#jonathan harker's gender markers
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Interestingly, Mina points out that she and Jonathan used to walk like that (him holding her arm) before she became a teacher!
Ohohoho! Does she really, I'd forgotten!
Jonathan was holding me by the arm, the way he used to in old days before I went to school. I felt it very improper, for you can’t go on for some years teaching etiquette
Lmaoooo, god bless these Visibly Queer Icons.
I love the visual of wee baby Mina and Jonny wandering around London doing all their Orphanly Gallivanting with 0 awareness of the social implications of Fainting Maiden Jonny and Knight In Shining Armour Mina.
Outstanding!!
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sorry if this is a weird question, but if victorians thought something so physical like sex was really good actually between married couples, why did mina talk at length about how londoners were looking at her and jonathan judgmentally for holding arms (while married)? and that she felt inappropriate due to having been teaching to girls to do the exact opposite, but that she and jonathan are ultimately choosing to go ahead and do it and ignore all the stares? was it the fact that they were being touchy in public?
Yeah, public displays of affection between a married couple are acceptable if a bit Much, but Mina has spent her entire life until like the week before that operating not just on 'unmarried woman' mode, but operating on 'absolutely flawless, unquestionably perfect orphaned woman' mode. That extreme social paranoia served her well as a ward to someone of significant and rising class status (Mr Hawkins).
Additionally, even if such a display is 'fine', it's still backwards: Mina acting as the resolute force keeping her visibly extremely sickly husband upright and moving.
Pretty much everything the Harker's do is backwards like that. I keep calling them unironically gender non-conforming, but because gender roles in 1893 were very different from contemporary ones in terms of scope and scale, it can be hard to tell.
But it's worth remembering that at a glance, the Harkers modern equivalent is not
But rather, is more like:
And I think a well dressed couple consisting of the sickliest twink on earth passing out against his much, much butcher yet dramatically beautiful wife has the chance of drawing stares even today!
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it's always "if you read the subsubsubtext the women in dracula secretly want him to penetrate them" and never "the main character explicitly says he'd let his wife penetrate him" smh
Exactly, cousin, fucking exactly. This is why I'm trying to compile points for an actual For Realsies paper on the subject.
It's been much easier than I was expecting. Like 80% of the work is done for me by tumblr users; I just need to translate that into actual text citations and formal language tbh.
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Live Vees Reaction:
It was late in the afternoon when the Professor and I took our way towards the east whence I knew Jonathan was coming
THE AMOUNT OF RELIEF I EXPERIENCED UPON SEEING HER SAY JONATHAN IS INDESCRIBABLE
But I could not eat; to even try to do so was repulsive to me, and, much as I would have liked to please him, I could not bring myself to the attempt. He looked very sad, but did not reproach me.
I rescind my previous derogations of VH, I've certainly never had a doctor respect MY dietary restrictions.
the ardour of battle must have been upon me as well as the rest of them; I felt no fear, but only a wild, surging desire to do something
Another one for the GNC harkers scoreboard, lads.
I could see that Jonathan on one side of the ring of men, and Quincey on the other, were forcing a way to the cart
Something something even more Arthurian parallels besides just Art and Lucy being named after Arthur and Gwenhyfar. Oh that... that cannot be spelled right. Sorry, Wales.
Anyway Mina the queen in her castle watching her king and sworn knight advance on the enemy, etc.
In an instant he had jumped upon the cart, and, with a strength which seemed incredible, raised the great box, and flung it over the wheel to the ground.
I know in my head this is an act of adrenaline like when you lift a car off a kid or whatever, but in my HEART! In!!! My heart! This is more of Jonathan's Vampirism.
I could see that with his left hand he was clutching at his side, and that the blood was spurting through his fingers.
NOOOOOOOO I DON'T WANT TO BE RIGHT NOT QUINCEY TT_TT OH NO OH NOOOOOO
I WASN'T EVEN REALLY SERIOUS I JUST THOUGHT IF HE DIED THAT WOULD EXPLAIN WHY HE ISN'T IN POP CULTURE BUT OH NO
DON'T DO ME LIKE THIS
JACK'S PROPHECY TT_TT
But, on the instant, came the sweep and flash of Jonathan's great knife. I shrieked as I saw it shear through the throat; whilst at the same moment Mr. Morris's bowie knife plunged into the heart.
