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  Stoker speaking through characters...

  Warning: Contains complete plot spoiler, so if you haven't read the book you probably don't want to read this.

  Stoker really speaks through his characters. The most obvious of which are the two women. Taking a look at the characterizations of the two women is important. Lucy's mind is childlike. She is a damsel in distress who can't do anything to help herself and the men fall all over themselves worshiping her. Mina is somewhat self-sufficient and quite intelligent. She only continues to increase in those characteristics as the story goes on. The men do begin to turn their attention to her and even try to shelter her until they realize that it is detrimental to do so. During the time that Stoker wrote Dracula there was quite a lot of significant things going on in literature that changed social attitudes toward women and social interaction as well. Henrik Isben wrote the play A Doll's House. At the time, before his play came out, an idealicized woman was one who embodied the qualities that Lucy carries. Husband adoring (not that that's a bad thing if you adore your husband, but the other qualities added to it make it upsetting), childlike, helpless and somewhat unintelligent. The purpose of A Doll's House was to expose to the world that women are not that way. Most men already knew that, but it didn't stop them from wishing for it. Hahaha! (I'm sorry!) Also Anton Chekhov came out with The Seagull, a play that completely changed acting from dramatic movements and ways of speaking to signify emotions to what it really looks like in real life. And not only that, but there is no antagonist. Everyone creates their own problems, which how life is, as boring as that can be. The whole play is about social interactions and how people respond from one to another as it really is in real life. There was no dressing it up. So back to Stoker. He kills Lucy half way through the book and her lover Lord Godalming is left distraught over her loss. It's really obvious, given the social and literary climate that he's saying, "We're done with that, it's over," and then shows the men trying to adjust to the new and more realistic version of who women are.

  Mina marries Jonathan Harker. He seems like an ordinary Joe Schmoe at the beginning of the book but then gets weaker and weaker. Stoker even seems to set it up to kill him off and the accidental flirtation between Mina and Dr. Seward (a very strong and capable man) gets you ready for a relationship between them that is satisfying to the reader. Then it doesn’t happen. He completely leaves you hanging. It took me a while to catch on. If he didn't do the things that he set triggers for, then there must have been something he really wanted the reader to pick up on. There was a reason he left Jonathan alive. But I have to deviate to get to that.

  What was the deal with those other three men? What was their purpose? Dr. Seward, Van Helsing, and Mr. Morris are all very capable, intelligent, brawny men and I must say very selfless and good without much reason to be so. (Stoker gives a little reasoning behind that but it doesn't come off very strong and I feel like that is the point. He wants you to question it.) Anyone of those men could have taken the story in his own hands and become the hero of them all. Nearing the end Dr. Seward is fleshed out a little more regarding those qualities than the other two, but Stoker chooses not to take advantage of that. How come?

  There are two things I get from this. The first is the resolve to why Jonathan lives. He lives because he is a real man. Stoker brings into balance our view of ourselves and is saying that, yes men had the wrong idea about women, but with Mina's flirtation with Dr. Seward, who is a typified hero and therefore, not really a real man, women also had (and have) the wrong idea about men. Women are attracted to the idealized man (Heterosexual women, I should say, but then, Heterosexuals are the target audience of his book), but most men don't have the combo of goodness, strength, and intelligence all rolled into one, like a christ figure does. I would also like to make the point that men like to see themselves as the idealized man or we wouldn't have such an abundance of stories and blockbuster films with a Christ figure. Lucy and Dr. Seward are two extremes. Two ideals. Although both can be appealing for both sexes (for me, one of them is quite a stretch), neither are accurate of who we are.

  The other thing I get out of this is that he is talking about the weakness of mankind. We want to believe that we have the power to take out anything ourselves. It's only fair to note here that he isn't saying that women are strong and men are weak. That's not the case at all. He gives Mina vulnerability and weakness as well. But Stoker is showing the reader that even after everything the characters can do, they almost exhaust themselves in their efforts to overcome Dracula. It requires the combined effort of all of the men in the book, including the weak Jonathan and our newly defined woman, Mina, to bring down Dracula. They only succeed when Dracula is immobilized. At his absolute weakest do they have any effect on him.

