#dracula is all about love and relationships and how those can save and healyou

[kastalani123]

Not my usual content, but I just. I wanna ramble, ig.

Do you understand how baffled I was about how the vampire book, written by a man in 1897, is essentially a PSA about how important proper communication is?? Even after I scrolled through Tumblr, saw the memes, read people geeking out about the relationships (platonic and romantic) in Dracula, I was still caught off guard, because. Like. Everything in this book is about communication.

Sure, it's kind of a given, considering it's an epistolary novel partially made up of letters between the characters, but. I dunno. From Dracula controlling Johnathan's lettres, van Hellsing refusing to tell anyone shit, the men keeping Mina out of the loop, to Mina using her telepathic link with Dracula, it's. It's literally all about how important actually talking to each other and sharing information is. Fuck, throw in the fact that "Harker", Mina and Jonathan's, arguably the main characters, last name means "to listen"/"eavesdropper", and that the book is Mina's in-universe creation to help compile, organize, and share what they know about Dracula, and the book's very essence becomes centered around information-sharing!

And I just. The narrative punishes just about every secret hidden, every time the characters don't communicate. There's the obvious, Dracula keeping Johnathan from sending out letters for help and Mina getting bitten because the men leave her home alone, but also. Van Hellsing not telling Lucy's mom that the garlic flowers and closed windows and so on are the treatment and she is not to touch them is what kills Lucy and her mom! They maybe could have survived if he just told them what's happening/what he's doing! And even the godsdamned telegram he sends to Seward! If he had just addressed it properly (communicated to the telegram boy properly!) then Seward wouldn't have been late and maybe could have prevented the massacre!

There's also Jonathan's diary right after he finally reunites with Mina, and obviously Mina's whole ✨ thing ✨ with the diary during their wedding is like. Peak romance, but Johnathan doesn't fully get better until Mina reads and shares it with van Hellsing and van Hellsing assures Johnathan that he's not insane. Sure, it's an oversimplification of PTSD and healing and such, but it makes sense, especially if you consider communication and information sharing as a major theme! Only sharing his experiences, reading through them himself after blocking off the memories, is what heals him! He cannot get better without knowing what happened, and without others knowing what happened, because knowing and sharing is important.

Renfield's also an interesting case. I don't have the book with me right now to check, but as far as I remember, he tries to talk about Dracula, tries to get Seward to release him from the asylum so Dracula can't use him against Mina, but is dismissed entirely; as a consequence, Dracula gets in the building, kills Renfield, and bites Mina.

Even the language barriers! The villagers Johnathan meets on his way to Dracula's castle try so hard to warn him of the danger but they can't. They can't, because they don't speak enough of the same language, but they try so hard. But whatever does get through to Johnathan, such as that woman begging him to take the crucifix she gives him — that might've saved him. It keeps him unsettled and wary and he does keep the crucifix, which wards Dracula off. They can't communicate the full extent of the danger, but what they managed is probably responsible for him surviving.

And the whole idea is even mentioned in-text! Sure, Lucy saying that a wife ought to share everything she knows with her husband is definitely sexism-flavoured, but Johnathan says it too! He says that his idea of an ideal marriage is one without secrets! And Johnathan is effeminate, yes, he spends a good chunk of the book as the "damsel in distress", but he is still the hero! He is still the one who kills Dracula (with Quincey), and can therefore be assumed to be an intended role model. The (male) main character and hero of an 1897 novel says that a good relationship relies on communication. Sure, he doesn't always stick to it, mostly by agreeing to keep Mina out of the loop when van Hellsing pushes for it, but that doesn't discount that that is what Stoker set as the ideal.

I just. I love this book so much. It subverted just about all expectations I might've had about it and I'm so glad for it. It's undeniably a product of its time, with plenty of racism and sexism and ableism, but it's also so. Not, at the same time? It's so good.