"This is my Blood, Given for you": The Victimization of Mina Harker

This is an unabridged version of a paper which I presented at the San Francisco 2008 Popular Culture Association conference. I have made no effort to pretty this up since it is being offered free on the internet. At the end you will find a listing which contains a list of  Dracula films viewed by random subjects, and their assessments of the characters of Lucy Westenra and Mina Harker based upon the films they watched. I have removed the names of the respondents. I am sorry that this version has some incomplete citations. While if I were publishing this is a journal I would complete those, for this free version; hey! it is free!  Copyright Leslie Ormandy, all rights reserved.

"This is my Blood, Given for you": the Victimization of Mina Harker

by Leslie Ormandy

                       

            Robert Stam argues in his excellent introduction to Literature and Film, that film adaptations should be treated as totally separate entities, and that the source novel should not be held superior to the film version just because the novel came first chronologically, and novels existed before film. He further takes adaptation criticism to task for using "moralistic terms" such as "'betrayal,' 'deformation,' 'violation,' bastardization,' 'vulgarization,' and 'desecration'"(3). He states that these terms all "imply that the cinema has somehow done a disservice to literature"(3).    I reply that at best the Dracula adaptations "misrepresent" the characters of Bran Stoker's Lucy Westenra and Mina Harker. I contend that if an adaptation is made, it should be as close to the source as possible, or have a different title -- clearly dissociating the adaptation from the source novel. With a novel as seminal as Dracula, the dissociation of alternatively plotted adaptations becomes even more necessary, or the viewer takes home a very different idea of the world of the novel than the original author might, arguably, have intended.

            The viewers constructs the realities of the characters -- the novelistic reality if you will, based upon the film adaptation. How can they do anything other than that? They don't read the novel.  My random sampling of viewers, I argue, can provide the cornerstone for my statement that we -- as a society -- continue to victimize Bram Stoker's characters when we adapt them to film, adapt them to suit our changing societal expectations, and as we continue to create our ideas of characters from film adaptations.

            When the film adaptations of  Laemmel's 1931 Dracula (with Bela Lugosi) ;  Hammer's 1958 The Horror of Dracula (with Frank Langella);  Badham's 1979 Dracula (with Frank Langella),  and Coppola's 1992 Bram Stoker's Dracula (with Gary Oldman) are overlaid with the novel, there are several notable differences.  First, in several of the film adaptations, the female characters  of Lucy and Mina are treated interchangeably, as though it doesn't matter which woman is only bitten by Dracula, and which is killed (vampirized). Thus Lucy and Mina frequently exchange names, personalities, actions, and plot lines in some odd form of identity theft. Next, in most of the adaptations, whichever female is playing the lead role (either Lucy or Mina) is often depicted as laying themselves open to, and craving, the transformational blood exchange with Dracula -- which is the center, the heart, and the turning point of the novel. In the Stoker's novel, Mina eloquently states, "he took my hands in one of his, holding them tight, and with the other seized my neck and pressed my mouth to the wound, so that I must either suffocate or swallow some of the [blood]"(294).  Finally, (And to emphasize this I have chosen to use her married title) a viewer constructing their "reality" from several of these films would not know that the defining difference between Lucy Westenra and Mina Harker is that Mina is married when Dracula violates her.  Not only is she married, but the novel places Johnathan in bed with her when she is violated by Dracula, thus failing to provide  the same emasculation of her husband. All versions present us with an environment in which Lucy Westenra and Mina Harker's souls are somehow lurking in their undead bodies to be freed after they are slain. In all environments, if they have been bitten, but haven't yet died, their souls will rest in peace only if Dracula dies before them, or they die during daylight  hours.

            (This paper has been edited to fit the time, thus the two film adaptations that don't feature a married Mina figure, and  all analysis of Lucy, have been excluded) For those listeners who have viewed a Dracula adaptation recently, I am going to reprise Bram Stoker's characterization of Mina Murray/Harker.  The film adaptations have a tendency to cloud memory.

