeps the group focused after she has been attacked and infected. Without this move, it might have been possible for Dracula to escape with his un-life. Even though the other hunters were motivated, the motivation through truly-dead-and-buried Lucy wasn’t as strong as the motivation to save Mina from Lucy’s fate. So it is again a woman who drives this part of the story. And let’s not forget that it is Mina who kills Dracula with the bowie knife in the end - Dracula doesn’t fall through a man’s hand, he could recover from the injuries he sustained from the men, he falls through the hand of his intended next bride.

Lucy, on the other hand, gets a lot of bad reputation from those who interpret “Dracula” these days. She’s often shown as slutty or manipulative, but the diary entries of hers we see in the novel are far from that. She’s a naive, young woman who is thrilled for obvious reasons to find she has three suitors. It’s also quite clear that she is in favour of Arthur from the beginning - and he is the most logical choice for a young woman in those times. It is her sweet character which makes the three men who have fallen for her not fight over her hand, but accept her choice graciously and come together to help her (each of them donates blood and each of them is in it for her final death). She is so loveable that the two she doesn’t choose do not wish her ill because of this. This doesn’t make her a bad person at all. In addition, Lucy never chooses her fate - she becomes a vampire in her sleep: bitten when sleepwalking, sucked dry when unconscious. Not only does she have no choice, she isn’t even conscious while it happens. Lucy’s fate is a great example of the concept of ‘outer evil’ - people having a bad fate not for lack of morals or past sins, but simply because they are in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Mina herself is often praised as a modern woman, while Lucy is seen as a traditional one for marrying the one most socially acceptable - a thought which ignores the difference in social standing between orphaned, lower-middle-class Mina and upper-middle-class Lucy. It shouldn’t be forgotten that Mina is engaged before Lucy, to a man who is from the same social class as her (solicitor/clerk Jonathan and deputy-headmistress Mina make a good pairing). Yes, Mina works, but she has little choice, given her background. In reality, both Lucy and Mina can be construed as being ‘modern’ or ‘traditional.’ It depends on the focus you put on them and on your definition of a modern woman. Mina as a working woman who also uses modern technology (typewriter, shorthand) can be construed as a modern woman who can take care of herself and doesn’t marry to be provided for. Lucy as a woman who mourns that society forces her to choose one of the three men who want to marry her (thus hurting two) can also be construed as a modern woman who doesn’t strive for traditional marriage (unlike Mina).

“Dracula” as a such is a book which thrives on ‘modern’ versus ‘traditional.’ Dracula is the old evil which comes from an old-fashioned country (the first part of the book, Jonathan’s trip, goes to great lengths to show how quaint and old-fashioned the area Dracula lives in is). The vampire hunters use modern means (phonographs, modern transport, telegrams etc.) to fight him and put an end to his old, dangerous ways. Dracula tells Jonathan about his own bloodline during a conversation. The only vampire hunter with a long bloodline is nobleman Arthur Holmwood. Jonathan and Mina both are orphans, van Helsing is a widower whose only son died before him, Quincey Morris is from a country without long history (the States), and Jack Seward is married very much to his work. None of the vampire hunters defines themselves by their blood, unlike the vampire (which is, of course, fitting).

But back to the women. Apart from Mina and Lucy, the only women who play a greater role in the novel are Dracula’s three brides who are introduced as overly and openly sexual through Jonathan Harker. They are ‘anti’-women compared to Mina and Lucy (before her change). They are openly sexual and they gleefully feast on the baby Dracula brings them (which goes against the ‘natural instinct’ of a woman to protect children). Yet, we know nothing of those women - not even their names. We don’t know where they’ve come from, how long they’ve been Dracula’s brides, how they’ve become vampires. They only exist to show Jonathan what he got himself into and what his host really is. And they turn up to greet Mina as their future sister, then they get killed by van Helsing. ‘What if?’ one could wonder. What if Mina became one of them? What if we knew more about them? What if we could see their interactions with each other?

It’s strange how I could read “Dracula” almost annually for years without realizing what central roles Mina and Lucy play in the narrative. Now that I’ve realized it, I can’t get it out of my mind again.