Ohhh, that's why Jonathan has a kukri
Where was that tumblr post about this, has anyone congratulated the OP for being SO RIGHT???
Those who were unmounted jumped upon the leiter-wagon and shouted to the horsemen not to desert them
Bro same. Being paid to return one of those fucked up boxes I delivered over the summer is one thing. A party of screaming white people murdering and then dissolving an old man I didn't even know was there is a wHOLE other kettle of fish, and the van driver better wait until my ass is FIRMLY THE FUCK ON BOARD THE VEHICLE
"Now God be thanked that all has not been in vain! See! the snow is not more stainless than her forehead! The curse has passed away!"
TT_TT vs 😌: fight
And, to our bitter grief, with a smile and in silence, he died, a gallant gentleman.
im never going to recover
#automatic op tag#Dracula#Dracula Daily#Jonathan Harker's Gender markers#forecast confirmed#/sobbing#the p stands for pRINCE AAAAAAAAAAAA
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Speaking of Mina/Lucy, it's interesting that when Lucy gets bitten she has very similar symptoms to the ones Jonathan will be displaying and Mina starts taking care of her like how she will of him, always by her side, being watchful, dressing/undressing her, protects her by going after the threat when she senses he bat Dracula, she takes the caretaker role with them both when they're disabled.
Now that's a point I actually hadn't considered, even though it relates perfectly to my whole opinion about Mina-As-Mother. Like, I literally talked about her caretaking of both of them, but never considered what that says about Mina's perception of them, just what it says about Mina's character.
Or what it says about Jonathan and Lucy as bitten victims who weren't 'baptised in blood' or whatever the phrase is.
Caretaking of a disabled friend or husband were, of course, seen as admirable feminine traits then, just as they often are now. Which, there's a lot happening in that statement, but it is a known phenomenon that when a loved one Gets Sick, the wife/mother is expected to destroy herself to caretake, and do so without complaint. In actual practice this tends to create horrible nested systems of abuse, but we're discussing a Manic Pixie Dream Girl here, so it's fine.
If anything, it's additional evidence that Mina is meant to be pretty self-evidently Good And Pure to make it more fucked up when she gets burnt by the wafer and shit goes to hell.
But to my more immediate interest, does this mean that if Lucy lived, she would also have turned All White and gotten super powers?
Because, like.
Just the visual of Lucy and Jonnycakes going from "haha Mina has a type and it's soft spoken but passionate femmes with The Consumption" to "HAHA MINA HAS A TYPE AND IT'S THE TWINS FROM FF14" like.
It's SO funny to me and I love it SO much.
Her and Jack coming back from IDK The Markets to find these magical waifs in the sitting room and being physically assaulted by the absurdity of it all (still hot tho).
#asks#ask answers#Anonymous#Note: Mina is not Jonathan's manic Pixie she is Jonathan's wife#She is Van Helsing's Manic Pixie Dream Girl#Go on check the tvtropes page and find a trait that her relationship with VH lacks I will wait#ANYWAY describing Alisaie as 'using a spell sword' to make her Deal as Obvious as possible without the jargon of 'RDM'#Ack physically painful lolol like#Imagine saying 'oh yeah yknow Utena is an anime about a girl and her spell sword'#Like okay yes that's... correct... and limited to the relevant conversational details...#But like lads that's not...#Anyway I think Mina is officially now MY self insert#Ain't the public domain grand?#Dracula#Dracula Daily#We love you Mina Harker#Lucy Westena#Jonathan Harker's Gender Markers
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yeah and when people said "you could argue mina is actually more sexual than lucy" they got pissssssssed and said that their entire uni is laughing at this
Spoilers:
Mina ACTUALLY FUCKS and Lucy DIES A VIRGIN what kind of DIPSHIT can't connect those simple facts???????
Hint: it's because Mina and Lucy are rarely given agency in analysis, despite being maximally active in the text. Because sexism.
