According to the schedule, as of today we’ve read through Chapter 12, and I’ll be discussing events from that chapter, so be warned if you’ve fallen behind.
The bulk of this section centers on Lucy, and the reactions of Mina, Dr Seward, and Van Helsing to her situation. What I want to focus on is an interesting change that occurs in Lucy, aside from the whole living-to-dead one: it seems like maybe there’s an upside to a relationship with Dracula.
We meet Lucy in Chapter 5, in the two letters she writes to Mina. As I touched on in my last post, the language Lucy uses is light-hearted, even approaching ditzy (”Do you ever try to read your own face? I do, and I can tell you it is not a bad study, and gives you more trouble than you can well fancy if you have never tried it.”). She’s wholly consumed in her attempts to fend off two of her three suitors. She bursts into tears when she must tell them she doesn’t love them, and cries “like a baby” when she gets the proposal she wants. She asks “My dear Mina, why are men so noble when we women are so little worthy of them?” Not exactly a candidate for the aforementioned New Woman. She’s girlish, immature, self-centered, and her sense of self is all wrapped up in her desire to be someone’s wife.
We next hear from Lucy in her own words in Chapter Nine. At this point we know something has happened to her, but we don’t know what. She was sleep-walking, there was maybe something creepy standing behind her on the cliffs, and she’s got some marks on her neck. She’ll get sick later, but for now, she feels better, healthier than she has in a while.
The change in Lucy in the Chapter Nine letter is pronounced. She starts: “Oceans of love and millions of kisses, and may you soon be in your own home with your husband.” Already we can tell she’s more outwardly focused, in tune with what Mina is going through. There’s a maturity in the language of this letter that we didn’t see previously. Perhaps the most telling indication of the change is this line: “Arthur says I am getting fat. By the way, I forgot to tell you that Arthur is here.” This is the same woman who wouldn’t stop talking about her suitors before, and now he’s mentioned almost in passing. What are we to make of the fact that Lucy now seems more pleasant, more well-adjusted, more like someone we’d actually want to be around?
Mina, meanwhile, is undergoing a change of her own. At first she’s terrified about not having heard from Jonathan in so long, but must deal with the fact at hand of Lucy’s strange behavior. Her diary moves back and forth between these two spheres, her worry for Jonathan and her concern for Lucy. Then Mina gets word from Jonathan, and rushes off to meet him. They get married, and almost immediately her concern for her friend drops to nothing.
Granted, Jonathan seems to be having a lengthy convalescence, for whatever reason. And Lucy seems much improved, although you would think Mina would question this—Lucy never remembered sleep-walking, why trust her just because she says she isn’t doing it anymore?
This passage in particular really struck me:
I wish I could run up to town for a day or two to see you, dear, but I dare not go yet, with so much on my shoulders; and Jonathan wants looking after still.
What’s on her shoulders? Wifely duties? Her hands were much more full with Lucy, but as soon as she gets married she can’t make time to check in with her friend? And look at the language Mina uses to describe Jonathan: “He has had some terrible shock, and I fear it might tax his poor brain if he were to try to recall it.” Those are her feelings about the guy she’s devoting herself to? This seems a far cry from the woman who risked propriety by running off under-clothed and shoeless to save her friend in the middle of the night.
On the one hand we have Lucy, changed from girlishness to maturity by her interaction with Dracula. On the other hand, marriage has transformed Mina from a strong, independent woman into someone’s wife. It’s hard to know what Stoker might have intended. Has Dracula—evil incarnate, after all—done Lucy a disservice in leading her astray from her former concerns? This would imply that Mina’s path, from New Woman to doting wife, is modeling the ideal behavior. Or are we to wonder if Lucy isn’t better off, having been released of her former concerns by Dracula, and if Mina would have maintained her sense of self and her integrity as a friend without her wifely devotion to Jonathan? Is Dracula one big STFU Marrieds?
Interesting. I had appreciated Lucy’s development as a real character (assuming it strength coming in the face of adversity, rather than in the hand of Dracula, which was a little short-sighted of me maybe). Now that I think of it, I am recently infuriated by Mina’s increasingly distant and disconnected voice in the story. I hadn’t drawn a line across the two.
Although it’s early days yet, I was much frustrated by her tritely worded letter to Lucy on the death of Hawkins. And her description of his earlier reunion with Harker was equally unfulfilling. Did they discuss Dracula? Harker’s experience on his work-trip? Did Hawkins fake his gout, and sacrifice his apprentice to save himself? Did he know, or have some intimation? Maybe the answers are coming, but with Hawkins written away in a paragraph I’m dubious.
Thanks for warning us in the first line. According to the schedule, today we’ll have finished Chapter 11, not 12.
Wow, you’re totally right, sorry about that, I misread the schedule. I’m actually having a hard time following the schedule–the book moves along at a pretty good clip, it feels like we’re throttling things with our schedule.
I completely miss Mina. All the CONSTANT CONCERN from the doctors about Lucy, it’s tiresome. Actually, the revolving-around-Dear-Lucy everyone seems to do is tiresome as well; when Mina stops, I don’t blame her. She has enough on her plate with Mary Sue Harker, does she have the time and energy that being Dear Lucy’s BFF requires (demands) as well? No, I say, not at all. One woman, no matter how modern, can only do so much.
Well, I had never heard of “STFU Marrieds” and I wanted to know what the heck you were talking about so I followed the link.
Somebody shoot me.
Anyway Kevin–now that we’re on chap. 11 I can say this–I think you’re right in a sense: Becoming acquainted with what it is to struggle against a sense of dread has made Lucy’s daintily “ditzy” personality (because she’s been brought up in privilege and kept sheltered, more than because she’s young and female) give way to something that seems to have more depth, as well as the “maturity” you mention. Maybe a bit of a cliche, but this is often the case with suffering. I don’t think it’s Dracula necessarily that causes this, at least not directly which is what you seem to be saying, but correct me if I’m wrong.
Her Sept 12 entry (Chapter 12) says “How blessed are some people, whose lives have no fears, no dreads; to whom sleep is a blessing that comes nightly, and brings nothing but sweet dreams.” And “..oh the terrible struggle I have had…the pain of the sleeplessness…the pain of the fear of sleep…”
She, who one would think would have gone through life feeling extremely blessed (and she snagged a Lord) now feels a deprivation that drives her to more of an “examining life” stance. Her complaints culminate in her comparing herself to a suicide, so radically has the emotional tenor of her existence changed. And for me, Lucy’s diary here quoting Shakepeare, quoting great poetry (and a particularly beautiful line, at that), indicates that she is somewhat of an aesthete if not much more intellectual than I saw her at first and this changes the idea of how mature she is as well.
Very good catch there Kevin. I had noticed a distinct shift in the two female characters but hadn’t been able to put my finger on it before reading your analysis.