“Ah, that wonderful Madam Mina! She has a man’s brain– a brain that a man should have were he much gifted– and woman’s heart. The good God fashioned her for a purpose, believe me, when He made that so good combination” (Stoker 250).
Dr. Van Helsing’s praises Mina’s “man brain” after Dr. Seward informs him about Mina’s role in preparing the individual diaries. Although Van Helsing’s praise registers acknowledgement and appreciation for Mina’s role in compiling information about Dracula, it also betrays anxiety about her intellectual capacities. Considering Van Helsing’s praise of Mina’s “man brain” in the context of the debate surrounding the “Woman Question” in the Victorian era illuminates Van Helsing’s underlying anxiety about female intelligence. Van Helsing attempts to alleviate this anxiety by masculinizing Mina’s intelligence and by emphasizing her feminine characteristics.
The much-debated “Woman Question” was concerned with trying to determine women’s proper place in society, and in the Victorian era, women were considered to be the “weaker sex” in almost every context, including the literary and medical establishments (1061). Although the number of women writers increased drastically during the Victorian era, and women writers were acknowledged for their achievements, women’s writing was also considered to be a type of “brain-work” that “unfitted women for motherhood” (1061). Although Van Helsing is complimenting Mina’s skill in compiling factual information in the quotation above, both Mina’s skill at typing and organizing the information in the diaries and the profession of women’s writing can be considered as a display of female intellect that provoked anxiety about the effect of “brain-work” on women.
Van Helsing both disguises and attempts to alleviate his unease at Mina’s intellect by masculinizing her intelligence. By stating that Mina has the brain of a particularly gifted man, Van Helsing implies that Mina’s intellect is inherently masculine. This particular way of describing Mina’s intelligence also suggests that she herself is not intelligent, but is merely borrowing the trait of masculine intellect. Van Helsing’s qualification that Mina has “a brain that a man should have were he much gifted” also suggests that Mina is appropriating a man’s rightful intelligence. By describing Mina’s intelligence as a masculine feature, Van Helsing implies that Mina’s intellect is unnatural and does not rightly belong to her. His technique of separating Mina from her intelligence allows Van Helsing to both suggest that intelligence in a woman is unnatural and to alleviate that anxiety by separating the woman from her brain.
Van Helsing further alleviates his anxiety about Mina’s intelligence by emphasizing her feminine characteristics, which allows him to categorize her within the confines of a Victorian understanding of femininity. According to Victorian standards, “The ideal Victorian woman was supposed to be domestic and pure, selflessly motivated by the desire to serve others rather than fulfill her own needs” (1061). Van Helsing’s remark that Mina possesses a “woman’s heart” is meant to stand in for all of the attributes of the Victorian ideal of femininity. While Mina “man’s brain” is not fully her own because it is inherently masculine, her “woman’s heart” truly belongs to her as it is an aspect of femininity. By referencing Mina’s “woman’s heart,” Van Helsing reassures himself that Mina is indeed truly feminine. His comment that the “good God fashioned her for a purpose” further establishes that Mina is, in fact, an ideal Victorian woman. The statement implies that Mina exists not as a woman in her own right, but for some higher, perhaps patriarchal, design, and also allows Van Helsing to consider Mina’s intelligence not as an unnatural attribute but part of some divine plan.
Reading Van Helsing’s praise of Mina’s efforts to compile the information about Dracula in the context of the Victorian debate about the “Woman Question” reveals an underlying anxiety about female intelligence. Van Helsing’s description of Mina’s intelligence as a “man brain” suggests both that he views her intellectual abilities as at odds with her gender and that he wishes to separate her intelligence from her gender by masculinizing it. In order to retain Mina within the bounds of femininity, Van Helsing takes the additional measures of emphasizing Mina’s femininity by drawing attention to her “woman’s heart” and by suggesting that Mina’s oddly masculine intelligence is perhaps not unnatural, but part of some divine plan. The variety of measures that Van Helsing employs to normalize Mina’s intelligence is indicative of the widespread anxiety about women’s intelligence and place in society that pervaded British society at the end of the 19th century.
Your analysis of Van Helsing’s comments about Mina’s intelligence bring up many important uncertainties that came about during the turn of the century – particularly that of woman intelligence. You make an interesting point in the way Van Helsing masculinizes Mina’s intelligence, subtly giving way to the idea that woman can indeed possess intelligence, but it is a strictly masculine trait that is atypical for women. Your discussion of Mina’s job during the hunt for Count Dracula, which includes compiling information and organizing diary entries, in its own right, offers an even greater depth to the way a woman’s intelligence was taken in society. The men in the novel, Van Helsing especially, were very aware of Mina’s brainpower, but put her to work doing more mundane, “womanly” tasks despite this knowledge.
I agree with this analysis about the anxieties of womens’ place in society. I especially appreciated the point about Mina’s most-complimented features being her skills at typical “woman’s duties”, such as typing and organizing, for men’s perusal. Do you think, maybe, that the constant references to the brain and the heart could have to do with Victorian uncertainties about medicine and medical progress at the turn of the century? Possibly, questions of women’s health were so murky and unclear at the time that any critical thinking on Mina’s part must be ascribed to her “man brain”, although she is still hindered by her “woman heart”.
Throughout the second half of the novel, Mina’s intellect is referred to again and again as the Crew of Light hunts Dracula in conjunction with the need to exclude her from the details of the journey. Van Helsing says that even though she is crucial to the hunt, “it is no part for a woman” (Stoker 250). The hunt is decidedly masculine and therefore Mina cannot be a part of the hunt despite her masculine intelligence. Is her intelligence not enough to compensate for her female body? Can she be said to have a form of masculinity similar to the different forms of masculinity present in the Crew of Light (Dr. Seward represents an intellectual masculinity while Morris represents a colonizing, aggressive masculinity) or does her body prevent her from holding a claim to masculinity?
I fully agree with your idea surrounding Mina as being a part of some divine plan. I think this idea can stem from her conflicting gender attributes from Van Helsing surrounding her body. As I read your post I thought of the Christian idea behind the Hypostasis within Jesus. Jesus is believed to be a body in which two modes, that of the human and the divine reside within him intrinsically bound. This idea is often times challenged as to say that the Christian religion mutilates Jesus by making him two separate “people” but rather this is not a mutilation of God but a communion of human and divine within the body. I think Mina’s body is being mutilated by Van Helsing within the fact that her brain is man and her heart is woman, rather than seeing her as one body who is both intelligent (man) and loving (woman). Like Jesus, Mina is similarly representing this idea however, Van Helsing is blind to it.
I’m interested in how the fear of intelligence in a woman relates to the fear of female sexuality. Both qualities – intelligence and sexuality – were supposed to be solely men’s territories, and women who possessed either attribute were unnatural or frightening. The fear of women with “masculine” qualities relates to the gender binary Victorians worked so hard to maintain; if women could also be smart and sexual, what did men have to offer? Maybe the fear of women who possessed “masculine” qualities was a guise for the fear that men wouldn’t retain their superiority if women could do the same things they could. Rather than a male superiority complex, it seems to me that the men had an inferiority complex – so anxious to maintain their standing, and so worried that its basis could be flimsy or nonexistent that women who threatened it had to be unnatural or simply more like the men themselves.