Sooo, I realise I should have done this like last week but luckily Mr Francis didn't decide to pick on my blog then so it's all good.
It seems ages since we read chapter 8 and just flicking back over my notes and the other blog posts there's quite a lot to talk about.
Firstly there is the whole Mina is a 'Madonna' thing. She is portrayed as being a virtuous lady by acknowledging her obligations (even to her diary), ".... I have made my diary a duty" and aslo through the mothering care that she gives to Lucy after she has gone sleepwalking up to the abbey. This can be seen through the way she dresses her in a motherly fashion, " I fastened her shall at her throat" as well as through the description that she gives to Lucy's passiveness once Mina wakes her, "I told her to come at once with me home she rose without a word, with the obediance of a child". Furthermore, Mina looks after her friend by trying to protect her reputation from the scandal that would emerge if it were to be discovered that she had gone outside in her nightdress. Mina's concern about her own feet being on show, "I daubed my feet with mud" also show her strict ideas about Victorian virtue. So Mina's motherlike qualities and virtues make her the archetypal Madonna of the story. Sterotypical or what? I personally think that Stoker has made Mina's character too one dimensional so that I think any real woman either Victorian or modern would have difficulty relating to her character. What really infuriates me about Stoker's portrayal of Mina is the way he uses her to bad mouth feminist 'new women' in Dracula. Mina is in essensce a piece of propaganda used by Stoker to show to the world his own views about women and how they should act and be seen to act. I honestly don't think he writes her very well because she is merely a tool and not a developed character in her own right.
The second BIG thing in chapter 8 is the whole Drac and Lucy 'rape' marriage going on. It has been suggested by members of the class that wedding imagery is used to describe the scene at the Abbey, where Mina disturbs Dracula drinking the blood of Lucy. Evidence includes, "something dark stood behind the seat where the white figure shone" and "something, long and black, bending over the half-reclining white figure". It is as if by taking her blood Dracula is marrying Lucy by taking something precious from her, perhaps the blood drinking is a symbol for the taking of virginity/ rape? This can be backed up by the imagery used by Stoker on page 102, "on the band of her nightdress was a drop of blood" to evoke an image of unclean bed sheets after the wedding night. All of this personally reminds me of the times that men who raped women were forced to marry them as punishment. Furthermore, I hate to go back to Freud but his symbolism could be used in regard to the 'penetration' of the fangs on the throat for... well it's pretty self explanatory really. What irritates me about the rape marriage is that Lucy is portrayed badly, almost 'whore' like. Mina frets about Lucy's reputation, like it was actually her fault for sleepwalking out of the house in her nightdress. Silly judgmental Victorians.
End Note: Finished the book now, overall I thought it was pretty good but the ending was just so quick!
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