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Source (yes, I know it's AI generated, but I couldn't
find a decent illustration of this character ANYWHERE). |
Wilhelmina “Mina” Harker, née Murray from Dracula
I always try to pick a spooky-themed woman for October, and having just finished up Bram Stoker’s Dracula, what better choice than the female lead in the most famous vampire novel of all time?
I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect when I first cracked open Dracula, though given that it was first published in 1897, I wasn’t exactly anticipating a subversive heroine that charted the course of early feminism. But sometimes these old books can surprise you, especially in the horror genre.
It doesn’t get off to an auspicious start, since our very first mention of Mina is a brief note written by her fiancé Jonathan in his journal, reminding himself to get her a recipe for a meal he enjoyed, presumably so she can cook it for him. As his experiences in Dracula’s castle become ever more terrifying, he references her in his writing with more and more desperation, until his last words are committed to the page: “Goodbye all! Mina!”
Once we reach her narrative, we can glean some details about herself that she reveals in passing: she’s an orphan (“I never knew either father or mother,”) she works as a teacher at a girls’ school (“the life of an assistant schoolmistress is sometimes trying,”) and she’s learning shorthand (“when we are married I shall be able to be useful to Jonathan.”) Beneath this practicality, there’s also a sense of wistfulness and romanticism about her, stating in a letter to her friend Lucy: “it must be so nice to see strange countries. I wonder if we – I mean Jonathan and I – shall ever see them together.”
If it wasn’t already obvious from Jonathan’s journal, Mina’s correspondence makes clear there’s an attachment and understanding between these two characters, though Mina herself doesn’t seem to have any ambition beyond becoming the perfect helpmeet to her future husband. As the story progresses, a lot is piled on this girl’s plate: she instinctively worries that her fiancé is in grave danger, has to deal with her friend’s nightly sleepwalking, and grapples with a palpable dread that only intensifies when the preternatural events occurring all around her become undeniable.
And yet, she has a zest and enthusiasm for life, and she’d probably be described as a Cute Bookworm in modern parlance. She has an interest in the New Women, her portable typewriter goes with her everywhere, and she writes to Lucy: “I shall try to do what I see lady journalists do: interviewing and writing descriptions and trying to remember conversations.”
This encapsulates her most important role in the story: to be the recorder, the transcriber, and the editor of all the events that follow. She copies everyone’s letters and diaries, types out Doctor Seward’s phonograph entries, and collates relevant newspaper articles. It’s through parsing through the words of the men that she figures out what route Dracula is taking back to his castle, and her idea that she should be hypnotized each day in order to get a fix on his location.
In other words, she holds the power of the narrative. We have this story because of her. To compare her to another character in a similar role, she’s like Eliza at the end of Hamilton, drawing together all the accounts and interviews and letters to form a coherent history. “Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?” Mina does.
But because none of the movie adaptations can effectively demonstrate the legwork she puts into organizing the mass of documents that make up this book (because watching a woman type isn’t exactly interesting) and are loathe to arm her with a stake and turn her into a vampire slayer (though she is given a revolver in the book’s final act), much of her importance to the narrative is lost on-screen.
Across various films and television shows she largely comes across as a passive victim of Dracula – if she’s not being forced into a turgid and completely fabricated love affair with him – much like how the irony of Irulan’s purpose in the Dune novels is lost when you cut out her quotes at the start of each chapter. Some things only work on the page, with the written word.
There are other elements to Mina that are present in the book and dramatized in various adaptations: sadly, a lot of it has to do with the Madonna/Whore Complex, with Mina explicitly compared to the vampiric women that hold Jonathan captive (“Faugh! Mina is a woman, and there is naught in common”) and implicitly with Lucy after her transformation into one of the undead. When she plays a trick on van Helsing there is an interesting passage in which she states: “I could not resist the temptation of mystifying him a bit – I suppose it is some of the taste of the original apple that remains still in our mouths,” though later she leans heavily into the “mother” aspect of the Madonna archetype when she comforts Arthur Holmwood:
“I suppose there is something in woman’s nature that makes a man free to break down before her and express his feelings on the tender or emotional side without feeling it derogatory to his manhood; for when Lord Godalming found himself alone with me he sat down on the sofa and gave way utterly and openly... we women have something of the mother in us that makes us rise above smaller matters when the mother-spirit is invoked; I felt this big, sorrowing man’s head resting on me, as though it were that of the baby that some day may like on my bosom, and I stroked his hair as though he were my own child.”
It's all insanely Victorian, and as with most things of this nature, I’m in two minds about it. Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with comforting a grief-stricken man, and I’m sure there’s a lot of truth in men being more comfortable being emotionally open in front of women than other men, but there’s a ring of old-timey condescension here that bleeds into the menfolk’s decision to keep Mina in the dark when it comes to how they intend to deal with Dracula:
“When we part tonight, you no more must question. We shall tell you all in good time. We are men, and are able to bear; but you must be our star and our hope, and we shall act all the more free that you are not in the danger, such as we are.”
“Somehow, it was a dread to me that she was in this fearful business at all; but now that her work is done, and that it is due to her energy and brains and foresight that the whole story is put together in such a way that every point tells, she may well feel that her part is finished, and that she can henceforth leave the rest to us.”
