#lucy westenra's mother

[draculabridesdraculadaily]

Lucy and Mrs. Westerna

Belated mother's day pic and just a little something since were past the point (at the time of this writing) that Lucy is introduced into the story, so here's her and her mother (whom I dub Minerva in the AU version of Dracula I'm doing). Still human and taking a nice serene picture against their summer home landscape. Enjoy!

[dracularulerofthenight]

Dracula: Ruler of the Night [Minerva Westenra]

So in my rendition of the Dracula novel, Lucy's mother, here named Minerva, has more of an elevated role rather then just be a brief bit character in story. As a human, she a doting mother, practically making preparations for Lucy and Arthur's wedding and tries to care for her daughter, especially after she falls ill from Dracula's attack. She has to go out of the city for a bit for an errand and during her away time, Dracula finished feeding on Lucy.

When she gets the telegram about Lucy, she tries to rush back but her carriage is attacked by wolves and over turned, she survives but is kidnapped by Dracula's brides and brought to him where she finds out about vampires and Lucy having become one.

When the hunters (Jonathan Harker, Jack Seward, Quincy Morris, Arthur Holmwood and Abraham Van Helsing) invade Carfax Abby, they find her tied to a wall, yet seemingly no worse for wear. But when the hunters are forced to flee and are cornered in a basement of the house, Minerva is outed as a vampire when Jonathan spots her lack of reflection in a mirror. They manage to fend her off and escape, but grimly note Minerva has become one of Dracula's newest vampire brides alongside her daughter.

Hey no one said the undead had a age limit, lol. Still enjoy, I plan to post more pics with her later on.

[your-friend-bram]

August 15

Lucy mother is going to be in for the shock of her life in the near future...

-Bram

[immediatebreakfast]

It's incredible how this is the first time we meet Mrs. Westenra, and the first thing we see the woman do is confide to Mina how she is going to to die. There is no dancing around the issue, no maybe, just a firm "Yes I am going to die" which is said to someone who is not her daughter.

Someone who already has the stress of caring for the two most important people in her life, Jonathan who she dreads to be probably dead, and Lucy whose sleepwalking is worsening her state, like an illness. Even if the text itself, and Mina don't write it out loud, it's a situation that anyone would find utterly stressful no matter how they look at it. It's worse for Mina since she is a very hands on active character.

So why does Mrs. Westerna thinks is appropiate to tell this to Mina (her daughter's childhood friend), and not Lucy who is her actual daughter? Well the difference seem to be both infatilization, and wrongfully assigned maturity. Lucy gets treated like a child, while Mina gets treated like an adult woman despite being two or three years apart in age.

Poor dear, sweet lady! She confided to me that she has got her death-warrant. She has not told Lucy, and made me promise secrecy

In the eyes of Mrs. Westerna Mina is mature enough to not only guard this secret from Lucy, but also to understand on top of being mentally fine with the implications that this could bring for Lucy. Also, in Mrs. Westerna's eyes Lucy is still a child; she doesn't see a young lady who is taking in the huge responsability of marriage, but a child that is going to have someone else to protect her when she is gone.

Both Mina, and Lucy needed to know at some point that Mrs. Westenra was going to die, but out of the two of them Lucy deserves to know this tragic fact about her mother first. Even if these news make her sleepwalking worse, she still has to know.

I even dare to say that the socio economical difference between Mina, and Lucy make it easier for Mrs. Westenra to choose who to tell. One girl is an orphan working class girl who was forced by her surrounding circumstances to adapt quickly to many living responsabilities, the other girl is a daughter of a noble family with a chronic condition who has adapted her entire personality to please people that surround her social status out of necessity.

[draculasweedsmokinggirlfriend]

New Tally Idea for Dracula Daily

Drac kills by bites vs Drac kills by frights

[demonoflive]

So, in today's entry the boys decide that the best course of action is to exclude the most competent person in their vampire hunting group from participating in the vampire hunt bc she is a woman and should not be traumatised by the events to come...

And follow this up by not telling her anything that may be going on from here on out...

There is no way anything could go wrong bc of this... right?

I mean, it's not like it's a recurring theme that those uninformed of important information suffer terribly from not knowing about it

[ebenelephant]

can't believe how lucy westenra coded rose is

[9ofspades]

Sept 2

How does everyone except Lucy know about her mom’s heart problems?!  Even Seward knows!!  Did Arthur tell him?  Do the three boys in Lucy’s polycule sit around gossiping and share everything with each other -- is that why they all know everything Arthur does?  

