It's coming close to Halloween, so I'm continuing my discussion of monsters and horror stories, and today, I feel the need to defend a lesser-liked horror novel character:
Jonathan Harker from Dracula.
Today's discussion stems from my intense, burning anger at too many writers rewriting Dracula so that Mina gets with the monster that attacks and controls her, leaving her husband Jonathan or at least being unfaithful to him for a while. Jonathan, in this way, has to be portrayed as weak or controlling or foolish or all three.
I loathe this. I will spout off in fountains of bubbling rage whenever someone starts talking to me about this.
Why? Because it contradicts everything said in the book, and it's not as progressive as its sold.
Okay, first, I've said it before, and I'll say it again: What Dracula does to Mina and Lucy is NOT romantic or strong. It's an assault of the most basic nature, controlling the women's bodies and minds, and forcing them to become something they never wanted to be.
It is parasitism. It is lust.
It is NOT love. It is NOT liberating. It is everything that our modern #MeToo movement is against, so please, please, PLEASE stop romanticizing it.
Or yes, rewrite it so there seems to be something there and then Mina stakes her attacker in the heart! A-ha!
I do understand, in part, where the attraction to this kind of rewriting comes from. Mina is a strong, interesting character, and we want the best for her. We don't want her to be trapped in a situation where she can't be all she could. Which is why I think we get concerns like this:
"But Mina is such an intelligent, strong character! She deserves to be with someone who's also smart and strong, not that weak, pathetic Jonathan, who controls her and prevents her from helping with the fight."
Um, okay. First, yes, Jonathan and the other men do block Mina out. But I'd like to point out that it's a group decision, not just Jonathan's, and Stoker makes it pretty clear this is a bad idea when Mina starts to be fed on by Dracula. After that, Mina decides to stay away because she's aware that if she can read Dracula's mind, he can read hers, and if she knows the plans, well....
So second, Dracula is the controlling one. When Mina is under his command, she is prevented from acting and even speaking during the hours Dracula has full power. But during sunrise or sunset, she gets her power back and uses it to fight against the vampire. The group of men, in this case, listen to her and use what she offers them without dismissing her aid.
Dracula is the attacker, the abuser. Not the human men, and not Jonathan, though I admit that mistakes were made regarding Mina.
Which brings me to "third": I don't agree that Jonathan is a weak character. Maybe not as strong or dynamic as Mina or Van Helsing, but not weak. Please consider the following:
- Jonathan was the first character we meet in the book, so his voice establishes our first glimpse of the novel.
- He lived with vampires for days and days, slowly understanding how trapped he was.
- He makes an escape from Castle Dracula, and we don't know what happened or how difficult/terrifying that might have been, though we know he suffered a mental breakdown as a result. (This is often used as proof that Jonathan is weak, but again, we don't get the escape story, and frankly, there are much worse reasons for a breakdown than "trapped by and preyed upon by the actual living dead.")
- Dude saw female vampires eating a baby (or preparing to). And Dracula climbing the walls like a lizard. If anyone has first-hand experience with the awfulness of what vampires are, it's him.
- Upon returning to England and finding out Dracula is there, Jonathan is still willing to fight.
- He uses his clerical know-how to track and destroy Dracula's safe havens.
- After Mina is cursed, and he's been through so much trauma that his hair has actually turned gray, he's still in the fight. He doesn't shrink or run. In fact, he apparently hates Dracula and wants to destroy him, even if it cost his own soul to do so.
- Also, when Mina is cursed and asks the men to kill her if she turns into a vampire, Jonathan, the man who has seen vampirism up close and personal in ways even Van Helsing has not, decides that if Mina turns, he'd become a vampire too, for her.
- He's the one who decapitates Dracula, in the end. One of two men to get a hit on the vampire, and the only one to survive doing so.
All in all, I think we don't portray Jonathan Harker the way he was written. From what I see here, I see a man who is kind and loving to his wife, a sensitive man who is hit hard by the trauma around him. But this is not weakness.
Jonathan does not flee the fight, but stays and gives what he can to help. And, when his own wife is hit, fights all the harder. I think he loves Mina more than life, as evidenced by his desire to join her as a vampire if it comes to that.
This man is a cinnamon roll, a sweet person who has been through some crap and is done with it. He's not a weak, shrinking character who has nervous breakdowns on every page (I'm looking at you, Victor Frankenstein). He takes action to defend what he loves.
I think that's a decently strong character, and I also want to remind you that Mina is smart and strong. If this is true, can we then believe that she's smart and strong enough to choose a good man? One who is loving and sensitive and willing to be there for her, no matter what? Maybe there are different kinds of strength, and maybe Stoker was a good enough writer to show different people, all strong, but in different ways.
I, for one, am fond of the cinnamon rolls. I'd love to see this relationship explored more in the retellings, and I wish I'd seen more good interpretations in the past.
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