3 Matching Annotations
  1. Dec 2023
    1. reversa

      Here I go again, complicating things for your paper :) ...

      Is it really a role reversal? You said in your presentation that Stoker seems to be focusing on the positive feminine qualities that Mina has implicitly--nurturing, caring, selflessness--while also retaining the masculine qualities of reason and logic that make her a desirable companion for a man. It doesn't seem to me that Mina's gender role is being reversed entirely--that is, she's not behaving entirely like a man--so much as it seems like the lines between older conceptions of gender roles are being blurred. The same thing happens here with Jonathan (and this is where I would suggest you bring in the bit of your argument that deals with him), except the traits that he is adopting are viewed as undesirable. So, there is a kind of universality to desirable traits that Stoker is advocating, and in doing so he might actually be breaking down the barriers between gender roles more than we think. In other words, it is undesirable to be passive and helpless in any context, and it is universally desirable to exhibit control over reason and logic, regardless of a character's gender. Play with that in your argument! These reversals may not be as neat as they at first seem.

    2. The vampire, dead yet intensely sexual, defies both natural law andsociety's restrictions and therefore manages to escape many of the limitations which affect humanbeings”

      I wonder: how is it significant to your argument that Dracula is a man rather than a woman? How would this story change if Dracula's gender was inverted? I think the question of the corrupted, fallen woman becomes much more complicated when we consider that Lucy was made to be as such by someone who presents as a man. There are certainly aspects of Dracula's being from another country that influence this, but I don't think it's insignificant that the person primarily corrupting is a man. How does that--the idea that men could be the the primary corrupting force--change your argument about the "New Woman"?

    3. The first time that a gender role reversal is shown in the novel is with Jonathan,

      I'm wondering if this point might benefit from a bit of restructuring. I think your dichotomy between Lucy and Mina is strong, highlighting the different takes on the "New Woman" that Stoker might be pointing toward, clearly favoring Mina's ability to mix different aspects of gender roles (see a more detailed commentary on this dichotomy in my comment below). When we get to Stoker's treatment of Jonathan, though, I wonder if we're in new territory. I think the image of Jonathan exhibiting some sort of passivity (here linked to femininity) is more nuanced than saying "look, Jonathan is practicing feminine roles in Dracula's castle!" Stoker may well be commenting on the corrupting forces of a foreign power (or some other corrupting force, depending on what would be helpful for your argument) that not only turns women into lustful creatures, but that turns men into passive creatures that are easy to take advantage of. What I'm getting at is that Stoker doesn't necessary separate discussions about the "New Woman" from the roles that men are playing in society, nor does the role reversal run in one direction. I think your argument might become more nuanced if you move this paragraph later in the essay--rather than moving in chronological order--to show that Stoker is touching on the "Woman Question," and then also asserting that the "New Woman" cannot operate outside of the roles that men play in society, which also have an ideal.

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