#Dracula Daily asks

[atundratoadstool]

I was wondering about how Jonathan didn't even blink when Dracula informed him he was going to stick around for language tutoring. Like, did he expect to be there for a while? Do solicitors often do surprise bonus tasks for their clients that have little to do with their job description? Is he getting paid for this?? Or is this another case of Jonathan going "just another normal part of soliciting that no one bothered mentioning to me I guess!"/being too polite and embarrassed to express confusion and just going along with the next weird thing people expect him to be totally fine with

Of course you don't have to answer, but if you have any thoughts I'd enjoy hearing them!

I think this is one of those moments where Jonathan didn't expect yet another very bizarre thing to happen and he autopilots on polite acceptance rather than trying to make an objection. To be fair to him, he's a guy who just got his certification and he's on the first big job of his career and the Count is obviously a hugely important client. He is engaged to be married to a woman he is completely wild about, and seeing as this is the 1890s, sabotaging said career by walking out on said client would make it difficult to be married (even though women--including, as we will see, Mina--were in the workforce, there would still be expectations that a male partner would be the breadwinner). Additionally, without spoiling to much, his relationship to Peter Hawkins is not a simple employer/employee one, and Jonathan does not have a lot of personal resources/support outside of his fiancee and boss.

On top of all of that, there's just the immediate problem that he is in a remote, spooky castle in a desolate landscape full of wolves, and he is alone with the man making demands of him. He doesn't know how to get back to Bistriz if he decides to turn heel and walk out of the castle. His coachman was just the Count but with a different hat. They spiraled around and around in circles. He's dependent on his host if he wants transportation in the direction of his home.

A lot of the scariness of the early portions of Dracula is tied up in a sense that our pal Jonathan is the proverbial boiling frog--that he is being gaslit and endangered by degrees instead of being threatened with immediate harm. While I think it's very common to express frustration at his failure to get out before it's too late, I personally find his reluctance to act understandable and human, and I think it makes the horror of novel's initial arc all the more relatable.

#Bram Stoker #Dracula #Dracula Daily #Jonathan Harker #The Count #Dracula Daily asks

[re-dracula]

The Dracula Daily Experience, now with extra voice acting.

#re: dracula #someone on twitter asked us to do this and why not #I need the world to know this was narrated by an asexual hahaha #dracula daily

[draculadailyreactions]

So I’m not part of Dracula Daily but I do get context from mutuals who do- what are your thoughts on the Queen dying not long after Van Helsing was introduced?

Friend, I want to thank you for this ask. It rendered me speechless.

#op: september 9 2022 #asks #abraham van helsing #dracula daily #dracula #queen elizabeth ii #queen elizabeth #current events #england #british royal family #uk #monarchy #britain and the british #england and the english #dracula daily reactions #5k

[yallemagne]

why does sleepwalking women and gothic horror go hand in hand

You asking me?

The answer is voyeurism.

Here's the thing about gendered horror: the goddamn eroticism. You can't escape it, people want to get their rocks off even when they're terrified-- especially when they're terrified! It's such popular imagery because of the intimacy of a woman with all her hair let down in only a white nightgown highlighted by the pale moonlight. A nightgown is very innocent in its intimacy, there's nothing inherently sexual about it, but that just gets people even more horny! No structured garments underneath-- she's wearing breeches obviously but shhh no she's totally naked save for some sheer billowing fabric.

EDIT: oh my god blah blah blah "breeches! actually she wouldn't be wearing those!! oh my god, they got it wrong, just shoot them in the streets, your honour!" FINE SHE'S NOT WEARING ANY PANTIES UNDER THERE, GOOD FOR YOU YOU GOT ME.