...tbh I feel like that would actually be... a very good reason for Lucy’s polycule to defeat Dracula.  The fact that they all communicate.  

[mourningmaybells]

they had to dumb lucy down and make her superficial because of her chronic illness swag

[farfadetfarfelu]

So I asked my mum if she had a pet bat, how she would name it and she answer straight and without looking up :

"Lucy. We had one."

Sorry. You what now?

[draculabridesdraculadaily]

Dracula Daily: August 15

General Gist: Ho-hum day. Lucy still a little out of it but Arthur brings news his pops is better and looking forward to the wedding, how fantastic! Shame Mama Westenra has some bad news she shares only with Mina. Seems her old ticker isn't getting better and she's not long for this world. But she's happy at the least Lucy will be provided for and hopes to see her daughter wed before the inevitable. But for now, doesn't want to worry Lucy, she's got enough on her plate as is and request Mina stay tight lipped till then.

[hotvintagepoll]

this is a poll for a movie that doesn't exist.

It is vintage times. The powers that be have decided to again remake the classic vampire novel Dracula for the screen. in an amazing show of inter-studio solidarity, Hollywood’s most elite hotties are up for the starring roles. the producers know whoever they cast will greatly impact the genre, quality, and tone of the finished film, so they are turning to their wisest voices for guidance.

you are the new casting director for this star-studded epic. choose your players wisely.

Previously cast:

Jonathan Harker—Jimmy Stewart

The Old Woman—Martita Hunt

Count Dracula—Gloria Holden

Mina Murray—Setsuko Hara

Lucy Westenra—Judy Garland

The Three Voluptuous Women—Betty Grable, Marilyn Monroe, and Lauren Bacall

The Agonized Mother—Mary Philbin (rip)

Dr. Jack Seward—Vincent Price

Quincey P. Morris—Toshiro Mifune

Arthur Holmwood—Sidney Poitier

R.M. Renfield—Conrad Veidt

The Captain of the Demeter—Omar Sharif (rip)

The First Mate of the Demeter—Leonard Nimoy (rip)

Mr. Swales—Ed Wynn (rip)

The Correspondent for The Daily Graph—Ethel Waters

Dracula in dog form—Frank Oz with a puppet

Sister Agatha—Angela Lansbury

Mrs. Westenra—Gladys Cooper

Dracula's solicitors—Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee

Van Helsing is described at length in the novel. He is Dr. Seward's old mentor, possessing "an iron nerve, a temper of the ice-brook, an indomitable resolution, self-command, [....] and the kindliest and truest heart that beats." According to Mina, he is "a man of medium height, strongly built, with his shoulders set back over a broad, deep chest and a neck well balanced on the trunk as the head is on the neck. The poise of the head strikes me at once as indicative of thought and power. The head is noble, well-sized, broad, and large behind the ears. The face, clean-shaven, shows a hard, square chin, a large resolute, mobile mouth, a good-sized nose, rather straight, but with quick, sensitive nostrils, that seem to broaden as the big bushy brows come down and the mouth tightens. The forehead is broad and fine, rising at first almost straight and then sloping back above two bumps or ridges wide apart, such a forehead that the reddish hair cannot possibly tumble over it, but falls naturally back and to the sides. Big, dark blue eyes are set widely apart and are quick and tender or stern with the man's moods." Van Helsing tends to talk through funny stories and bizarre metaphors, is one of the first to consider the supernatural in Lucy's illness, and comes from Amsterdam.

[charonnyxtides]

Something essential about Lucy's character is her secrets-filled relationship with her mother, and her sheltered, traditional upbringing because of her mother.

It's therefore no wonder that all adaptations that exclude Mrs. Westenra fundamentally misread and misrepresent Lucy.

[immediatebreakfast]

Mrs. Westenra has confided to me that her doom is spoken—disease of the heart—though poor Lucy does not know it yet. 

Mrs. Westenra has told everyone, and their mother how she is going to fucking die EXCEPT FOR LUCY, HER ACTUAL DAUGHTER.

