Remind yourself of the entry in Mina Harkers journal for 30th September, which concludes Chapter 17. How does this entry develop your view of Mina?

Authors Avatar

Mikey Holder                09/05/2007

English Literature                Dracula-Essay 1

Remind yourself of the entry in Mina Harkers journal for 30th September, which concludes Chapter 17. How does this entry develop your view of Mina?

Throughout the course of this enthralling novel, the reader constantly develops numerous different views of Mina. Mina Murray is a character that is supposedly used in this book, to represent an ultimate kind of Victorian Woman. Van Helsing praises Mina in the middle of Chapter 14, saying that

‘She is one of God’s women, fashioned by His own hand to show us men and other women that there is a heaven where we can enter, and that its light can be here on earth’

Propriety is the most appropriate word to sum up Mina’s character, since she is modest and her manners are evidently those of a very domestic wife. Mina, an assistant schoolmistress, spends her days studying, for example, the typewriter, so that she can be of assistance to her husband. We can really learn a lot about Mina’s character from the contrast she makes with Lucy. There is a very famous saying that applies very much to these two characters: don’t judge a book by its cover. Looks can be deceiving, and whilst Lucy evidently possesses more physical beauty, Mina’s most significant strength, is her domesticity.

Join now!

Chapter 17 is an especially important chapter in this novel because the meeting between the Harkers and Lucy’s friends is described in alternating diary entries, which allows the reader to simultaneously see what is going on in each of the characters heads. The majority of the views are from Mina’s and Seward’s perspectives. Mina’s final diary entry develops a lot of new views and thoughts of Mina in the readers mind, and contributes a lot to the presentation of Mina in the entire novel.

The chapter begins by explaining how thrilled she is that Jonathan is well again. ...

This is a preview of the whole essay