That Dracula and Mina share the marriage bed, and enact a ritual reenactment of the two-become-one marriage/consummation activities we assume Jonathan and she have shared, only furthers this doppelganger relationship. Remember, she is complicit in her victimization here when she says “I did not want to hinder him.” After his speech, an inverse of wedding vows, he compels her to drink his blood in return. She has the choice of suffocating there, but instead chooses to drink, chooses to marry him. This action not only reinforces the marriage motif, but is also an inverse of her major role in the group as a mother. By drinking from his breast she chooses to be his child, solidifying the role she’s now already been initiated to as her protectors have been treating her like a child. However, by his drinking from her, she retains some of that maternal nature which has been her strongest characteristic yet. Even in the midst of this horrible scene, she still mothers Jonathan when she says “Do not fret, dear…”

At the end of this marriage/consummation/rape/nursing scene, we see the sun beginning to rise. This is a time of day along with noon and sunset discussed by Van Helsing to be when vampires can change their forms. Here we see Harker change to a white haired man with a deep stern grey countenance, a mirror image of the man he met in Transylvania. This is one of my favorite scenes ever written, and has been since I was in high school. Now that I see Dracula isn’t an external force of doom, but rather and internal force of each of these characters externalized in a doppelganger, I love it all the more. It makes it so much darker to think that instead of merely being caught off guard and victimized by some monster, that instead you beget the monster and are complicit in your own victimization. How do you destroy something when all your actions, whether to destroy it or not, aid it by your complicity? If the monster is your own dark reflection, how can you destroy it without destroying yourself?

Although I was confused by one thing, and I’m posting this question here because maybe you folks could help out. Why can Dracula get into Mina’s room? I thought that Van Helsing said that vampires can only enter homes that they are invited into. I was also confused about this with Lucy, but since Drac sucked her blood out in the graveyard first, I figured that he must have had enough power over Lucy that she invited him into her room at night. But Mina certainly never did such a thing. So how does Dracula get in? Does it have something to do with the fact that she’s staying at Dr. Seward’s house, which is attached to the asylum, which is also maybe attached to Drac’s house, so it’s like one big campus?

These guys decide that Mina must be excluded from further vampire tracking because it will be too alarming to her. While they are dithering around, she seems to take ill, appearing more and more pale and listless, especially upon awakening. Despite having seen Lucy die after exhibiting IDENTICAL symptoms, and despite the fact that Dracula lives NEXT DOOR, the fact that there might be a vampire problem with Mina doesn’t cross their minds. They keep sending her off to bed alone while they discuss their business.

When they finally get incontrovertible evidence from Renfield that Dracula has gotten to Mina, and they know that Mina is at that very moment her bedroom and that Dracula is out and about (it being night), they rush to her door and have the following exchange:

Quote:
“Outside the Harkers’ door we paused. Art and Quincey held back, and the latter said, “Should we disturb her?”

“We must,” said Van Helsing grimly. “If the door be locked, I shall break it in.”

“May it not frighten her terribly? It is unusual to break into a lady’s room!”"

The lack of judgment exhibited by these characters throughout the book is astounding. That Dr. Seward seems ready to release Renfield after each rational conversation, despite having witnessed weeks of alternating rational and mad behavior is but one example. I hope Mina recovers and talks some sense into them.