"Some of the 'New Women' writers will some day start an idea that men and women should be allowed to see each other asleep before proposing or accepting. But I suppose the New Woman won't condescend in future to accept; she will do the proposing herself. And a nice job she will make of it, too!" (87)
Mina Harker is arguably the most complex character to analyze in Dracula. Although Stoker clearly defines her as the typical Victorian woman, there are aspects about her that typify her as the New Woman. She is well educated, keeps a personal journal written in shorthand, has a career independent from her husband, and more times that not knows how to handle situations better than the men. Yet she still is under the role of the typical Victorian housewife, concerned with society and the upkeep of the home. She takes on the "mother figure" to all the men in the Crew of Light, including her husband, giving her a domestic definition. Stoker has given Mina a little bit of growing room here, but not enough to actually represent his support of the New Woman movement. Instead, we see how he is a pseudo-progressivist; one who likes the idea of seemingly giving feminism a chance while not really changing anything. She still puts her wifely duty before herself, which keeps her under the traditional women's role. | “The women in Dracula, however, ridicule the New Woman, a kind of behaviour that seems to have been conditioned by the male characters’ opinion.” (Mewald 3) |
“This sense of duty can be observed in her motivation for writing her diary, which is to practise her shorthand and typewriting skills in order to be useful to her husband. She also learns the train timetable by heart ‘so that [she] may help Jonathan in case he is in a hurry’. Furthermore, she considers it her duty to support her husband emotionally.” (Mewald 1-2)
As far as Mina being of more use than the men, she is able to keep her composure better than anyone else. “Her fit of hysterics is far less severe than that of Van Helsing earlier. This is noteworthy, since women were the ones who were supposed to suffer most from hysterics. Later on, this reversal of gender roles is taken further when, as soon as the male characters encounter emotional crises, Mina remains the stable one. After comforting one of the men she writes in her diary that crying often helps, yet she herself has stopped crying in order to support the men.” (Mewald 2) She also lends a crying shoulder to Arthur, and calms Jonathan when he goes into near-hysterics after seeing Count Dracula. Stoker writes her as an incredibly strong woman, but does not allow her to be defined as a complete New Woman. It also becomes apparent that the men of the novel can't be trusted to make smart decisions when it comes to Mina's safety while she is being vamped by Dracula. They keep her in Seward's hospital, which they should have known was a dangerous place for her to be. |
“They claim that this ensures her safety; in fact it insures the reverse. Furthermore, this is the real purpose in leaving Mina out of the plans and in the hospital. They have clear indications in Renfield’s warnings of what is to happen to her and they all, especially her husband, observe that she is not well and seems to be getting weaker. That they could rationalize these signs away while looking for and finding them everywhere else further indicates that they are avoiding seeing what they want to ignore; in other words, they want Dracula to get her.” (Roth 8)
Overall, it is difficult to say what exactly Stoker was trying to do with Mina here. It's easiest to confer that he was trying to find middle ground between keeping women in their traditional roles and giving them room to grow. By defining Lucy as traditional, yet giving her some qualities of a New Woman, he has allowed her to stand taller in importance next to the men of the story. The fact that she is the biggest character beside Dracula himself adds to this idea. Thanks to her, the whole story was written down and the Crew's efforts were not shaken to the wind. Mina is the cornerstone of Dracula, which says a lot when she is standing next to the men in the Crew of Light.
Works Cited:
Mewald, Katharina. "The Emancipation of Mina? The Portrayal of Mina in Stoker's Dracula and Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula."
Roth, Phyllis A. "Suddenly Sexual Women In Bram Stoker's Dracula." The Taboo. 23-36. New York, NY: Bloom's Literary Criticism, 2010. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 2 Dec. 2013.
Stoker, Bram. Dracula. Norton Critical Edition. Eds. Nina Auerbach and David J. Skal. New York:
W.W. Norton & Co., 1997.
Mewald, Katharina. "The Emancipation of Mina? The Portrayal of Mina in Stoker's Dracula and Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula."
Roth, Phyllis A. "Suddenly Sexual Women In Bram Stoker's Dracula." The Taboo. 23-36. New York, NY: Bloom's Literary Criticism, 2010. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 2 Dec. 2013.
Stoker, Bram. Dracula. Norton Critical Edition. Eds. Nina Auerbach and David J. Skal. New York:
W.W. Norton & Co., 1997.