Mina Harker

To the “Night Witches” of the 588th, their femininity was the focus as much as much their dedication to their dangerous missions, as shown in snippets of true stories that members went through. Although definitely not the only one to experience such dangers, Nina Raspopova’s near death stories highlight some of the many dangers that the 588th faced, and she stresses in her account that she was never not afraid (Noggle, 2001). During one of her missions in 1942, she and her navigator, Larisa…

Chapter 3 Nice to Eat You: Acts of Vampires In the chapter “Nice to Eat You: Acts of Vampires”, Foster enlightens the reader to meaning behind vampire stories which is the old and corrupt figure preying on the young. Another way of putting it is the exploitation of others in order to get what we want. This essence does not simply apply to just vampire stories, it can be found in most suspense and scary novels. More importantly the chapter leads to the understanding that a loss of your ground or…

Dracula and Mina. They even go on a date while he is in London. Mina should not be so fond of Dracula, due to what he has done to her best friend, Lucy, yet it shows in the movie that she slowly falls in love with him. The film turns, what should be horrific and terrifying scenes into sexual, romantic ones. For example, as Mina is being forced to drink Dracula’s blood, he tells her that she doesn’t have to due to his feelings for her, he claims that she reminds him of his late wife. Mina even…

First off, I thought it was interesting that Jonathan Harker couldn’t locate the exact location of Count Dracula’s castle on any of the maps that he viewed. This set the mood of the novel for me. I think the author, Bram Stoker, put in little hints of “horror” to set the tone for the rest of the novel. Being that I have not read nor seen Dracula, I thought the first chapter was very intriguing. Whenever the topic of Count Dracula came about it seemed as if everyone in the novel deemed him to…

evil character. He only creeps about at night. If he does come out during the day he is covered from head to toe. Light represents good. Dark represents evil. He mostly remains in the darkness throughout the story. When people in the story hear that Harker is going to Dracula’s castle they form crosses with their hands. The crucifix is used to ward off evil by the majority of religious people. A crucifix is a symbol of Christian religion and typically has Jesus crucified on it. Not all have the…

Most people are aware that initially judging others by their appearance is usually wrong. In the novel, Dracula by Bram Stoker, the protagonist, Van Helsing, becomes the protector of everyone threatened by the evil, Count Dracula. In England, others see Van Helsing as an outsider, but as an outsider, he utilizes his knowledge of superstitions to stop Dracula. Van Helsing becomes the foil to Dracula, representing Dracula in physique and physicals traits but symbolizes absolute good compared to…

arched her neck, she actually licked her lips like an animal…I closed my eyes in a languorous ecstasy and waited--waited with beating heart.” These three women, though their encounter short, are very sexualized in that. Although Jonathan does mention Mina, saying that he hopes she doesn’t read this journal entry, is said to have closed his eyes in “ecstasy” when the beautiful girl came closer. I ask myself if there will be an underlying theme of sexuality in Dracula or perhaps, sexual…

sleep since her mysterious attack. Garlic is a recurring symbol in the text because it was used as a powerful weapon against evil. By being under the care and supervision of Dr Van Helsing and the use of the garlic flowers Lucy has found some sort of peace. She felt secure for her fear had vanished for a moment. Stoker makes it clear that Lucy feels protected the following is proof of this, “Dr Van-Helsing has been with me all this bad dreaming seems to have passed away: the noises that used…

In death of the woods, the old woman was a symbolic vampire. Before we discuss vampires, it might be helpful to know what vampires are. Foster talks about vampires in chapter 3 when he says, “It’s also about things other than literal vampirism: selfishness, exploitation, a refusal to respect the autonomy of other people, just for starters.” In this paragraph, I will show that the old woman did all three. First, the woman refused to respect the autonomy of another organism. When Jake went to get…

Kathryn Boyd, in her analysis of Dracula, questions whether the actual status of Mina in the novel is exemplified as her tale of female empowerment or female subjugation. The portrayal of Mina has often been considered to be demeaning since she has become an intentional part of Dracula’s revenge. Boyd examines the idea of Mina being a figure who exemplifies the injustice that women felt during Stoker’s era, where women were merely used in a man’s world for their pleasure. Boyd uses a clear,…