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Dracula Part 5: The Mortals 28746 Views


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Description:

Dracula knows how to charm a lady. Maybe it’s his charisma, maybe it’s his looks, maybe it’s his...hypnotism? Yeah, it’s probably the hypnotism. That seems like an unfair advantage.


Transcript

00:01

We speak student!

00:07

Dracula

00:09

The Mortals

00:11

a la Shmoop

00:13

Dracula's affected by women around him in a unique way.

00:17

Can you talk a little bit about

00:19

the effect that Lucy and Mina have?

00:22

[ evil laugh ]

00:24

How does Bram Stoker portray women in Dracula?

00:29

Yeah, no, that's interesting. So they're two --

00:31

Mina and Lucy, they're two sort of

00:34

potential archetypes of the "New Woman."

00:37

They meet different fates,

00:38

as people will find out as they continue reading Dracula.

00:42

So Mina, who is Jonathan Harker's

00:45

first his fiancee and then his wife,

00:47

is a very efficient clerical person

00:51

who collates all of these documents that they need in the hunt for Dracula.

00:55

Lucy is...

00:57

sort of a blonde, sweet, virginal character.

01:00

When we first meet her, she's writing.

01:02

She's in a letter correspondence with Mina

01:05

about the fact that she's

01:06

fielding three marriage proposals.

01:09

[ wolf whistle ]

01:10

And that's sort of the ambivalence that Stoker has about women.

01:13

Because on the one hand, Lucy is this very sweet, virginal character.

01:17

Eventually, she'll get vamped to death,

01:19

and then herself become a vampire.

01:22

And vampire in the pejorative "vamp"

01:26

sense that we have for

01:28

women who claim to have loose morals.

01:32

[ laughs ]

01:34

So both of that is sort of

01:37

implicit and dueling in the representation of women in Dracula.

01:40

Got it. Okay, that makes sense.

01:42

[ whoop ]

01:42

What is the Crew of Light?

01:45

So, the Crew of Light is the three men who propose marriage to Lucy,

01:50

then Jonathan Harker, who's the first to meet Dracula,

01:54

and Van Helsing, who's a scientist from The Netherlands.

01:58

And these are the five men that come together.

02:02

I think there are five men who come together

02:03

to hunt Dracula.

02:05

They'll eventually go all the way back

02:07

to Carpathia, to Castle Dracula, to stake him to death.

02:13

They are the Crew of Light, versus

02:15

- Dracula's obvious darkness. - Got it.

02:19

[ whoop ]

02:20

How does Bram Stoker portray women in Dracula?

02:25

What is the Crew of Light?

02:28

[ evil laugh ]

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