Episode 298: Best of Series – “Dracula” by Bram Stoker, Ch. 8-11

Summary

The Literary Life Podcast

Episode 298: Best of Series – “Dracula” by Bram Stoker, Ch. 8-11
October 14, 2025
Hosts: Angelina Stanford, Thomas Banks, Cindy Rollins

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Episode Overview

This episode marks a stop on The Literary Life Podcast's slow and thoughtful journey through Dracula, focusing on Chapters 8–11. The hosts explore the literary, historical, and symbolic intricacies in these chapters, diving into topics like Victorian gender roles, the symbolism of blood, the medical practices of the 1890s, contrasting views of science and spirituality, and interpretations (and misinterpretations) of the novel—while retaining their wit and camaraderie. The ongoing discussion continually ties reading well to deeper truths about education, humility, and gratitude, grounding their literary critique in larger life principles.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Notable Opening Banter and Blood Metaphors

• Joking about blood donations frames the session’s theme (01:31)—exploring literal and metaphorical meanings of blood in the novel.
  • Angelina: “Would you give me your blood?”
  • Cindy: “I would open my veins for you, Angelina.” (02:41)

2. Commonplace Quotes: Art, Education, and Humility (03:14–09:15)

• Quotes chosen centered on art’s role in life, the humility necessary for education, and the danger of self-derived meaning.
• Robert McFarlane quoting Lewis Hyde:
  "Once the imagination has been awakened, it is procreative. Through it, we can give more than we were given..." (04:10)
• Angelina, on humility in learning:
  "The point of this degree is to show you how much you don’t know." (05:50)
• Thomas, from Le Comte de Lisle:
  "The gods love blood, le don ame le sang..." (06:32)
• A thoughtful exploration of how gratitude and humility are foundational to education and art, serving as counterpoints to the possessive or egoistic pursuit of knowledge.

3. The “New Woman” and Victorian Gender Ideals (11:06–23:19)

• Mina as a "New Woman": An early feminist archetype in Victorian society—independent, educated, professionally inclined.
  • Angelina: “She is, she is, she's typing. She was a schoolmistress... a little bit of a prototypical feminist.” (19:53)
  • Detailed examination of the “Angel in the House” (Lucy) vs. the “New Woman” (Mina).
  • Cultural context: Victorian-era ideals, etiquette schools, and responses to women's roles.
• Connections are made to later feminist writers and discussions about reconciling intellect, vocation, and domesticity (Dorothy Sayers’ Gaudy Night noted).
• Notable exchange:
  Thomas: “Typing is a professional acquisition.” (17:53)
  Angelina: “Maybe we should offer a class...on how to enter and exit a carriage attractively!” (15:21, paraphrased)

4. Contrasts of Activity vs. Passivity (23:48–29:04)

• Mina as active, engaged, and ultimately protective; Lucy as passive, infantilized, and vulnerable to Dracula.
• Lucy’s sleepwalking discussed as both literal and symbolic (27:28):
  Angelina: "I was also wondering ... if there's not this idea that the angel in the house sort of sleepwalks through her life."
• The vulnerability of passive women sets them up as targets for evil in the narrative’s symbolic framework.

5. The Medical vs. Spiritual (25:47–35:14)

• Hospitals as spiritual counterpoints:
  • The convent hospital (for Jonathan) vs. Dr. Seward’s asylum (for Renfield).
  • Angelina: “The convent is ... a place of healing for the soul. The nuns are a counterpoint to the three vampire women.” (25:51)
  • Dr. Seward as a scientific, skeptical observer (“psychological and physiological explanations”), versus the nuns’ spiritual framing.
• Secularization in England:
  Angelina: “I get the feeling ... people in England are acting essentially secular, with a little patina of Christianity on the outside.” (34:21)

6. Renfield as the “John the Baptist” of Dracula (29:58–33:06)

• Renfield’s behavior interpreted as a parody of John the Baptist, heralding Dracula's coming and subverting Biblical language.
  • Angelina: “Renfield is the John the Baptist for the coming of the dragon...” (31:28)
  • Thomas, noting insect-eating: “John the Baptist also had a...insects formed part of his diet.” (31:29)
  • Consistent Biblical allusions (31:10).

7. Victorian Science, Blood, and Technology (43:11–47:17)

• Van Helsing’s role: Both advanced scientist and man of letters, hinting at the insufficiency of science alone to confront supernatural evil.
  • Angelina: “One of the running jokes... if only they'd brought in a literature teacher...” (43:36)
• Discussion of the real history behind blood transfusions and Bram Stoker’s accuracy for his era (45:43).
  • Modern readers shouldn’t "roll their eyes" at these episodes—Stoker was up-to-date, based on family and era’s best medicine.

8. Blood, Sacrifice, and Chivalry (47:50–50:45)

• Contrasting Dracula taking blood with the men giving it—self-sacrifice vs. predation.
  • Angelina: "Dracula has taken her blood. They are giving blood." (49:13)
  • The blood transfusion scenes are deeply symbolic: an outpouring of love, chivalry—to counteract the vampire’s predation.

