Dear Reader,
I’m back on my shit again.
The Gothic horror genre is rife with weird science due to The Age of Energy and Invention. The post-partum depression of Lady Audly’s mother gets her sent to a mental hospital. The strange mechanical workings of The Terribly Strange Bed. The phrenology in The Hound of the Baskervilles where Arthur Conan Doyle uses science to both explain and emphasize the intelligence of our hero Sherlock Holmes. Bram Stoker does something similar with Mina Harker.
Van Helsing, a medical man and a professor of high reputation, sings the praises of Mina Harker in a really fucking weird way, “Ah, that wonderful Madam Mina!…and not so long married;” (Chapter XVIII)
The suggestion from a doctor that women and men have significantly different organs is wild! This is obviously catering to gender standards, the caring and yet weak heart of a woman as opposed to the intelligent and calculating brain of a man.
This also speaks explicitly to our point in class about men being responsible for protecting women. “A brave man’s blood is the best thing on this earth when a woman is in trouble….we want them.” (Chapter XII) The gendering of organs can also be seen here.
Now, I know what you’re thinking, “Red. You’ve done an excellent job of identifying something interesting, revealing, or strange, and you’ve looked sexy while doing it, but, not to be an asshole, so what?” Thank you reader; I did something new with my hair and I’m glad that you like it. To your question though, “So what?”
The idea that men are scientifically engineered, and shaped by God, to protect women is a pervasive one throughout this story and made explicit in the quotes that I have selected. “So what?” Bram Stoker uses science and an appeal to religion to justify his sexist and ridiculous “damsel in distress” in a way that is dangerous and harmful.
Yours sleeping upsidedown like a bat,
Carmine “Red” Zingiber
What makes this “damsel in distress scenario” so “dangerous and harmful?” Do you believe that this trope is “dangerous and harmful” in the context of the story, in a real-life context, or both? I think the point you’re making here is an interesting one, but I want to know more about why it’s an important point.
Right off the bat I love how you tie in other texts we’ve read so far in class, you do a great job of connecting the historical time period to Dracula in a way where we can see the contrast between fantasy and reality. I think there’s definitely something to examine with science and information, (or possibly misinformation) playing a role within this text.