“Our first step has been accomplished without the bringing thereinto our most sweet Madam Mina or troubling her waking or sleeping thoughts with sights and sounds and smells of horror which she might never forget.”
“Mrs Harker is better out of it. Things are quite bad enough to us, all men of the world, and who have been in many tight places in our time; but it is no place for a woman, and if she had remained in touch with the affair, it would in time infallibly have wrecked her.”
And what does Mina have to say about all this? “I did not say anything, for I had a greater fear that if I appeared as a drag or a hindrance to their work, they might even leave me out of their counsels altogether.”
And yet to Stoker’s everlasting credit, he makes it very clear that leaving Mina out of the loop is the wrong decision. Heck, it’s a crucial plot-point that it’s the wrong decision. The fact the men do not share basic information with Mina about what’s happening is what nearly gets her killed. After she’s attacked and infected by Dracula, the men change their tact entirely:
“When the question began to be discussed as to what should be our next step, the very first thing we decided was that Mina should be in full confidence; that nothing of any sort – no matter how painful – should be kept from her.”
With Mina in the inner circle, she proves herself invaluable to the destruction of the vampire – as mentioned, she figures out by which route he’s returning to his castle lair, and comes up with the idea that she be hypnotized in order to exploit the psychic bond that now exists between her and the vampire they’re hunting. As she said earlier: “Fortunately I am not of a fainting disposition.”
And because she’s been bitten by the vampire, her very soul is now at stake. There’s some surprisingly fraught conversations about suicide and euthanasia, with van Helsing urging her to live at all costs – for were she to die before Dracula is killed, she’ll return as one of the undead. As they travel with her across Transylvania, all the men are acutely aware of the danger she poses, for just as she can peer into Dracula’s psyche, it stands to reason that he can do the same to her.
It's a no-brainer writing technique to add deeply personal stakes to whatever large-scale conflict the protagonists are attempting to resolve, and in this case the men are spurred on by their love for Mina just as desperately as their understanding that an unholy demon that preys on human beings cannot be allowed to live. In this case, it also nearly leads to one of my most hated tropes: a man being forced to kill the woman he loves.
As Mina says of the gathered menfolk:
“I shall tell you plainly what I want, for there must be no doubtful matter in this connection between us now. You must promise me, one and all – even you my beloved husband – that, should the time come, you will kill me... you too, my dearest. You must not shrink. You are nearest and dearest and all the world to me; our souls are knit into one, for all life and all time. Think dear, that there have been times when brave men have killed their wives and their womenkind, to keep them from falling into the hands of the enemy. Their hands did not falter any the more because those that they loved implored them to slay them. It is men’s duty towards those whom they love, in such times of sore trial! And oh, my dear, if it is to be that I must meet death at any hand, let it be at the hand of him that loves me best.”
Bleh.
It’s one of those things that on a Watsonian level it makes perfect sense; of course she’s asking to be killed if she becomes a monster. But on a Doylist level, it’s yet another example of a male writer eagerly exploring the possibility of what it must be like to kill a woman and be absolutely justified in doing so. I’ve ranted at length about this before (Maid Marian, Daenerys, Vanessa Ives, Jean Grey, the list goes on) so I’ll spare you the repetition, but it wasn’t much fun to see here, especially knowing that this scene probably inspired countless other books on the same subject.
As the core reason for their passion and drive; the very thing that the menfolk rally around to protect and fight for again overwhelming evil, Mina is inevitably showered with effusive praise. I mean, it’s not like they’re going to do all this for one of those voluptuous women, right? The Madonna Complex is in full effect, and nobody holds back with how precious and pure and wonderful Mina is.
To wit: “a pearl among women,” “there are darknesses in life, and there are lights; you are one of the lights,” “she is one of God’s women, fashioned by His own hand to show us men... that there is a heaven where we can enter, and that its light can be here on earth,” “so true, so sweet, so noble, so little an egotist,” “she has man’s brain – a brain that a man should have were he much gifted – and a woman’s heart,” “this boy will some day know what a brave and gallant woman his mother is. Already he knows her sweetness and loving care; later on he will understand how some men so loved her, that they did dare much for her sake.”
And look, it’s not like I disagree with any of these platitudes – Mina is indeed amazing. Like Molière said: “to inspire love is a woman's greatest ambition,” and for many such women, that’s all they want in life. But I sense that Mina wanted more. By elevating her onto a pedestal that high, she ends up robbed of some of her humanity, and the hopeful young woman who at the beginning of the story wrote: “it must be so nice to see strange countries,” doesn’t get much of a look-in by the end.
I hope that in the years to come, she gets to see those strange countries, and takes that portable typewriter with her. Perhaps she’ll write a travelogue, or a history, or a book on ancient folklore. For my favourite passage from her reminded me a bit of Tolkien’s take on Éowyn, of whom he said: “like many brave women [she] was capable of great military gallantry at a crisis.”
Or as Bram Stoker says of Mina: “There may be a solemn duty; and if it come, we must not shrink from it. I shall be prepared. I shall get my typewriter this very hour and begin transcribing.”
