{"id":327,"date":"2016-03-31T23:20:38","date_gmt":"2016-04-01T03:20:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/?p=327"},"modified":"2016-03-31T23:20:38","modified_gmt":"2016-04-01T03:20:38","slug":"patriarchal-male","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/2016\/03\/31\/patriarchal-male\/","title":{"rendered":"Patriarchal Male"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Over the course of my reading for tomorrow\u2019s class I was struck by the peculiarity of <em>Dracula\u2019s <\/em>representation of strength as presented in a gendered lens. By this I mean to say that the novel flips the generally accepted conventions of unfeeling men and nurturing women while at the same time managing to come across as both sexist and dismissive. This becomes clear at the end of chapter seventeen when we are told that Lord Godalming, in a moment of severe grief over the death of Lucy, \u201claid his head\u201d on Mina\u2019s shoulder \u201cand cried like a wearied child whilst he shook with emotion\u201d (245). I found this to be interesting in that it seemed to show a weakness in the usually perpetuated fa\u00e7ade of indelible masculinity in the Victorian Era. While this is happening, however, Mina is presented as a strong women with stable emotions even though she herself has just endured the loss of a close friend. Such a dynamic is clearly at odds with established orthodoxy and thus jumped out at me immediately. Just after this, however, the novel somehow attempts to re-establish a patriarchal system of gender relations where the vulnerable male is able to un-ironically claim to be the protector of the woman he is literally relying on for comfort at that very minute. This is shown when Lord Godalming tells Mina \u201cif a man\u2019s esteem and gratitude are ever worth the winning, you have won my today. If ever the future should bring to you a time when you need a man\u2019s help, believe me, you will not call in vain\u201d (246). Apparently, in Victorian England, masculinity was so important that it was able to exert itself onto a woman who so clearly didn\u2019t need it. In a time when gender roles so dominated the social landscape, the way they managed to both subvert them and still promote patriarchal values was interesting to say the least.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over the course of my reading for tomorrow\u2019s class I was struck by the peculiarity of Dracula\u2019s representation of strength as presented in a gendered lens. By this I mean to say that the novel flips the generally accepted conventions of unfeeling men and nurturing women while at the same time managing to come across &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/2016\/03\/31\/patriarchal-male\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Patriarchal Male<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2179,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[123782],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2016-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327","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\/2179"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}