People see them as extensions of their men. Jonathan is seen as frail and brittle*, so Mina must be beatific in her frigidity. Arthur 'Muscles Like Thor' Godalming is by all implications an absolute CATCH and highly, ahem, virile. Thus Lucy must be his rabid slut.
*Academics hate JHarks for his transgender swag
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Cannot wait for Jonathan Harker's Gender Markers
Honestly, that continues to be my favourite... section? (I'm not sure how these will be arranged in the end. Chapters maybe.)
Jonnycakes is just so fun to analyze and consider. I heard him referred to as a minor character so often when reading about Dracula in school, and like... no! He is a whole main boy!!!! He does all the main boy plot points!
Just, in like... the most fascinatingly peculiar and unmasculine ways.
I love him.
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Public opinion poll: If someone calls Jonathan Harker "a minor character" is it appropriate* to respond, "Excuse me, that is the protagonist's wife!"
*fun and enjoyable; entertaining
#automatic op tag#Jonathan Harker's Gender Markers#Wait..#FUCK#I think someone sent me an ask about that tag?????
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I saw your post that was explaining why "Is it possible that love is all subjective, or all objective?" is really gay re: the context of Wilde's trial. I didn't know that. I've read a few chapters so far but I wonder did Stoker put so much Jonathan/Mina (which seems popular here even if it's hetero) to cover up the gay subtext with an obligatory heterosexual relationship?
Post in question:
There are... a lot of complex hypotheses about Stoker's relationship to Mina!
A common interpretation among queer readers is that Stoker has two characters that most strongly draw from his own life experiences. His "man's brain" in Van Helsing, and his "woman's heart" in Mina. After all, Abraham is Bram's full first name, just like VH. But he only ever wrote under the name Bram, a less typical, ending dimunitive compared to Abe. Now, consider that the most common diminutives of Wilhelmina are Elma, Alma, Wilma and Velma, with the ending dimunitive Mina being notably distinct in formation and pronunciation.
It's all very Gender is what I'm getting at. If 20 years from now it's discovered that Bram had a drag persona or a different gendered persona or some wild shit, I guarantee you he chose Wilhelmina/Mina as her name.
Anyway, back on track. Analysis of the Man's Brain/Woman's Heart dichotomy is also common under a feminist lens. This frequently ties in to feminist interpretation of Mina as the New Woman (complimentary) instead of the New Woman (derogatory). I'd provide citations but oh good god, oh dear god, the amount of weird horrible things most of these papers say about rape victims...
But anyway, the point I want to get to is:
Yes, JonMina certainly can be interpreted as a panicked heteronormalizing reaction to the Wilde Trial and increasing homosexual stigma! But, I personally tend to prefer a more genderqueer reading, where Mina is (and I regret to say this is indeed the correct technical usage) Transfem Coded.
Jonathan too, actually. They are in lesbians together. I'll expand on that one day.
#answered asks#Anonymous#We Love You Mina Harker#Bram Stoker: Too Gay to Live Too Anxious to Die#JonMina#Jonathan Harker's Gender Markers
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I've seen also Jonathan ritually sharpening his knife described as a devout monk (quiet, solitary) murmuring prayers (whittling stone) on the beads of his rosary (the weapon's blade)
I'm inclined to agree with that interpretation for 2 reasons. 1, it works.
Like, it makes the story feel more engaging and interesting to me if I follow that interpretation. I like it!
2, I need to be hand held through the symbolism because European Christianity is going to impart a very different set of cultural implications on 'kindly young gentleman takes up hunting after marrying his childhood sweetheart.' Where I grew up, that is basically the normal life trajectory for a 22(?) year old paralegal who just got married. Like, a decent knife for field dressing is a common wedding and holiday gift. So everything about Jonny and his Special Decapitation Knife really has to be spoon fed for me to follow along hahaha!
