Mina In Bram Stoker's Dracula

Mina is also vastly unlike the contemporary female Gothic tropes due to her financial independence. Although Mina could be described as the ideal Victorian lady, Stoker also managed to include qualities associated with the much feared and controversial New Woman in her. She and Lucy mock the independence of the New Woman and joke that the New Woman will try to introduce the inversion of gender roles that contemporary society feared;

“Idea that men and women should be allowed to see each other asleep before proposing or accepting. But […] the New Woman won't condescend in future to accept; she will do the proposing herself. And a nice job she will make of it, too! There's some consolation in that.”

Despite her mocking, Mina is as much a model

In complete contrast to her descriptions and references to being a maternal figure, she is also described as being childlike; “Mina is sleeping now, calmly and sweetly like a little child” . This image serves to emphasise Mina’s helplessness and vulnerability when she is attacked by Count Dracula. She has no physical strength to protect her from the attack as she relies on the male characters of the novel for protection.

Further characteristic of Bram Stoker’s Mina Harker befitting of her image as the traditional Victorian woman and Gothic damsel are her chastity and modestly. In contrast to her friend and confidante Lucy

Nordau and Lombroso would so classify him, and qua criminal he is of an imperfectly formed mind. Thus, in a difficult he has to seek resource in habit.”

We learn that Jonathan also knows about the criminal theories of Dr Lombroso, although it is Mina who possesses the intelligence to apply Lombroso’s beliefs to the Count. As well the distribution of the crucial information, since she reads and types all the diaries and documents of the characters involved. Only her form of ordering and distribution makes the pursuit and ultimate destruction of Count Dracula possible.

To conclude, Mina Harker is not quite a gothic damsel nor is she a heroine but a blend of the two. She is the ultimate Victorian woman and Van Helsing’s praise of Mina testifies to the fact that she is indeed the embodiment of the virtues of the age. She is

“one of God’s women, fashioned by His own hand to show us men and other women that there is a heaven where we can enter, and its light can be here on earth. So true, so sweet, so