{"id":1938,"date":"2021-10-28T11:19:29","date_gmt":"2021-10-28T15:19:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/?p=1938"},"modified":"2021-10-28T11:19:29","modified_gmt":"2021-10-28T15:19:29","slug":"happiness-a-double-edged-sword","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/2021\/10\/28\/happiness-a-double-edged-sword\/","title":{"rendered":"Happiness: A Double-Edged Sword"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0Between pages 6<\/span>7<\/span>-6<\/span>8<\/span>\u00a0of Stoker\u2019s\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Dracula<\/span><\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>there is<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>an in-depth look<\/span>\u00a0at how the role of women and sexuality interact not only with the text, but also with the time of\u00a0<\/span>the<\/span>\u00a0Victorian Era<\/span>.\u00a0<\/span>The passage is a letter written by Lucy, to her dearest friend<\/span>, about her stream-of-consciousness regarding male suitors of this time. In particular, the last two paragraphs of the letter on\u00a0<\/span>page 68 underscore the young woman\u2019s conflicting views on not only her miscellaneous male suitors, but also on her relationship to\u00a0<\/span>men as a whole<\/span>.\u00a0<\/span>This correspondence is a testament to how Stoker depicts the subtlety of Lucy\u2019s vanity lying under the surface of\u00a0<\/span>a tearful letter; a successful weaponization of sexuality that was a popular theme in the texts of the Victorian Era.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Lucy begins the letter with discussing her fear about becoming an old, settled-down married woman,<\/span>\u00a0while pairing this gripe with the additional\u00a0<\/span>anecdotes about her multiple requests for a hand in marriage.\u00a0<\/span>This raises the question of whether these statements are a progressive, feminist standpoint or the complete opposite. On the surface, one could say the idolization of men in her letter could be\u00a0<\/span>aligned with how women were expected to perceive men during this time, but the claim is that this is a condescending statement on Lucy\u2019s part, who is\u00a0<\/span>actually gathering<\/span>\u00a0power from he<\/span>r gender. Lucy laments about how each man responds to her denial in a hand in marriage, with a repeated notion of \u201chappiness.\u201d This could be about the happiness Lucy is experiencing, or the lack thereof presented by her suitors.\u00a0<\/span>Lucy contradicts herself repeatedly when sharing the heartbreak of her\u00a0<\/span>lovers, and<\/span>\u00a0complaining about the inability to have multiple lovers at once by sharing the strength that men have and to see them in pain breaks her heart, but also repeate<\/span>dly shares that she is happy.<\/span>\u00a0In the end of the letter, Lucy finishes with,<\/span>\u00a0\u201cMy dear, this quite upset me, and I feel I cannot write of happiness just at once, after telling you of it;<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>and I don\u2019t wish<\/span>\u00a0to tell of the number three till it can all be happy<\/span>.<\/span>\u201d (68)<\/span>\u00a0This<\/span>\u00a0statement is followed immediately with a further\u00a0<\/span>telling<\/span>\u00a0about her third suitor, implying that this happiness she speaks of is present, but will not let herself express it externally out of guilt or perception of others.<\/span><\/span> This reinforces the idea that Lucy is secretly aware of her power as a woman against men, and revels in it by consistently proclaiming the strength of men. Therefore, if she is able to harm a man, she is inadvertently more powerful than him.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0Between pages 67-68\u00a0of Stoker\u2019s\u00a0Dracula,\u00a0there is\u00a0an in-depth look\u00a0at how the role of women and sexuality interact not only with the text, but also with the time of\u00a0the\u00a0Victorian Era.\u00a0The passage is a letter written by Lucy, to her dearest friend, about her stream-of-consciousness regarding male suitors of this time. In particular, the last two paragraphs of … Continue reading Happiness: A Double-Edged Sword<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4769,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169398],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1938","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\/1938","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\/4769"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1938\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}