            We meet Mina  Murray, when she is an "assistant schoolmistress." A position she has held a fair length of time. Thus, while she is perhaps economically a "new woman"  prior to her marriage having little choice about needing to work to earn her way, she wishes only to be "able to be useful to Johnathan" after their marriage. Thus she is "practicing shorthand very assiduously," and learning to "stenograph," and "type"(63). She worries about Johnathan, spending her time waiting for his return working and learning how to assist her him in his endeavors. Mina is depicted as a good friend, worrying about Lucy's sleepwalking, willing to stay up late to be present for Lucy, even though, "each night [she is] awakened by [Lucy's] moving about the room"(82). (Leaving Mina a bit drained, although not yet vampirically.) Mina's  adventurousness is demonstrated by her  traveling to "Buda-Pseth" alone, in answer to a letter from "Sister Agatha" about the need for her to come care for Johnathan. Soon after Mina's arrival, "Wilhelmina Murray" and Johnathan Harker are married, and she is delighted to write for the first time, "my husband,"(115) demonstrating her emotional attachment to him.  That she has the social graces necessary to help him in business is demonstrated upon their return to London , where she holds the role of hostess not just for Johnathan, but also for his employer, Mr. Hawkins. She is not  snoopy, not opening Johnathan's sealed diary until after the London problems with Dracula begin. She takes all this supernatural mumbo-jumbo in her stride, displaying less disbelief than one could expect. She has Johnathan's journal to read, and with its rich details, it is convincing.  That she takes charge and transcribes all material into one report without being asked, and bears a full part in the search for Dracula, surprises Van Helsing. Thus Van Helsing's accolade about Mina, "Ah, that wonderful Madam Mina! She has mans brain -- a brain that a man should have were he much gifted --  and a woman's heart"(241). It is only after the men have chosen to exclude Mina from the hunt that she becomes available for Dracula's victimization. Mina is  safely tucked into bed for the night with her husband ,who should protect her, when Dracula strikes at the "women's heart" of the team.  Mina doesn't open the window, she simply has taken the sleeping draught that Dr. Seward has prepared to help her sleep. In a demonstration of  the strength of her will, she recounts that she "willingly set herself to sleep,"  and,  "Sure enough, sleep must have come to me, for I remember no more." When she wakes, it is to "the same white mist that [she] had before noticed." Demonstrating both sense, and humanity, she is terrified and tries to wake her husband, who should be her protector. But she can't wake Johnathan although she tries. He sleeps as "one in a stupor"(289) according to Van Helsing who interrupts the unholy transformational Eucharirst.

            Thus Mina is doubly victimized, first by her sleeping husband who slumbers next to her (providing no masculine protection), and then by the bite of Dracula.  Mina has been targeted by Dracula solely to punish the men who have attempted to thwart him. He tells her, "And you are now to me, flesh of my flesh; blood of my blood; kin of my kin; my bountiful wine-press for a while; and shall be later on my companion and my helper"(293). When help finally arrives, after she has found that "oddly enough [she] didn't want to hinder him,"(294) which was a facet, she supposed, of his power, "part of the horrible curse that such is, when his touch is one the victim"(294). Dracula informs her that she would have her revenge upon them for not protecting her, "You shall be avenged in turn; for not one of them but shall minister to your needs.... Because you have aided in thwarting me; now you shall come to my call" (294).

            Dracula has mistaken her personality (just as many of the film adaptations do as well). the novelistic Mina only cares that she might, in turn, hurt someone she loves in the way that Dracula has hurt her.  She fears that should she become a vampire, she will force an eternal soulless victimization upon them.  She is worried about the state of her soul, and her vampiric ability to affect other's souls. The forcible conversion (victimization) this novel presents would still, in the world of this novel, force her soul to remain with her until death, but afterward, should Dracula not be slain before she dies, she will be condemned to eternal Darkness, as his "kin." It is a reflection of her innocence that she is allowed for the rest of the novel to resist most of Dracula's influence, and continue working to destroy him. Mina is, of course, restored to her previous "innocent" state -- at least as far as her soul goes at the novel's end. And blissful motherhood is her reward.