Gasp! Unprotected purity! I sure hope no dastardly villain tarnishes this woman! (they do. they do hope for that actually)

This isn't a very fun answer, is it? But it's worth saying. Horror explicitly involving women tends to be very visual with plenty of (arguably) sexual imagery. Men get the mindboggling horrors inconceivable to the human psyche while women are limited to being eye candy who faint before their minds can even be boggled (no that isn't a euphemism). Even when the women in question previously had a larger role in the story than "sexy lamp", pop culture will be quick to reframe it in the way that has the most sex appeal.

But like... let's take the woman's perspective: you're in a state of undress and completely unaware of your surroundings. It's dark and anyone lurking around at this time might very well have bad intentions, and they might turn those bad intentions on you. And you'll be blamed for being in the wrong place, at the wrong time, in the wrong dress. Terrifying. And people don't really appreciate the terror of it because... it's pretty, isn't it?

But then Lucy is weeping in her sleep, and Mina is covering her feet in mud for propriety. Because who knows what a man will do to them if he sees her naked feet? They're both cowering in fear hoping a drunken man doesn't take notice of them. Because who knows what he'll do to them if he sees two young ladies out at night? They're sweating from not just exertion but stress, and their messy hair clings to their frightened faces. They cannot tell anyone. Because who knows what toll this night might take on their good reputations?

It's not pretty. There's no see-through dresses (seriously their nightgowns are made of fucking linen, not organza), no flowing locks, no full faces of makeup, just pure society-ingrained horror.

But cis men don't typically understand that horror because they aren't usually victim to it. It honestly makes me sad and angry that the imagery is so prominent (and in such a watered-down and bland "sexy" way) because it reduces the actual horror these two protagonists face to nothing more than an audience's voyeuristic fantasy in which the women are only objects to be gawked at. The danger is reframed as tantalizing and enticing "ooo good girls (unknowingly) being bad in their sleep!" rather than... they could have fucking died. Or worse.

... But I still want to draw my girls (Jonathan, Mina, and Lucy) in cute nightgowns, so I'll bite my tongue.

#update #people ask me things #you definitely wanted like a funny or sexy response out of me sorry #I've been having tiddy nightmares so I cannot enjoy the 'sleepwalking in nothing but a nightgown' imagery #dracula #dracula daily #mina murray #lucy westenra #all caps #gabrielisdead

[another-chaotic-bisexual-vampire]

i'm so mad at Bram Stoker for not anticipating that his 1897 novel Dracula would be adapted over a hundred years later into a format that only releases installments on the dates in his novel - resulting in several hiatuses when there are no installments released - which has, most importantly, personally inconvenienced me!

#istg bram why do you hate me so much #droughtula is a personal attack #yes i've read this novel several times before why do you ask #because reading ahead would be CHEATING #i'm not a MONSTER #dracula daily #dracula #re: dracula #droughtula #bram stoker

[kaiserin-erzsebet]

Jack, after pulling himself out of his depression isolation to help the woman he proposed to: I'm sure my old mentor can help.

Van Helsing immediately: Jack knows nothing about women. He doesn't even have a wife.

#dracula #dracula daily #he could have just asked Jack to leave the room #but he had to roast him first

[sepulchritude]

idk if its being recirculated this year but last year there was a post where someone calculated how far jonathan went to get from drac's castle to the train station and it was like over 150 miles. barefoot through the woods. yeah id be deranged too

Oh my god? Jonathan how on earth are you even alive

#ask #anonymous #dracula daily #sepulchritudinous

[jonathansknife]

Mina also when the men isolate her spiralling HARD so much that she blames HERSELF for Lucy's death. Saying that her coming to Whitby killed her, not Dracula. Putting herself down as the men being right, she's just a silly girl who cries and she should not tell Jonathan about her dreams because it's her duty. And it all backfires.

YES ANON YOU GET IT. The weight of the entire world is on her shoulders. She can't even look back on the last moments she spent with her best friend without feeling guilty that the smallest decision she made is what killed her. She holds herself responsible for everyone, she is so obsessed with being present and useful that she memorizes train schedules, but when Dracula is in Transylvania preying on Jonathan she's in England with Lucy and when Dracula is in England preying on Lucy she's in Budapest with Jonathan. And then when she's finally in the right place at the right time she's told the only way for her to help is to stay away. So she isolates herself and keeps her mouth shut. If someone has to suffer alone it might as well be her, right? After all, this is her fault for failing to protect everyone in the first place. And of course this line of thinking only pushes her deeper.

