Mina experiences a similar double bind but unlike Eustacia, she manages to find a balance between domesticity and the working capabilities of the New Woman. She is first introduced through the eyes of Jonathan Harker, he collects recipes for her, is aware of the pain his “burning desire” for the female vampires would cause and considers her a woman who has “naught in common [with those] devils of the Pit!” (Dracula 48). Harker’s epitome of Mina is challenged by the Mina revealed in her letters to Lucy. Mina is a schoolmistress; she can type and use shorthand and is learning how to use a stenograph. All of this is done for Jonathan, she wants to “be useful to [him]” (49) when they are married, which determines her domesticity as a dutiful wife
…show more content…
After her marriage, Mina continues to work assiduously, she collates their findings on Dracula, she asks to be put under hypnosis when she recognises her connection to Dracula and is prepared to die to avoid harming those she loves. The men are the ones who impose domesticity back on her by refusing her continued participation in their fight against the Count. Van Helsing’s praise of Mina as a woman who “has [a] man’s brain … and a woman’s heart” (Dracula 213) is quickly followed by his dismissal of her from their work. “You are too precious to us …show more content…
While references to conjugal relations between Jonathan and Mina are absent from the novel there are allusions to the act in Mina’s sharing of bloody bodily fluids and form of marriage ceremony enacted in Dracula’s declaration that she is “flesh of my flesh,; blood of my blood; kin of my kin” (261). In the marks they both bear on their foreheads and the sins they enact there is an uncanny doubling. Mina’s feminising protection of Jonathan mirrors Dracula’s claim that “This man belongs to me” (35) furthers their connection but it is her recognition that she is tainted and “Unclean!” (270) that ensures salvation. Mina, unlike Lucy, does not develop the voluptuous traits of the female vampire, nor does she give voice to sexual desire, this enables her to retain her purity. Mina rejects the “forwardness and the sexual openness of the New Woman” (Senf 36), instead she represents the respectable aspects of femaleness, the side that men can cope with. Eustacia and Mina have both had to be their own moral guides and find their own way. Whereas Mina is able to survive because of the support of others, Eustacia’s isolation suggests she is fated from the
After her marriage, Mina continues to work assiduously, she collates their findings on Dracula, she asks to be put under hypnosis when she recognises her connection to Dracula and is prepared to die to avoid harming those she loves. The men are the ones who impose domesticity back on her by refusing her continued participation in their fight against the Count. Van Helsing’s praise of Mina as a woman who “has [a] man’s brain … and a woman’s heart” (Dracula 213) is quickly followed by his dismissal of her from their work. “You are too precious to us …show more content…
While references to conjugal relations between Jonathan and Mina are absent from the novel there are allusions to the act in Mina’s sharing of bloody bodily fluids and form of marriage ceremony enacted in Dracula’s declaration that she is “flesh of my flesh,; blood of my blood; kin of my kin” (261). In the marks they both bear on their foreheads and the sins they enact there is an uncanny doubling. Mina’s feminising protection of Jonathan mirrors Dracula’s claim that “This man belongs to me” (35) furthers their connection but it is her recognition that she is tainted and “Unclean!” (270) that ensures salvation. Mina, unlike Lucy, does not develop the voluptuous traits of the female vampire, nor does she give voice to sexual desire, this enables her to retain her purity. Mina rejects the “forwardness and the sexual openness of the New Woman” (Senf 36), instead she represents the respectable aspects of femaleness, the side that men can cope with. Eustacia and Mina have both had to be their own moral guides and find their own way. Whereas Mina is able to survive because of the support of others, Eustacia’s isolation suggests she is fated from the