            It is when a person begins viewing the film adaptations of Stoker's novel that the misconceptions about the women's characters begin to abound. I argue that this is an identity theft that neither woman has any sort of volition over, and one that allows both to be oddly, and continuously,  victimized. Indeed, with their roles prescribed by the God-like figures of an unknown creative author, director, and producer, they are predestined for their prescribed roles by an outsider. (And yes, they were also prescribed by Stoker.) In many ways, it is as though someone walked into my house and declared that they were Leslie, and performed their own interpretation of Leslie -- and it was very different than I would live Leslie. And my eventual eternal salvation depended upon the way they played me. This is predestination at its oddest. As characters in a novel, they are "born" for an eternal life, in some quirky way. But are these female characters truely interchangeable? Is interchangeability what is implied when the character's trade names, histories and places? When Lucy is now Mina, or Mina is now Lucy, is the original somehow diminished -- as I would be if someone "stood-in" for me?

            In the 1958 Hammer film adaptation The Horror of Dracula,  with Christopher Lee, the character of Mina Murray / Harker is now married to Arthur Holmwood, and is almost always called Mrs Holmwood during the film, adding an interesting take on what the perception of Victorian marital behaviors were in 1958 when this film was produced. There are absolutely no sexual overtones in this film; no confusion that the blood exchange of a vampiric bite is equivalent to sex. 

            This Mrs. Arthur Holmwood is not the Mina Harker of the novel. The only strength of character she displays is going to see Dr. Van Helsing for a second opinion about Lucy's diminishing  health. Mr. Holmwood doesn't approve of Dr. Van Helsing, so Mina is going behind his back when she enlists Helsing's aid because of her love for her sister-in-law. But while she is a loving sister-in-law to Lucy, she is utterly uninvolved in the search for Dracula's lair; only in part because the men wish to keep it that way. She does; however, love her husband. Although she has arrived home after the first bite and promptly lied to her husband about her whereabouts, she takes the cross he gives her.  It could be argued that she takes the cross only because she is aware that the men will know her true – tainted – nature if she does not, but it is clear in the body language of the film that she allows Mr. Holmwood to place the cross in her hand out of a willingness to please him. She faints, and her husband suggests that she may be used as bait to lure Dracula into the open. Although we find out she has had Dracula hidden in her cellar for several days, she evidences no enthusiasm for his bite. Indeed, he has to back her into the room through superior height, and while she backs onto, and lays down upon the bed willingly enough -- the viewer has the impression that she is not "into" it. She may be victimized by Dracula, but she is closing her eyes and thinking about the queen. The pivotal bite is not shown. Nor does Dracula make his speech about why she has been chosen, and what her future role is to be. Van Helsing speculates that she has been vicimized as a replacement female for the one that Johnathan Harker managed to kill before he was himself turned.

            Her return to innocence is demonstrated when, after Van Helsing slays Dracula, the cross burned into her palm by the crucifix fades -- it is on her left hand and the camera enhances the silver wedding band on the hand being held by her husband.   The viewer of this film would take a very different Mina home with them.

            Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) provides a new generation their ideas of the novel. James M. Welsh points out in his analysis of this particular film adaptation, that this film, "Should not be called Bram Stoker's Dracula. That is a misnomer..."(172)  He asks if, "Authenticity and fidelity to one's source matter when applied to historical or literary projects?"(172)(Italics are mine.)  Welsh is concerned with the film's portrayal of Romania, and with its portrayal of Vlad Tepes, the historical figure. He does however note the film's "goveran[ance] by a different context than the novel," and its "whole different logic" which "determines the behavior of the main characters"(171).

            Mina Murray is depicted, as my reviewer noted, as the opposite of Lucy, at least at the opening. She appears to be a "good" girl, who is perhaps a bit overly affectionate and forward with her fiancé, but nothing beyond kissing.  But this innocence quickly diminishes after she meets her "Prince." Welsh notes that in this film "Dracula and Mina are locked into a whole beauty and the beast relationship that tends to leave [her husband] Johnathan out of the loop"(171). The plot incorporates the idea of reincarnation, stating that it is why Mina is attracted to the "Prince" when she meets him on the street in London. Dracula has sought her out because of her physical resemblance (which he has seen in Johnathan's locket) to his deceased bride Elizabeta.  In this version we see a Mina Harker who freely chooses to embrace the dark Eucharist, even though this version offers us a Dracula who has second thoughts about giving her an eternal soulless life. She tells him, "I want to be what you are, see what you see, love what you love...you are my life, always"(43:1:38). From this moment, the only time she is Johnathan's Mina, is when she is under the direct influence of a Holy Object touching her. Thus, while Mina Murray / Harker shares a name with the Mina of Stoker's novel, that is about all her character shares with her.