#I am holding her so gently #thank you for the ask!! pls come by and yell about Mina with me any time :) #dracula #mina harker #mina murray #dracula daily #re: dracula

[lauralot89]

Listen up all you horny Dracula fans

You have been given an unlimited budget and an unlimited run time to make your ideal adaptation of Dracula. You can be as faithful or unfaithful as you want, it's all up to you, with one caveat:

Dracula has to have a relationship, sexual or romantic or both, with one of the humans.

Now if I just made a poll right here, the answer would overwhelmingly be Jonathan Harker. Let's be real. Even if you don't personally ship it, he's the one Dracula spends the most time with, he's the one Dracula declares to be his and stares at while saying "I too can love," Jonathan's plot parallels so many damn "pretty lady with dangerous man" narratives like Bluebeard and Scheherazade and so on and so forth, it all writes itself

so I have removed him as a choice because I'm genuinely curious as to who your second choice would be and why

Personally my vote would be Lucy both because she's the only person who doesn't outright hate Dracula (mostly because she never met him while conscious) and also they're parallels to each other in some ways (he has the three brides, she has the three suitors, etc) but I would be interested to see what everybody else is shipping, give me your sexy vampire thesis

#Dracula #Dracula novel #Bram Stoker #Dracula by Bram Stoker #Dracula Daily #poll #polls #also he chose to make her a vampire so presumably he liked her at least somewhat #I'm not asking what would be a healthy relationship because none of them would be #because Dracula #just #for narrative interest

[toaster-trash]

Your Jonathan is such a darling it's too bad he is in the toils!

Someone get this man a hug from his wife

#classic literature #gothic lit #gothic literature #goth lit #dracula #dracula daily #re:dracula #Jonmina #Jonathan harker #doodle asks

[atundratoadstool]

I have seen some writing about how Dracula was partly written as a reaction to Oscar Wilde’s trial and was wondering about your thoughts on this?

So... we know now that Stoker had begun to take notes for Dracula (including the rudimentary outlines of one of the novel's iconic homoerotic scenes) as early as 1890s, five years before Wilde's trial. We have the dates in his notes. The idea that Dracula was written solely in reaction to the Wilde trial was popularized by Talia Schaffer in her 1994 essay "A Wilde Desire Overtook Me: The Homoerotic History of Dracula," in which she made a good hypothesis as to what might have been a generative historical moment for Dracula before scholars had ready access to his personal papers. I think because of the impact of her (very thorough) research, the influence of Wilde on Stoker sometimes gets overplayed... a little.

Overall though, at this point, I think it would be foolhardy to deny that Wilde influenced Dracula at all. Stoker was a frequent guest at the house of Wilde's family during the 1870s before he left for London to work with Henry Irving. He made allusions to Wilde's father in his first published novel (The Snake's Pass) and there has been some speculation by Paul Murray that Lady Wilde's folkloric research might have helped to inspire elements of his supernatural fiction in general. Stoker also stole Oscar Wilde's girlfriend in 1878, swooping in to marry renowned Dublin beauty Florence Balcombe who had been seeing Wilde romantically for two years. This happened quickly enough that Florence still needed to return tokens and letters to Oscar following her marriage, including the gift of a golden crucifix that he had given to her the prior Christmas. So yeah. Bram and Oscar were close acquaintances who had a not insignificant amount of personal drama between them in which a key object was a crucifix. I don't think you can fail to see how there might be something there.

