{"id":1889,"date":"2021-10-27T21:55:15","date_gmt":"2021-10-28T01:55:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/?p=1889"},"modified":"2021-10-27T21:55:15","modified_gmt":"2021-10-28T01:55:15","slug":"it-is-the-east-and-lucy-is-the-sun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/2021\/10\/27\/it-is-the-east-and-lucy-is-the-sun\/","title":{"rendered":"“It is the East and Lucy is the Sun”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Victorian society praised conformity in their ridged ideas of gender roles.\u00a0 In this passage of<\/span>\u00a0Dracula<\/span><\/i> by Bram Stoker, Andrew Holmwood arrives just in time to provide his fianc\u00e9e, Lucy Westenra with blood that she needs to recover from her latest encounter with what the audience can only assume to be Dracula.\u00a0\u00a0The men who accompany the scene, Drs. Seward and Van Helsing worship his sacrifice of blood for Lucy\u2019s revival.\u00a0 In this text, the over-glorification of the man\u2019s position in a woman\u2019s life is evidenced by Van Helsing\u2019s coercion based the premise that he \u201ccan do more than any that love, and your courage is your best help\u201d (Stoker 115).\u00a0\u00a0Though the science of blood transfusion was still in its more experimental stages, Van Helsing\u2019s argument that his courage would be the most important asset of the blood is interesting.\u00a0\u00a0The interaction between the lovers upholds the rigidly structured gender roles of society based on the theoretical premise that a woman needs a male rescuer, and in a more severe sense that Lucy\u2019s imminent peril can be solved by a man\u2019s life-giving substance in order to be revived into her formerly youthful and vibrant self.\u00a0 There is a gradient of involvement at play in this passage in that Van Helsing is suggesting that the slightest gift of a man\u2019s courage would be enough to save his fianc\u00e9e from the horrible tortures that lie in death.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The melodrama of this haunting scene depicts Andrew as a valiant champion of love.\u00a0 At the mere suggestion that he provide aid, he proclaims enthusiasm: \u201c\u2018My life is hers and I would give the last drop of blood in my body for her…If you knew how gladly I would die for her you would understand-\u201d (Stoker 116).\u00a0 The result of Van Helsing\u2019s diminishment of his sacrifice and amplification of his youthful merit cause a dramatic, desperate response.\u00a0 Andrew\u2019s masculinity is the asset which makes this sacrifice worthy because, ultimately, Lucy is to become his property, so he would naturally see her as a part of himself.\u00a0\u00a0This raises questions about autonomy and the construction of gender roles around masculinity as a saving entity within a Victorian setting.\u00a0 In this display of passion comparable to Shakespeare\u2019s Romeo\u2019s passionate ballads, Andrew proclaims his duty to Lucy as a man, fittingly exemplifying the supremely Victorian virtue of melodrama manifested by his glorified masculinity.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Victorian society praised conformity in their ridged ideas of gender roles.\u00a0 In this passage of\u00a0Dracula by Bram Stoker, Andrew Holmwood arrives just in time to provide his fianc\u00e9e, Lucy Westenra with blood that she needs to recover from her latest encounter with what the audience can only assume to be Dracula.\u00a0\u00a0The men who accompany the … Continue reading “It is the East and Lucy is the Sun”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4758,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169398],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2021-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1889","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\/4758"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1889\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}