#jonathan harker's gender markers#3. I like knives sexually and that also interferes with my interpretive ability
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something i noticed that the one time harker was told to perform his assigned gender and went with it, it lead to a. his wife more unhappy with him than ever b. a total disaster
Yeah, the plot really sat up and said "we will not be eliminating Mina from this story, thanks lads" lol
There's something to be said for Stoker's engagement with period typical misogyny as a plot element he was clearly using intentionally to create difficulty for the characters, who ultimately spend the rest of the novel almost obsessively making up for what happened when they excluded her.
It's just so weird to see the shape of what would, in like another 30 years, have likely come out as a self evidently feminist narrative. But like, it's mired so deeply in these other unexamined assumptions of the era that it.
IDK, it's like. The natal form of what would eventually come to be a whole Type Of Book/Movie.
I cannot wait for some poor bastard in 2155 to read my blog and talk about how I was clearly trying So Hard to describe [thing we won't have a word for until 30 years after I die] but the rest of my knowledge and cultural bias prevented me from Getting To The Point.
Sucks to be you, future historian, I'm actually morally flawless.
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IDK if that's controversial or you if agree I'm new in this whole thing but I see Jonathan as a sub -Mina's ultimately- 100%, but that he can also be the roughest of them all if let/asked to
(Also sorry you've been apparently been dealing with sex-negative Bullshit)
Jonathan is my ideal sub because he is obedient and sweet and full of love and will actually follow through if told to go get a large knife and use it.
Which, listen. I am a switch in the sense of D/S, but I am only a masochist re S/M and this?
This is a hasslesome combination of traits to find in fiction, let alone reality.
Soft boy full of love and knives, 100% ready to believe you when you tell him he's got a responsibility to make the cuts look good.
The ideal man.
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speaking of gender markers i was reading that part and thought hm. purposeful parallels, in sync despite being on opposite hills. but really contrasting. All at once two voices shouted out to, "Halt!" One was my Jonathan's, raised in a high key of passion. The other Mr. Morris' strong resolute tone of quiet command.
van helsing had said that the laconic quincey was ''all man'', he is and looks like a rugged adventurer, likely tall and burly. and here i think that despite that he's american he acts like a british masculine ideal in this scene.
jonathan in contrast is all loud, passionate emotion. high emotion vs quiet command. also unlike quincey he looks frail- mina says he only started putting some meat on his bones late september, and since oct it's implied he's been neglecting himself. seward says his hands are ice cold. he's holding a blood-seeking "barbaric" weapon. he resembles more of a madman than the ideal hero.
Oh that is SUCH a good point.
Far and away, the character that my analytical relationship is weakest with is Quincey. I may not have fun talking about Dracula or Arthur the way I do Seward and the Harkers, but I at least understand their characters and can play with concepts around them (eg, I do actually know that Lucy is not symbolically associated with Gwenhwyffar save in the sense that she is the wife of their highest ranking guy, a british noble named Arthur, and people being little shits about that in the tags of my posts are more than welcome to make their own name posts about these characters because this is a non-scarcity scenario, THANKS)
But Quincey is like... Okay literally until the day he died, I had one (1) joke about Quincey, and it was that Bram Stoker clearly had a cowboy fetish.
Which made the emotional impact of his death and his little Gilgamesh acting three-parents ghost baby, VERY CONFUSING for me. Like WHY did I care so much?? How did his whole "stoic nod.GIF" and "Thank you kindly, little lady" shit SNEAK UP ON ME????
(Hint: Regardless of Stoker's situation, I do have a cowboy fetish so not thinking about Quincey may have been a survival strategy lol)
But Quincey acting as this impossible paragon of masculinity in isolation provides a great framework for me to examine him, especially in contrast to how blatantly and constantly GNC that... well, almost everyone around him is.
I say impossible, because as you point out, in his final scene Quincey is presenting a very English type of masculinity. Not even British, IMO. That's all England.
But that very English masculinity is, necessarily, incompatible with the Rugged American Masculinity he has been written to exude.
No, that's not right... the Rugged American Masculinity everyone keeps saying he exudes, while he primarily does insane nonsense.
Quincey is indeed "all man," in that he can and well become a paragon of whatever cultural ideal of masculinity is needed in any scene. Mutable in execution, yes, but always something you could summarize as "A Good Man," and get nods from everyone listening.