And while we do not have anything 100% concrete as regards Stoker's sexuality and we don't know what his personal emotions about Wilde's trial were (he was remarkably silent about the event at the time, despite his friends and associates being among Wilde's staunch supporters), I think it is very hard in the year 2022 to assert that Bram Stoker was unquestionably heterosexual. Stoker famously wrote to Walt Whitman and discussed his wishes for a man to be "father, and brother and wife to his soul." He recounted rapturously falling into hysterics and becoming "unmanned" when Henry Irving read poetry at him, and however you read his relationship to the actor it was definitely the one that dominated his life. He wrote of himself in the one extant personal journal of his we have that he felt he had "a woman's heart." His non-Dracula work includes a non-fiction book about "Imposters" that seems to include disproportionate amount of historical figures that would register to modern readers as trans. While none of these stand as conclusive evidence, the fact of the matter is that when you are looking to queer history in the 1890s, you will not always find conclusive evidence.

My take is that while the Wilde trial was not the inspiration for Dracula, I do not think you can look to Stoker's biography and the contents of Dracula without seeing the influence of Bram's probable queerness. As a queer person existing in the 1890s, he would have been influenced by the Wilde trial. Full stop. I will say that I think it is a little short-sighted to frame Dracula as being just about the Wilde trial or even predominantly about the Wilde trial when there are so very many other aspects of Bram's life and the historical moment that have clearly left their impression on the text, but at this point, I am willing to say that the Wilde trial is a part of the fabric that makes up Dracula.

[As always, I confess to being a little bit behind the cutting edge of Stoker scholarship these days, and if somebody more plugged in to works regarding this since 2016ish has cause to correct me, please do so. I understand that David J. Skal's biography takes the stance that Wilde and Dracula are very much interrelated, but I have yet to read it. I also confess to being an academic who knows through Wilde mostly through Stoker, so people whose primary expertise is with Wilde may have insights that I am missing.]

#Bram Stoker #Dracula #Dracula Daily #Oscar Wilde #lgbt #Dracula Daily asks #This is one of those questions where my mind has altered a fair bit over the years

[phoenixyfriend]

I know you like Dracula Daily, and I want to do it this year, so could you please share where to get on the mailing list for it, if it's not too much trouble?

Sure, the mailing list is just https://draculadaily.com/

It's also available on substack, but personally I'd suggest signing up for the email and to @re-dracula on your podcast source of choice (I use Spotify) so you can listen to some truly phenomenal voice acting and sound design as you read.

#irenedracobunny #phoenix answers asks #dracula #dracula daily

[spider-xan]

Could you elaborate on the gender reversal?

I'll hopefully get around to writing a detailed post about it at some point, but the short version is that while a rich American like Quincey being a viable suitor for a British aristocrat like Lucy may seem like something totally wild Stoker pulled out of his ass, the social reality was that historically, the late-19th century was when the British aristocracy started to go into decline to varying degrees, so it was not uncommon for rich Americans and impoverished British nobles and gentry to get married to each other for their own ends - but in real life, it was typically American heiresses marrying British lords, and these women were known as Dollar Princesses; one of the most famous examples would be Winston Churchill's parents, Jennie Jerome and Lord Randolph Churchill.

So yeah, Lucy and Quincey to me are a gender-reversed version of that, with Quincey as the rising rich American and Lucy as the fading English aristocrat!

#asks #dracula #dracula daily #lucy westenra #quincey morris

[yallemagne]

Dracula like, this kid's been in a coach of terror all day and I kept driving him into circles and he kept drifting off and he was scared out if his mind and he waited an hour outside the door in the cold. I'll have chicken with sides prepared next to the hearth and he'll be putty in my hands.

And the worst part is that he's right.

Jonathan graciously accepts the Count's hospitality. It is reassuring to him, and he feels his worries melt away as he slowly winds down from the hectic journey he just weathered.

The light and warmth and the Count's courteous welcome seemed to have dissipated all my doubts and fears.

But... if there is any reassurance to derive from this... putty is only so easily moldable when you play with warm hands.