            Remember  again that the novel places her husband in bed beside Mina when she is forced to drink Dracula's blood, a thing none of the film adaptations do. I posit that there we see in this a discomfort  (in the film adaptations) with the idea that Mina is a blameless victim, but suggest that just as a woman whose house is broken into by a burglar, and whose husband is knocked out, and who is then raped in bed needs no excuse for her victim-hood, we needn't turn our eyes from that moment.  Laemmle's Dracula and Hammer's Horror of Dracula skirt the issue by not showing the pivotal exchange, both cutting in when the deed has already been performed. Thus, the viewers know that the Mina character has been victimized, but aren't allowed to visually participate in the moment. In both versions the viewer is cut back into the scene when Mina's remorse, self-loathing, and horror is being shown. In Laemmel's version, we get a post-action narration of what has occurred. In Hammer's rendition, Mina Holmwood  isn't even allowed the expressions of lamentation that the viewer would expect from her; she is instead carried off by Dracula almost immediately post-bite. Her wedding ring is prominent, and it is her marital vows that the viewer is perhaps supposed to be most concerned have been violated; a view I would argue is supported by the films focus on the wedding ring on her left hand, held by Mr. Holmwood, and kissed by Mr. Holmwood  in the final scene -- the post-slayage, return to innocent scene.

            Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula at least features a married Mina, and married to the right man, Johnathan Harker. However, Johnathan is off with the men, leaving Mina "safe" at home when the pivotal exchange takes place. This adaptation is perhaps the most interesting where the "victimization" occurs, because the married Mina is fully complicit. She makes this choice without any mesmeric force applied by Dracula. But the writer has seen fit to offer her an excuse -- she is actually married to Prince Vlad Dracul through  reincarnation. Thus, she is not being unfaithful to Johnathan and her marital vows by bedding Dracula and exchanging blood with him. She has instead been somehow unfaithful to Dracula by marrying Johnathan. She is placed in a doubly untenable position, unfaithful either way. Coppola decrees that her ties through the reincarnation are stronger than her ties to Johanathan, and her choice is "to be like" Dracula.

            So why did Bram Stoker's novel place Johanathan in the marital bed when Mina is "converted" by Dracula?  While modern viewers tend to view this blood exchange as a metaphor for a deeply sexual exchange, for the vampire, it is about blood. "The blood is the life." I posit that Stoker was concerned with the eternal rape, the forcible theft of her soul. I would further speculate that this occurs in the marital bed, with Johnathan sleeping next to her, simply to demonstrate that no earthly protector can protect Mina when true evil comes calling. She is betrayed by Johnathan; she doesn't betray him. And his betrayal is less because he is asleep, than but because he is human, and thus under the Edenic curse, fallen both in carnality to Dracula's brides, and eternally via Adam. And yet our own readings too often equate this violation, this exchange of blood, with sexuality and rape. And Dracula does, after all, indicate that Mina "asked for it." (If only by catching his notice by attempting to thwart him.)

            With all of the Dracula film adaptations, there are issues of identity with these two women, as the respondents in my impromptu survey indicate. These Lucys and Minas' are treated as though they are interchangeable, as though it doesn't matter if they enact totally different characters and lives than the originals written for them by Bram Stoker. Thus, I argue once more that they are still being victimized, by Dracula, by the writers and producers of the film adaptations, and by the innocent complicity of a modern audience; an audience who has no knowledge of the original novel.

Below is the handout offered conference goers.

Each section offers the individual's analysis of the persons' character, and then offers a short list of observations.

"This is my Blood, Given for you": The Victimization of Mina Harker

Leslie Ormandy

Popular Culture Association 2008

________________________________________

Dracula 1931 (Laemmle -- Bela Lugosi)

Lucy: This original version has Lucy waxing romantic with a verse of poetry when she meets the Count. Just a super short meeting and she was smitten. Mina jokes around with her back at their room, and then leaves her alone. The Count calls on her and boom, she's gone.

