{"id":993,"date":"2023-09-20T12:03:44","date_gmt":"2023-09-20T16:03:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/?p=993"},"modified":"2023-09-20T12:03:44","modified_gmt":"2023-09-20T16:03:44","slug":"van-helsing-is-a-drama-queen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/2023\/09\/20\/van-helsing-is-a-drama-queen\/","title":{"rendered":"Van Helsing Is a Drama Queen"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Chapter 13, Van Helsing and Seward share a moment of vulnerability after Lucy\u2019s burial that reveals the representation of emotional expression in men and between men within the novel. In the train carriage, Seward witnesses Van Helsing\u2019s breakdown into a \u201cfit of hysterics\u201d, which Helsing denies and insists it was his \u201csense of humour\u201d under \u201cterrible conditions\u201d (186). Seward then draws the blinds of the carriage so that onlookers would not make a judgment of them. This passage demonstrates the way in which the men in this novel reserve their emotional intimacy for the women in their lives, upholding gendered behavioral distinctions. The laughing and crying over the death of an innocent girl and feelings of compassion and pity for her widower as a father and a husband are regarded as feminine in this passage and behaviors that require a stern response from another man. Additionally, the use of \u201cstern\u201d for how Seward attempts to \u201ccomfort\u201d Helsing in his emotional state, while noting that sternness is how one would attempt to console a woman in these circumstances, also hints at the relationship of the sharing of emotions between men, which its displays seem to be a discomfort to Seward as Helsing continues to cry and laugh despite Seward\u2019s efforts. This instance of vulnerability as Helsing pours out his pain for Arthur is noted as something \u201ca woman does\u201d which reveals Seward\u2019s association with emotional intimacy, compassion, and comfort as womanly tasks or responsibilities. The tasks of men on the other hand involve the protection of women, or the killing of if they see fit, violence, and danger, as later they take on the responsibility of saving Lucy (pg 186).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This passage felt like an attempt to convey camaraderie between the men in the novel to set up the later banding-together-to-kill-the-monster while also making note of the differences in weaknesses and strengths between men and women and distracting from deeper emotional male relationships that are more acceptable between women (186). In this passage, Seward is concerned about others judging Helsing\u2019s display of \u201chysterics\u201d after the funeral, which would be a fairly normal response to someone\u2019s death, and consoles him in the way \u201ca man would\u201d when a woman, who is implied to be the typical perpetrator of hysterics, would have an emotional breakdown such as this. However, later on this same page, Helsing reveals how he feels emotionally compelled to feel pity for Arthur as both a father and husband which causes him to \u201cyearn to him (Arthur) as to no other man\u201d (186). Here, the novel reveals that the men are capable and willing to express emotions towards each other despite their belonging to women, but are veiled beneath reiterations of comforting one another in the form of shielding them from judgment by others or encouraging them to repress their emotions in order to maintain the strength and focus to complete their more difficult and acceptable tasks, being that of protecting women, such as Mina, from danger, and taking the responsibility of braving the murder of \u201cLucy\u201d. Additionally, the subsequent band of men determined to destroy the monster in Lucy\u2019s body is formed both from the desire to protect, but also to bring Arthur peace and the ability to truly say goodbye to his wife. Again, there are expressions of compassion and love between the men, but they are manifested in either stern repressions of emotion, like Van Helsing and Seward, or through acts of violence to distinguish them from the warm and delicate embraces of women like Mina who rather cradle Arthur in her arms as he cries. Ultimately, the major crux of the group\u2019s success in saving Lucy resulted from the men\u2019s compassion towards Arthur as they pity his pain at the loss of his wife and support him as he saves her body through gruesome violence; again asserting the differences in which men emotionally express themselves and emotionally support each other in comparison to women in the novel. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Chapter 13, Van Helsing and Seward share a moment of vulnerability after Lucy\u2019s burial that reveals the representation of emotional expression in men and between men within the novel. In the train carriage, Seward witnesses Van Helsing\u2019s breakdown into a \u201cfit of hysterics\u201d, which Helsing denies and insists it was his \u201csense of humour\u201d … Continue reading Van Helsing Is a Drama Queen<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4878,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[125361],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2023-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4878"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/993\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}