...he moved impulsively forward, and holding out his hand grasped mine with a strength which made me wince, an effect which was not lessened by the fact that it seemed as cold as ice—more like the hand of a dead than a living man.

Jonathan is willing to power through his weariness, but he's not blind to the fact there is something very wrong with the Count. He's just unwilling to broach the subject, he hopes he shall not have to, that he'll get his work done and go home to Mina, making his stressful business trip seem like nothing more than a bizarre dream. In the meantime, he will take comfort in the Count's odd geniality.

But JESUS I SHOULD REALLY TALK ABOUT THE COUNT! SORRY!

Dracula relishes in this. The shame of being a boyar with no staff or subjects and having to do all the work himself is outweighed by the thrill of pulling the wool over an innocent lamb's eyes and leading him to slaughter. Even as Jonathan notices all the little things wrong (we were simply going over and over the same ground again–– for a moment I doubted if it were not the same person to whom I was speaking––his breath was rank––), he cannot voice any of his concerns, and Dracula takes full advantage of this. From the very start, he is gloating:

"Ah, sir, you dwellers in the city cannot enter into the feelings of the hunter." 

This is the Count's hunt.

I decided to wait till today to answer because May 7 provides more of Dracula's perspective. He's been planning this trip to England for a while, as evidenced by his numerous books and just how perfectly he speaks English. But he's unsatisfied with his speech. He knows it makes him unfamiliar, a stranger. When he travels to London, he wants to blend in as one of the sheep, such is his excuse for requiring his solicitor to come to him. He intends to use Jonathan as a study for what to expect of the faraway land he longs to conquer. And, in the meantime, he shall also teach Jonathan the ways of his land.

When I go there I shall be all alone, and my friend Harker Jonathan—nay, pardon me, I fall into my country's habit of putting your patronymic first—my friend Jonathan Harker will not be by my side to correct and aid me.

This "mistake" appears very intentional. By addressing Jonathan according to his country's rules, he, however passively, asserts his superiority over him. Think when someone gets your name wrong on purpose, it's a tactic used to deny you ownership of yourself. I'm not prescribing this intent to anyone who makes a mistake like this, but Dracula speaks in such a measured way that I doubt he truly slipped up. It's so small of an inconvenience in this case that Jonathan voices no thoughts on the matter. But Dracula is priming him for his stay in Castle Dracula. As Jonathan teaches him the way of the Englishman, Dracula shall teach him the way of the Transylvanian peasant. Quite literally when he speaks of the blue flames.

"Why, even the peasant that you tell me of who marked the place of the flame would not know where to look in daylight even for his own work. Even you would not, I dare be sworn, be able to find these places again?" "There you are right," I said. "I know no more than the dead where even to look for them."

Such an obvious HINT! It's another "for the dead travel fast". Jonathan acknowledges "only the dead would know where to look", and Dracula just goes "...anyway--"

Dracula does not hesitate to drop hints about his nature. Oh, he cannot live in a new house? He would die in a new house? He travels to England in search of newer, broader horizons, but he does not wish to stand out. He intends to insert himself into the history of London, becoming one of England's many ghosts, once more a master but of a different people who don't know the danger he poses. Right now, Jonathan can find nothing wrong with this–

I felt that it was getting very late indeed, but I did not say anything, for I felt under obligation to meet my host's wishes in every way.

–and again, he is bound by the Count's good graces. Dread creeps in his mind and he thinks of death as morning sneaks up on him.

They say that people who are near death die generally at the change to the dawn or at the turn of the tide; any one who has when tired, and tied as it were to his post, experienced this change in the atmosphere can well believe it.

Dracula keeps him awake through sunset and sunrise, forcing him to experience the change in atmosphere and foreshadowing his plans for him. He's playing with his food in a way Jonathan doesn't consciously but subconsciously recognizes.

#update #people ask me things #dracula #dracula daily #jonathan harker #count dracula #may 7 #re: dracula

[the-crooked-library]

On Horror, Queerness, Mirrors, and Dracula

Your wish is my command (you may or may not regret this). 

