Mina Harker: A Feminist of Her Time
Mina Harker is a fascinating character who most look at today as weak-willed and subservient to her husband. While by today’s standards she is indeed not a strong woman, for her time I would argue that she is an incredible source of feminine strength, intelligence, and common sense.
From her love of Jonathan Harker, her high esteem from all other characters in the novel, and her fabulous attention to detail Mina becomes the central point of the book around whom all the action centres.
Throughout the novel, Mina will become a shining light, almost saint-like, who the male heroes of the piece will end up genuinely fighting to save. It is ironic that this was the case when three of the five were so in love with Lucy they proposed and yet were unable to protect her. Perhaps this is why they fight so hard to try and save Mina herself. However, it is more prominent that Mina herself has become a model of the Victorian Ideal for the middle classes. Mina’s career before her engagement to Jonathan is evidence of this as she was a schoolmistress, one of the few areas of work considered respectable for a middle-class woman. It was necessary for Mina to have a job as she was an orphan, something that was done to make her marriage to Jonathan and the events after that easier without the worries of concerned family members.
It is through Jonathan that we are first introduced to Mina, although we are not fully aware of the connection between the two. He mentions her with great affection and thinks of her at significant times of distress.
For the most part, she starts as throwaway comments and memorandums from Jonathan not highlighting how important she shall become to the story mirroring her deceptive outward appearance as a petite, pretty, girl-like woman.
The relationship between Jonathan and Mina is incredibly loving and full of respect for each other. Compared to several in more modern texts this is an incredibly healthy relationship. It is Jonathan who inspires her to learn new skills and encourages her to share her thoughts.
While this may not seem particularly surprising, in terms of a relationship in the Victorian Age, this feels highly unusual compared to what we think of for this time. In the 19th Century, marriage was a contract where the man would gain ownership of the woman’s body, money, property, and other rights. The fact that Jonathan encourages such an open and honest relationship between them is not only astounding now, but it’s also almost entirely foreign in terms of the expectations of the period.
Mina is well versed in shorthand and typing, something she does to better aid her husband in his work as a Solicitor. Typing was now one of the newer paths open to women as a means of earning money; it was in 1894 that the Treasury agreed that employing women as typists were efficient and economical. Though Mina herself could never get a position as a clerical assistant as she is now married, the skill set was still valuable and fitting of her station and class.
Like most women of the time, it was almost inevitable that Mina would at some point become a mother. This motherhood trait particularly antithesizes the three brides at whose introduction are seen to devour a child. She shows several warm and caring features throughout the novel especially in her comforting of Lord Godalming who is still grieving the death of Lucy. Even Renfield, manic and bloodthirsty as he is, finds himself calmed at her hand. While many “New Women” of the time were seen to be uninterested in child-rearing and desirous to go their ways from their husbands, Mina’s mothering nature manifests in incredibly powerful and almost awe-inspiring actions.
Bram Stoker does seem to have some disdain for the “New Woman” and through Mina does voice some of this as can be seen in her comment on proposals and new women:
“But I suppose the New Woman won’t condescend in future to accept; she will do the proposing herself.” (page 108, Collins)
However, Mina then goes on almost to defend this action by saying:
“And a nice job she will make of it, too!” (page108, Collins)
While this statement could be sarcasm but given Mina’s love for her husband and her intelligence, I believe she is open-minded on the subject.
What truly sets Mina apart from most women of her period is her brain. Van Helsing himself says:
“She has a man’s brain — a brain that a man should have were he much gifted — and a woman’s heart.” (page 282, Collins)
In fact, without Mina’s help, it is clear that they would indeed have never have been able to find and kill Dracula. She is the one to pull all the pieces together and to remember various articles from newspapers.
One of my favourite things about Mina is her wit and wisdom shown throughout the novel. She knows that everything that she and her husband have written in their journals will be, so she types up copies of them, this doesn’t stop her having a small joke at Van Helsing’s request when he first asks if he can see her diary entry on the night Lucy went sleep-walking in Whitby. When under Dracula’s influence, Mina has enough sense of mind to request that she is kept in the dark, avoiding her mind being used against them in the final fight.
While she does bend to her husbands will in certain areas, she is steadfastly strong-willed and in constantly asked her opinion by the five men who will go on to try and destroy Dracula.
While I can see why many people nowadays look at Mina as quite a weak character with several flaws, I’d argue that she’s one of the best examples of women in horror. How many times do we beg horror movies to have their characters make realistic choices and to stop and think before rushing into action? Mina in many ways is this character taking the time to think through all steps and noticing the small details that can help them succeed in their quest. It is for these reasons that I argue that Mina Harker is indeed the feminist of her time and will always be one of my favourite characters from 19th Century Literature.
Sources
- ‘Dracula,’ Bram Stoker, ISBN: 987–0–00–742008–7, Collins Classics, 2011 Edition
- ‘Dracula,’ Bram Stoker, eISBN: 9781542097673, Amazon Classics Edition
- BBC website, Victorian Britain Ideals of Womanhood, https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/trail/victorian_britain/women_home/ideals_womanhood_01.shtml
- Wikipedia, Women in the Victorian Era, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_Victorian_era
- The National Archives, 1901 Census, The Typist, http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/census/pandp/people/typ.htm
- The British Library, Daughters of decadence: the New Woman in the Victorian fin de siècle, https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/daughters-of-decadence-the-new-woman-in-the-victorian-fin-de-siecle
Notes
- There are two copies of Dracula in my sources due to a series of errors in the Collins Classics edition
- The article from the British Library will likely be used more for the blog I post on Lucy given its focus on why Lucy had to die and her perceived ‘sins’
