{"id":2058,"date":"2021-11-15T23:13:41","date_gmt":"2021-11-16T04:13:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/?p=2058"},"modified":"2021-11-15T23:13:41","modified_gmt":"2021-11-16T04:13:41","slug":"who-invited-dracula-into-my-good-christian-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/2021\/11\/15\/who-invited-dracula-into-my-good-christian-marriage\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Invited Dracula Into My Good Christian Marriage?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Victorian culture centered around the adherence to social customs of restraint, decency and honor, and violation of these terms resulted in severe consequences.\u00a0\u00a0Bram Stoker\u2019s Dracula<\/em> raises questions regarding social and religious anxieties about what happens when traditional institutions fail.\u00a0 While Stoker\u2019s honorable quartet contemplates the finishing of the beast of their conquest, Mina Harker examines the implications of her own vampiric experience.\u00a0\u00a0Mina voices her concerns: \u201cI am not worthy…I am unclean to His eyes, and shall be until He may deign to let me stand forth in His sight as one of those who have not incurred his wrath\u201d (Stoker 344).\u00a0\u00a0Mina wrestles with her right to exist not only in a man\u2019s presence, but in the sight of God himself.\u00a0 Throughout the rest of the novel, the interactions between Dracula and the women of his objectification are laced with undertones of sexual assault, a highly ignored topic of Victorian consciousness.\u00a0\u00a0The men blame Dracula for this sin, yet Mina blames herself.\u00a0 She worries for her own purity and cleanliness because it is so valuable for the only offices afforded to her as a woman in the time period: a wife and mother.\u00a0\u00a0As a wife, Mina fears for the sacred bond of holy matrimony that binds her to Johnathan and therefore to society.\u00a0\u00a0God is originally at the center of the holy ties which bind man and woman together in marriage, (the basis of Victorian society) and Dracula\u2019s infiltration of this sacred establishment amplifies Victorian concerns about the breakdown of traditional institutions.\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If the audience takes Mina to be\u00a0a\u00a0paradigm of chaste Victorian woman, the anxiety which Dracula\u2019s violation causes her\u00a0is justified because it challenges her entire existence.\u00a0 Moreover, because of Victorian attitudes toward\u00a0religion were in such turmoil at the time, the challenge to the favor of God is particularly interesting.\u00a0 Not only would Dracula\u2019s intrusion into sacred bonds\u00a0challenge\u00a0the institution of marriage, but it also confronts the issue of personal salvation.\u00a0 Mina directly addresses this concern in her\u00a0exclamations, but it\u00a0also holds\u00a0truth toward the ideas of the era.\u00a0 Dracula raises the question of whether progress is\u00a0the\u00a0will of God, or\u00a0if deviating from social constructions founded on heavenly principles is\u00a0actually\u00a0a\u00a0violation of His mandate, making humans unworthy of his favor.\u00a0 These constructions of evil challenge traditional truths of faith\u00a0and institution, exemplifying Victorian anxieties in the era.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Victorian culture centered around the adherence to social customs of restraint, decency and honor, and violation of these terms resulted in severe consequences.\u00a0\u00a0Bram Stoker\u2019s Dracula raises questions regarding social and religious anxieties about what happens when traditional institutions fail.\u00a0 While Stoker\u2019s honorable quartet contemplates the finishing of the beast of their conquest, Mina Harker examines … Continue reading Who Invited Dracula Into My Good Christian Marriage?<\/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-2058","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\/2058","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=2058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2058\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}