Here’s the thing - I love horror, and I love patterns, and I think the best horror is always in some sense symmetrical.  It might not be obvious, but what’s the point of staring into an abyss if you can’t see your own face reflected back?  The symmetry itself comes in any number of different twists, whether it is familial, communal, erotic, or individual, and most of these apply to Bram Stoker’s Dracula. 

The centre of our novel rests on the Harkers.  So, starting with Jonathan - his experience in Transylvania is a twisted version of his life back home.  Dracula is reserved but eloquent, seemingly caring and occasionally affectionate, he reads train schedules and they spend hours upon hours in conversation; which is a dark mirror to Jonathan’s train schedule-loving, passionate but serious Mina.  It may even be said that the Count is re-enacting a caricature of traditional heteronormative domesticity - he maintains the household, waits on his guest himself, and blows him kisses from the stairs.  His possessiveness of Jonathan is the only way a vampire like Dracula is capable of understanding the bond Jonathan shares with Mina.  The Count states that he, too, feels love; but he is written by a closeted gay man in the late 19th century, so his imitation of married life is both a lie and a tragedy.  He is a shorthand for forbidden, wrong, and corrupting desires. 

At the same time, Mina herself also has a same-sex connection in the beginning of the story, and her relationship with Lucy mirrors the relationship between Jonathan and Dracula.  They cling to each other, in a sense; despite being excited about the prospect of their impending marriages, there is some trepidation associated with this new stage in life.  A common part of a dowry used to be a shroud, simply due to the frequency at which Victorian wives died in childbirth soon after the wedding; and even provided a survival, the transition to married life was still a loss of innocence.  As such, Lucy’s affection for Mina is the last expression of her girlhood, and she herself is the personification of Mina’s.  Lucy is, therefore, the direct antithesis of the Count; her death and subsequent rising change Mina the same way that Dracula does Jonathan, establishing a firm duality between the Harkers and their respective vampires. 

The other characters are reflections of each other, as well; the suitors defend while the brides terrify, Van Helsing wants to preserve life while Renfield wishes to consume it - and even further, the old Hungarian lady cares enough about  a stranger to give Jonathan a cross for protection, while Lucy’s own mother lets Dracula into the house herself, selfishly ignorant of her daughter’s needs and the doctor’s orders.  Another parallel is drawn again between Jonathan and Renfield, who represents directly what he could have been, had he not escaped from Dracula’s grasp; which makes Renfield’s vehement, last-ditch attempt to protect Mina perhaps all the more poignant.  In him, she sees the resilience of Jonathan’s humanity; while he gets to see exactly what she could become after her turning  - in Dracula himself.  These dualities are integral to the story’s thematic structure, and therefore inextricable from each character’s development. 

There is really too much to say about each individual dynamic to fit into one rant, but for the current purposes, I can forgo the details.  They all converge as it is on Jonathan and Mina, and thus, the central theme of this story is devotion.  If Jonathan had truly broken, like Renfield, Mina would have stayed by his side; and if she had fully turned, like Dracula, he would have adored whatever shred of her still remained.  In madness and in death, in happiness and sorrow, in sickness and in health - until the echoes start to sound like wedding vows. 

@stripedshirtgay​

@bluberimufim​

#dracula #dracula daily #jonmina #jonathan harker #mina harker #dracula meta #bram stoker #y'all asked for this #now scream with me bc i've been internally screaming about this for years #it's about the DEVOTION #lucy westenra is mina's innocence #dracula is jonathan's fear of inadequacy #renfield is his humanity #dracula is an evil version of mina i said what i said #that's Partially why jonathan wasn't weirded out enough #like yes yes eccentric old count #but he writes a diary in shorthand #and his fiancee loves train schedules #who's he to judge

[stationarycursive]

#dracula daily #re: dracula #dracula #polls #woke up with this question and realized i have a way to ask it. how magical