{"id":1045,"date":"2017-11-27T00:01:10","date_gmt":"2017-11-27T05:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/?p=1045"},"modified":"2017-11-30T11:36:06","modified_gmt":"2017-11-30T16:36:06","slug":"victorian-opinions-on-marriage-no-thank-you-john-versus-dracula","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/2017\/11\/27\/victorian-opinions-on-marriage-no-thank-you-john-versus-dracula\/","title":{"rendered":"Victorian Opinions on Marriage: “No, Thank You, John,” Versus “Dracula”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cNo, Thank You, John,\u201d by Christina Rossetti is a poem that shows the power that women can wield in a romantic relationship; the power to say \u201cno.\u201d \u00a0While controversial for the Victorian era, Rossetti\u2019s poem shows the amount of agency that women can achieve. \u00a0Even though a man may have institutional power over women, \u201cNo Thank You, John,\u201d shows that women can still have power, even in a society as oppressive to women as Victorian England. \u00a0This is contrasted by Bram Stoker\u2019s message in <\/span>Dracula,<\/span> which suggests through Lucy Westenra, that a proposal for marriage should be either accepted enthusiastically, or turned away with great sympathy and sorrow.<\/span><\/p>\n

In \u201cNo, Thank You, John,\u201d the narrator says, \u201cWhy will you tease me day by day. . . With always \u2018do\u2019 and \u2018pray\u2019. . . \u201cAnd pray don\u2019t remain single for my sake\u201d (Rossetti, 30-31). \u00a0Here, the narrator not only tells her suitor that she will never view him as a romantic partner, but she also subtly mocks him. \u00a0One of the reasons why the narrator is annoyed with John is because of his constant conversations about loving her, in which he often uses the word \u201cpray.\u201d \u00a0The female narrator uses the word \u201cpray\u201d to mock John\u2019s constant questioning of her. \u00a0By using John\u2019s own language when rejecting him, shows that she does not care about societal expectations of how a woman should act when a man asks to marry her. \u00a0The connotation the narrator’s mockery of John is not necessarily that she is inconsiderate, but rather that she desires her own agency in matters concerning her own future. \u00a0At the end of the poem, she suggests that they should \u201cstrike hands as hearty friends,\u201d noting that John should not have ulterior motives (Rossetti, 31). \u00a0This poem shows the blunt, yet not wholly inconsiderate rejection of John\u2019s marriage proposal to the narrator.<\/span><\/p>\n

Conversely, in Bram Stoker\u2019s <\/span>Dracula<\/span>, all men who propose to Lucy are put on a figurative pedestal. \u00a0The simple fact that they had asked Lucy to marry them and were rejected suggests that Lucy is obligated to feel guilty for not marrying them; it suggests that although Lucy has agency to decide who marries her, she nonetheless has to feel shame over it. \u00a0When Lucy turns down Dr. Seward and Quincey Morris, she reflects that, \u201cwomen, I am afraid, are not always quite as fair as they should be. . . I can\u2019t help crying. . . I feel so miserable\u201d (Stoker, 65). \u00a0The connotation of this passage is that Lucy is to blame for everything, when, in reality, the fact that she is in love with Arthur Holmwood, a perfectly nature occurrence is the reason. \u00a0This suggests that a woman\u2019s love for a man is secondary to the man\u2019s heartbreak. \u00a0Although unfortunate for Quincy and Dr. Seward, it is not Lucy\u2019s fault, as she has every right to marry who she loves the most. \u00a0Victorian society assigns blame to the female in this situation unjustly.<\/span><\/p>\n

Overall, Christina Rossetti\u2019s poem embodies the more controversial, liberal values of Victorian society regarding marriage, while Bram Stoker perpetuates the Victorian era\u2019s more prevalent, and conservative outlook on marriage.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cNo, Thank You, John,\u201d by Christina Rossetti is a poem that shows the power that women can wield in a romantic relationship; the power to say \u201cno.\u201d \u00a0While controversial for the Victorian era, Rossetti\u2019s poem shows the amount of agency that women can achieve. \u00a0Even though a man may have institutional power over women, \u201cNo … Continue reading Victorian Opinions on Marriage: “No, Thank You, John,” Versus “Dracula”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3250,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[123801],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2017-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1045\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}