  I want to take minute to talk about Dracula and his minions at their height. Dr. Van Helsing has a lot of defenses against them. This could be stretched to be symbolic of religion, especially because the first defense that was shown in the book was given to the weak (Jonathan) by a simple and weak, and decedents of an ancient people -a religious symbol -the cross. Not all of Van Helsing’s defenses are sure -like garlic, and a lot could be said here about religious ideologies. But the point I’m trying to make is that, the one thing that was absolutely sure to hinder Dracula, which never failed, was a symbol universally acknowledged in the western world to represent religion (albeit a specific kind). So only God can really supersede the Satanic figure and the Christ figure belongs to Christ and not man.

  So many, many people write with a Christ figure, and it makes some really entertaining stories, but here, finally, is a book about the effects, power and limitations of the Satanic figure. I found it really refreshing, once I finally got what was going on, to read a book where the tag line, "only one man could save them all" couldn't be applied. I would say this book is more about the struggle of mankind to understand self, others, and to overcome personal obstacles while recognizing that it requires something outside oneself to really succeed, whether that be a 12 step program or God or friends or whatever.

  Facebook-användare about 1 year ago

   

   

   

   

   

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    In response to Facebook-användare

    I think you make some good points, but I'd argue that Bram Stoker probably wasn't taking all of that into consideration with writing. It likely came down to something more simple: he needed characters to get various jobs done; Van Helsing was the one who was the lore buff, Dr. Seward a reliable narrator, Lord Godalming there to be rich and employ money when needed, (and provide the most sympathy for the death of Lucy), and Quincey Morris to be you know, charming and American.
    Harker was probably written to be more heroic and Stoker realized that he simply couldn't complete the tasks alone, and so he downgraded his character until he was positively dull, gaining his redemption as a character only by cutting off Dracula's head at the end.

    Of course, I for one didn't have a problem with any of the minor male characters. Van Helsing I felt was fleshed out well, even more than the other characters, and I was very drawn to the level-headed Dr. Seward as well.

    I do agree with your notes on the religious aspects of the book, but I think too often people are taught to look at books so critically they forget that writers, however brilliant, very rarely implant themes into their work for the sake of you worming them out.

    Karly Noelle Abreu about 1 month ago

     

    
    

     

     

     

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    In response to Karly Noelle Abreu

    Thanks for your reply and your comments. I agree with you in that most writers don't set out to implant themes in the readers minds. I believe most write from a need to express something unspoken in themselves, and I believe that was probably what Stoker did. If I came off sounding like I thought he needed a revision, that wasn't my intention, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. I had read a few critical pieces on his work and while discussing the points made by those writers, verses what I had noted I felt some things had been over looked as things that were worthy to be understood, so I put them out there.

    My personal opinion about literature is that while the writer writes, all meaning is his own and personal. Though a writer can explain their meaning if they choose, which many do not, I personally feel that the highest enjoyment of literature is what a reader gets from the book. It can be just pure straight forward reading or it can be an indepth look, which I find to be really enjoyable, it's like putting a puzzle together -what else can I take with me, what else can I learn? I think that sometimes that meaning which one gets is what the writer meant, and sometimes it is not and that it doesn't really matter. Maybe Stoker would feel that I got all wrong, if he could read my review, maybe not. Maybe he would think that I put in straight forward words what he didn't know he was really itching to say, I don't know of coursse. I think we all say something with writing, whether a critique on the the human condition, or just commentary about how it is, or wishing for how it might be.
    Anyway, I'm going on way to long. Thanks for reading my review and making a comment. I enjoyed the things you said, especially your point about Harker.

    Facebook-användare about 1 month ago

     

    
    

     

     

     

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