Which makes it all the more interesting that he seems (based on the novel I read, not any secondary sources) to have been written in solely to be impotent, impotent, impotent, then die in glory.
Hmm, hmm, hmm. Lots to consider!!
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Question, likely silly, are your #jonathan harker's gender markers and #bram stoker too anxious to die tags a reference to something ?
I'm writing an annotated edition and those are categories I am broadly taking notes on.
Now.
Originally they were just fun jokes I made that I ultimately decided to follow through.
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Your tag #jonathan harker's gender markers got me thinking. IS there a specific word or term for when an author takes a heavily gendered trope and applies it to a protagonist who isn't that gender? I've heard it described as "queering" the thing, which is good and fun to say, but I was wondering if there was anything more explicit or in depth you might know about?
Hmm. I mean I guess I would call it gender non-comformity in the character, is all?
I mean there are a lot of related terms, but while I suspect there is a specific word for this, I don't know it.
But there's all kinds of... well, there's so many related concepts that I barely know where to begin haha. Disorganized thinking? Never heard of her.
Like, in certain contexts where the author's intentions are known and relevant, such as with gay actors in... bluh some time period where being gay on screen was extra illegal. So, in that case, you can call it "queer coding" to say, "these were conscious choices made by the author to express a sexual, gender, etc variance for the character that would otherwise be censored or banned."
But we certainly don't have any knowledge of that sort pertaining to Bram Stoker, no matter how many implications and anecdotes there are. So we can ask "is Stoker queer coding? If so, what could the intended message be?"
But we cannot say "he definitely was queer coding."
Meanwhile, "queering," as in the sense of "queering the narrative" refers more to the act of asking that question and trying to answer it. It's actually shorthand, and the full term "queer reading" may be clearer.
Queering is something that an audience does, rather than an author. It's the application specifically of queer frameworks of gender as a way of interacting with a text.
So, some of the more common examples are like. Well. Literally the act of calling a character "gender nonconforming," which itself requires you to have a working concept of gender norms for the time, and also to know what the hell "gender nonconforming" even means.
Which, I have to emphasize. You'd think it's self-evident but many people stop at "Girl who plays A Sport". Queer theory, as a type of interpretation, can focus heavily on this.
At the way, WAY more granular level, there's also specific trope names for particular ways characters are commonly shown as gender nonconforming. Of relevance to Our Good Friend Jonathan Harker, I would suggest:
Masculine girl, feminine boy
Otherworldly and Sexually Ambiguous
The Twink
Hemo Erotic
Gender Inverted Trope, found by @firecoloredwater
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well if you do a sub/kinky reading of harker upon reread i'd eat it up
TBH at this point I'm slowly coming to terms with the fact that Bram Stoker: Too Gay to Live Too Anxious to Die may have to be a book.
Monstrous, I know.
But being able to write out the interconnected essays on Bramothy's Accidentally Turbo Queer Found Family Horror Fantasy and then present them in a curated section order seems handy.
Plus if they're all chapters instead of separate essays I can get away with titles like 'We Love You Mina Harker' and 'Jonathan Harker's Gender Markers' without the sheer informality of the titles being detrimental to the essays themselves.
However, this would mean Writing A Book, something which I have not done in a great many years and frankly never really wanted to do again, given how miserable yet fruitless it was the first time.
(Note: If a 19 year old writes an ensemble sci fi novel that never sees publication you may assume its because it was a terrible novel. This is certainly the case for me. Honestly, not having it attached to my name in public probably did me favours in the long run. If you somehow bought one of the three digital copies it ever sold: no the fuck you did not and if I hear one WORD about it you'll be killed where you stand)
Maybe I'll make a neocities.
#MAYBE I WILL MAKE A PATREON AND STOP PITTING MY LOVE OF ESSAY WRITING AGAINST MY LOVE OF NOT BEING HOMELESS PERHAPS???#That's in all caps because executive dysfunction and fear around asking people to Pay Me For My Skills#mean I've been trying to open it since October but instead I hve another panic attack whenever I try
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