Tonight’s second Dracula
update:
Mina Harker (wife of Jonathan Harker, who started the whole
thing off by going to Transylvania to conduct the
conveyance of Carfax Abbey and only escaped by crawling down a
vertical castle wall) is prominent at this point in the story. She has a forte,
it seems, for consoling distraught men – holding their hands, providing a literal
shoulder on which to literally cry, and offering to be their ‘sister’ or ‘lifelong
friend,’ while actually playing the role of surrogate mother. This would appear to vindicate the editor’s
constant carping that she is not a ‘new woman’ (Victorian slang for feminist)
at all, but merely a strong and capable one. Dr Van Helsing describes her as
having ‘the mind of a man but the heart of a woman.’
I’m not sure whether this says more about the prejudices of
Victorian men, or the prejudices of 21st century editors.
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