{"id":2081,"date":"2021-11-16T11:12:22","date_gmt":"2021-11-16T16:12:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/?p=2081"},"modified":"2021-11-16T11:12:22","modified_gmt":"2021-11-16T16:12:22","slug":"the-morose-reality-of-the-feminine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/2021\/11\/16\/the-morose-reality-of-the-feminine\/","title":{"rendered":"The Morose Reality of the Feminine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Throughout the text of Stoker&#8217;s\u00a0<em>Dracula,<\/em> one can gather that the cost of being a woman extends farther than the immediate concern of being a target of the vampire himself. We have spent the duration of this class discussing how the female identity severely incapacitates the possibilities a woman may have in her current society, and that the true power was found through the passive manipulation of men around her. We have seen this in\u00a0<em>Dracula<\/em>, in Lucy&#8217;s power in having multiple lovers, but also in texts such as\u00a0<em>Lady Audley&#8217;s Secre<\/em><em>t,<\/em> where Lady Audley was able to better her social status in marriage through her natural beauty.\u00a0<em>Dracula<\/em> also highlights instances in which women must remember their place in the unfortunate reality of current society. As Jonathan and Mina speak over breakfast about killing Dracula, the page 334 finishes with Jonathan saying, &#8220;&#8216;Because [&#8230;] &#8216;he can live for centuries, and you are but a mortal woman. Time is now to be dreaded-since once he put that mark upon your throat.'&#8221; Aside from the literal interpretation of the text, which is that Mina is now in danger given that she has been bitten, this also is testimony to a larger theme of how a woman is never truly free from the male grasp. While Dracula can literally live for centuries, it also speaks to the fact that a <em>name<\/em> can live forever, as we have learned in\u00a0<em>My Last Duchess<\/em> where the Duke proclaims his name has lived for hundreds of years. A woman&#8217;s name, and therefore her identity, is fleeting under the patriarchal rule, and will only last as long as her own life. Finally, the fact that Mina is not only physically &#8220;marked&#8221; by Dracula when he bit her, but also that she is marked with stigma further supports that the power a man has over a woman&#8217;s identity during this time will always be looming over any efforts a woman may make to escape it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Throughout the text of Stoker&#8217;s\u00a0Dracula, one can gather that the cost of being a woman extends farther than the immediate concern of being a target of the vampire himself. We have spent the duration of this class discussing how the female identity severely incapacitates the possibilities a woman may have in her current society, and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/2021\/11\/16\/the-morose-reality-of-the-feminine\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The Morose Reality of the Feminine<\/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-2081","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\/2081","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=2081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2081\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}