[yallemagne]

Then, too, Lucy, although she is so well, has lately taken to her old habit of walking in her sleep. Her mother has spoken to me about it, and we have decided that I am to lock the door of our room every night. Mrs. Westenra has got an idea that sleep-walkers always go out on roofs of houses and along the edges of cliffs and then get suddenly wakened and fall over with a despairing cry that echoes all over the place. Poor dear, she is naturally anxious about Lucy, and she tells me that her husband, Lucy's father, had the same habit; that he would get up in the night and dress himself and go out, if he were not stopped. Lucy is to be married in the autumn, and she is already planning out her dresses and how her house is to be arranged. I sympathise with her, for I do the same, only Jonathan and I will start in life in a very simple way, and shall have to try to make both ends meet. Mr. Holmwood—he is the Hon. Arthur Holmwood, only son of Lord Godalming—is coming up here very shortly—as soon as he can leave town, for his father is not very well, and I think dear Lucy is counting the moments till he comes. She wants to take him up to the seat on the churchyard cliff and show him the beauty of Whitby. I daresay it is the waiting which disturbs her; she will be all right when he arrives.

Lucy has inherited sleepwalking from her late father. She has sleepwalked before now, it is an old habit of hers. Dracula is nowhere near the coast of Whitby nor does he know who the fuck Lucy is.

THE SLEEPWALKING IS NOT CAUSED BY FUCKING DRACULA.

Stop, that's literally the excuse used by shitty adaptation writers who shorten the story down for the sake of convenience. And you may ask them, well, why is Dracula trying to make Lucy, a young lady he doesn't even know, sleepwalk to him from so far away, adaptation writers? THE ANSWER THEY ALWAYS GIVE IS "well, she's a slut, he can sense that she's a slut, he's trying to get at her to punish her for her transgressions and get to his pure reincarnated wife uwu."

IN THE BOOK SHE IS LITERALLY JUST A SLEEPWALKER IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH DRACULA RIGHT NOW.

Do you think that when she sleepwalked years ago as a child that was also Dracula??? Was her father sleepwalking to Dracula as well?? She is stressed about the future and her restlessness has caused her to start sleepwalking again. She dreams of showing Arthur the view from the churchyard, so she tries to go there in her sleep.

Please I swear to god when you lean into the whole "Dracula has a vendetta against Lucy and has made her a sleepwalker in order to hunt her down and punish her", it's victim-blaming and doesn't even make sense in the context of the novel.

sorry if this comes off aggressive, but I'm just like grrr I'm like rrr no fuck you Coppola get off my dick.

[thethirdromana]

I'm generally a fully signed-up member of the Mrs Westenra Sucks Club, but I've found myself pondering more sympathetic ways to interpret her character and actions.

I think the most important thing to remember is that Mrs Westenra is dying, and since she has a 19-year-old daughter, she's probably dying young. If she's around 45, actuarial tables for the 1890s suggest that she would normally expect to live at least another 25 years, probably longer (which I'm mentioning since people normally underestimate Victorian adult life expectancy).

She was expecting to be around to see her daughter securely married and to help with her grandchildren; now there's a question mark over whether she'll even see her daughter's wedding. She's experiencing end-stage heart failure: she's probably in a lot of pain (which in her culture she is supposed to bear with quiet fortitude) and may have other symptoms such as fatigue, depression, nausea, insomnia and cognitive impairment. She's probably not able to think clearly a lot of the time. It's not surprising that she makes some bad decisions.

Is that enough to justify her treatment of Lucy? Maybe not. But on that point, I think it's worth noting that while Mrs Westenra is the worst offender in treating her adult daughter like she's a child, she's not the only one. When Mrs Westenra confides details of her illness to Mina, Mina doesn't seem to push back on the idea that this should be kept a secret from Lucy, even in the privacy of her journal. The idea that things should be kept from Lucy for her own protection is one that nearly everyone who interacts with Lucy shares.

In the novel as it stands (not in deleted sections, admittedly) we also don't see Lucy herself pushing for greater independence. In fact, what she wants from her mother is not more freedom but more comfort, in being allowed to share a bed with her.

A final thought on that. Victorians turned against the idea of bed-sharing because they believed that sharing beds spread diseases:

In her housekeeping guide published in 1892, Mrs. Elizabeth F. Holt warned readers that “the air which surrounds the body under the bed clothing is exceedingly impure, being impregnated with the poisonous substances which have escaped through the pores of the skin.”

(from this article)

In other words, Mrs Westenra might worry that sharing a bed would risk passing on her own illness to Lucy. I think denying Lucy's request could be seen as protective rather than dismissive.

I imagine I'm still going to be really annoyed when she [spoilers redacted]. But I think she could be seen as a tragic and sympathetic figure, not a malicious one. This novel has several characters who want to do the right thing but make mistakes (Seward, Van Helsing) and Mrs Westenra could be interpreted as one of them.