Mina: Poor Mina basically just gets bit. No romance, conversation or anything. The Count just barges in and bites her. Next thing we see is her telling about her "dream".  I think this movie shows both of the women as victims. Neither had much character development, there were not really longing looks at Dracula or dinner and a movie! The Count just took what he wanted.

(Nameless female 1)

                Short bites:

Ÿ  Mina Seward lives with her father in the Sanitarium

Ÿ  Mina is engaged to Johnathan Harker

Ÿ  Van Helsing is called about Renfield's "disorder"

Ÿ  Lucy is asleep when she is vampirized (Yes, I know it isn't a word)

Ÿ  A flower-girl is the first female we see Dracula slay (after he leads her into an alley, we see the body)

Ÿ  No bites are shown on film

Ÿ  Mina runs to Dracula for the pivotal second bite

Ÿ  Holy items work -- Dracula has no reflection

Ÿ  Mina is restored to her normal chaste and timid personality after Dracula is destroyed

Ÿ  Dracula can shape-shift

________________________________________________

The Horror of Dracula  1958 (Hammer -- Christopher Lee)

Lucy was a sort of annoying character. She was really sweet when people were around, one of those innocent, can do no wrong types. But when people left her alone, she lost those characterizations, she seemed to become in a way, needy and mean (these assumptions are based on her expressions alone as she died to soon to really tell). Based on those things, I'd say she wanted to be bitten.

Mina was completely opposite from Lucy. She was the all around sweet girl, never really lying until she was bitten. she, I believe, did not want to be bitten. She did not want to betray her husband's trust. I think that this is why she looked afraid whenever Dracula descended upon her. She looked happy when the cross symbol burned into the hand faded at the end.

(Nameless female 2)

            Short Bites:

Ÿ  Mina is married to Arthur Holmwood.

Ÿ  Lucy is engaged to Johnathan

Ÿ  Johnathan is turned into a vampire when he goes after Dracula early in film

Ÿ  Lucy is a willing victim

Ÿ  Lucy goes after Tania (Gerthe's, the maids, daughter

Ÿ  Dr. Steward is a walk-on role

Ÿ  Mr. Holmwood will do anything to defend his wife

Ÿ  Van Helsing is the star slayer

Ÿ  The Mina Character never drinks Dracula's blood -- and the pivotal speech about her being his companion forever is left out

Ÿ  Dracula can't change shape

_______________________________________________________________________

Dracula  1979 (Badham -- Frank Langella)

This is perhaps the most interesting response towards one of these movies.

My respondent, having seen many Dracula genre films (although never

having read the novel), attributed the name of the characters correctly

to the novel -- but not the film  That is to say, in this adaptation it is

 Mina Van Helsing who dies first, and Lucy Seward (engaged to Johnathan Harker) who is the second leading female attacked. I have corrected this misattribution.

Our two lady friends acquaintance is supposedly a consequence of the friendly association of Mina's dad Dr. Van Helsing, and Lucy's father Dr. Seward.

At the opening of the action our two ladies are depicted as intimate friends close enough to speak freely in private about various men, including Lucy's intended husband. Mina seems to pry somewhat trying to glean information about Lucy's fiancé as to he quality of his love-making. They discuss the recently arrived Count Dracula; Lucy at this point seems to display desire for this relative stranger, both in speech and countenance. (Get it? Countenance?)  Mina during the night leaves the bed she shares with Lucy (no sexual attraction noted) to have what appears to be a regular tryst with her man friend. It is the newly arrived Dracula.

           

A few night later Lucy who leaves the bed for a tryst with Johnathan, and it is during this absence that poor Mina is attacked by Dracula, an attack that poor Mina doesn't recover from. She is therefore removed quickly from the plot line in her role of mortal human. She will only be left with her role as immortal vampire, though I must say I do not see her take the blood of her attacker. Neither do we see the murdered flower girl come back as a vampire (subplot).

I feel in retrospect that Mina perhaps displays jealousy and sexual desire, but who never acts upon those emotions or urges is attacked most unfairly. Moreover, she is utterly destroyed and is never offered any opportunity to escape this fate. Once again, I compare her to the flower girl who yes, seems more pure, and yes, suffers less, but what Mina and the flower girl have in common in the presence of the monster is stark terror.

Let us now consider Lucy. She is engaged in marriage, yet she openly seems to flirt with the new stranger Count Dracula with whom she dances. Se displays an obvious attraction for him, yet does not miss her opportunity to rendezvous with her fiancé after hours and in secret. Through the rest of the movie, she plays out her inner battle between these two men, one of whom she comes to know is actually dead, or rather undead, a total monster, and the wrecker and destroyer of her friend. This knowledge not only does not dissuade her from seeking, and even defending the evil Count. The knowledge seems to excite her.

           

Lucy, though, at moments seems to fight for a return to her old self and the restoration of her engagement is not  convincingly enthralled even going so far as to take the blood of the monster without being forced.

After all, she is markedly less sympathetic than Mina, and vastly less sympathetic than the flower-girl. Even so she survives intact, saved by the efforts of her fiancé and the doomed Van Helsing. In the final scene when the monster seems to be done for we see his cape fly away as if it has some force of its own, perhaps some remnant of its wearer's strength or life, and we also see our dear Lucy smiling a knowing smile, a real cat and canary smile which seem to tell us that yes, indeed, she will see her monstrous lover again, or perhaps she smiles because she is now most senior monster.

(Nameless male 1)

            Short bites:

Ÿ  Mina Van Helsing is not the primary character

Ÿ  Mina Van Helsing is sickly and easily mesmerized and influenced

Ÿ  Mina is the first female vampirized and the first vampire we see slain

Ÿ  Lucy Seward is the prime character, engaged to Johnathan Harker, house agent

Ÿ  Lucy Seward likes being frightened

Ÿ  Lucy is quite forward; waltzing with Dracula, trysting with Johnathan, running away to dine alone with Count Dracula (over her fiancé's protest)

Ÿ  Bites are shown on film in psychedelic detail

Ÿ  Lucy chooses to be like Dracula -- even knowing he is a "Nosferatu...an undead"

Bram Stoker's Dracula  1992 (Coppola -- Gary Oldman)

Mina: I thought was a kind of opposite to Lucy. She seemed a lot more restrained and possibly even shy. Mina was very prim and proper. I think that they were trying to portray her as the good one. But if anyone asked to be bit, it was Mina. She seemed way more interested and passionate about Vlad than about Johnathan, her husband. Her eyes lit all up when he said he was a prince. But it could also be called fate or just plain bad luck that made her look just like Vlad's old lost love.

Lucy was what mina wasn't. She was a "party girl", fun, outgoing, and lots of boyfriends. I guess you could say she was Mina's slutty friend. She was the "bad" girl.

Did the ask for it? I don't think Lucy did. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. She was too close to Mina, and Dracula wanted no obstacles or opposition in his quest for his "reincarnated' one to true love.

(Nameless male 2)________________________________________________

Lucy and Mina. It seems in the version I watched as if they were portrayed as the opposing sides of one coin, Lucy, the rich, outgoing aristocratic would-be tramp, and Mina, the introverted, virtuous, well mannered woman of her time.

Lucy: Seemed to be a more sexually charged character, having the men swarming around her, teasing them, while being very fickle in her fancy; trying to decide which one to pick. She seemed, although, to really be an innocent, naive girl who wanted to feel more alive by rebelling against her proper upbringing.

Mina just seemed like a very typical woman for her period in time, resigned to her station and humble. Yet it seemed like she also wanted something a little more than what she had, and found what she was looking for when she met the stranger on the street. Although she attempts to deny her desire, she cannot resist the new feelings she has discovered.

(Nameless male 3)

                Short Bites:

Ÿ  Mina Murray/Harker & Lucy Westenra

Ÿ  Lucy is portrayed as a tease (at best), eager for sexual experience, eager for the Prince, Dracula

Ÿ  Mina marries Johnathan after meeting (and falling for) Dracula

Ÿ  Mina is supposed to be the reincarnation of Dracula's lost love

Ÿ  Mina chooses to be with Dracula

Ÿ  Dracula can shape-shift

Ÿ  Bites are shown in detail

Ÿ  Mina, to free Dracula's soul, is the one who stakes him, and cuts off his head

the Works Cited is somewhere buried in notes, I am simply not uploading it here -- this is a FREE resource. -- you want more, offer bucks (rent; adjuncts provide their own ACA payments.)