9. Science vs. Superstition: Garlic and Symbols (51:01–52:13)

• Symbolism of garlic:
  • Thomas: “Romans thought that [garlic] kept away poisonous serpents.” (51:12)
• Angelina: “Dr. Van Helsing... is not opposed to putting garlic around her, which, that’s superstition.” (52:05)
• Such “old wives’ tales” prove truer than modern science in the context of supernatural evil.

10. Binaries, Parallels, and Foils (Wolves, Cages, and Evil) (37:38–39:07)

• Repeated imagery of creatures (wolves, Renfield) breaking out of confinement echoes Lucy’s own precarious safety.
  • Mina as protector leaves; Lucy becomes vulnerable.
  • Angelina: “So you’ve got these, these beings who are breaking out of their cages. ... There is a sense, I think, in which [Lucy’s] also wanting to break out of her cage and in a dangerous way.” (37:38)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On education and humility:

• Angelina: "The point of this degree is to show you how much you don't know." (05:50)

On Lucy and Mina:

• Thomas: “Mina’s got a pluckiness which is rather Mary Poppins, sort of ... Mary Poppins versus Dracula, that could be ... a franchise possibility.” (23:05)
• Angelina: [On Lucy] “She is treated like a child by everyone. Oh, little miss, oh you dear child. I mean, she's about to be married, but she's just...” (22:06)

On Renfield’s purpose:

• Angelina: "Renfield is the John the Baptist for the coming of the dragon." (31:28)
• Thomas: "John the Baptist also had a...insects formed part of his diet." (31:29)

On science and the supernatural:

• Angelina: "They're fighting fire with fire, though. He's taking the blood, they're giving the blood." (49:13)
• Thomas: "Essentially fighting a monster with the wrong weapons..." (47:50)

On modern readings:

• Angelina: "A lot of people have said that they ... feel like we’re redeeming the book for them. ... The beauty of this story is being restored to people once we rooted the meaning in the appropriate places and got it out of, you know, our inner Freudian world." (10:19)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:01:31 – Humorous blood donation banter; opening thoughts
• 00:03:14–09:15 – Commonplace quotes: gratitude, humility, art
• 00:11:06–23:19 – The “New Woman” vs. the “Angel in the House” (Victorian femininity)
• 00:23:48–29:04 – Lucy’s passivity; Mina’s activity; symbolism in sleepwalking
• 00:29:58–33:06 – Renfield as parody of John the Baptist; Biblical allusions/subversion
• 00:34:21–35:14 – Secularization and superficial Christianity in England
• 00:43:11–47:17 – Medical modernity: Van Helsing, blood transfusions in context
• 00:47:50–50:45 – Blood as symbol of love, sacrifice, and chivalry vs. vampirism
• 00:51:01–52:13 – The symbolism of garlic; the limits of science vs. superstition
• 00:37:38–39:07 – Wolf, Renfield, and Lucy: Imagery of confinement and escape
• 00:55:24 – Vampire lore: Powers, limits of Dracula, day/night cycle

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Flow & Tone

The conversation is rich, amusing, and intellectually robust. The hosts balance literary theory with humor and everyday application. Frequent laughter and personal anecdotes lighten the denser analysis, while the interplay between Angelina’s literary insights, Thomas’s historical context, and Cindy’s practical angles keep the discussion accessible and engaging for all listeners.

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For the Uninitiated: Why This Episode Matters

Whether you’re new to the classics or wrestling with the cultural resonance of Dracula, the episode offers:

• Literary analysis rooted in historical and social context
• Thoughtful discussion about how to read “with humility”
• Explanations of symbolism and gender archetypes without resorting to reductive Freudian theories
• A look at the novel’s balance of modernity vs. tradition, science vs. faith, activity vs. passivity
• Frequent references to other classic novels and thinkers for a rounded perspective

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Final Memorable Words

• Angelina: “Until then, keep crafting your literary life, because stories, not garlic, will save the world.” (59:45)

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[End of content summary; ad breaks and outro text omitted per instructions.]

Transcript

[Thomas Banks]

Welcome to the Literary Life Podcast. We've grown quite significantly since our debut in 2019, and we've had many requests to highlight older episodes that new listeners may have missed, as well as revisit listener favorites. To honor that request, I present to you this episode of the Best of.

[Podcast Announcer]

The Literary Life podcast.

[Angelina Stanford]

This is not just another book chat podcast. Lifelong reader Cindy Rollins joins teachers Angelina Stanford and Thomas Banks for an ongoing conversation about the skill and art of reading. Well, explore the lost intellectual tradition and discover how to fully enter into the great works of literature. Learn what books mean while delighting in the sheer joy of imagination. Each week, we will rescue story from the ivory tower and bring it to your couch, your kitchen, and your commute. The Literary Life is for everyone because in the words of Stratford Caldecott, to be enchanted by story is to be granted a deeper insight into reality. Join us for an ever unfolding discussion of how stories will save the world. This is the Literary Life Podcast.

[Cindy Rollins]

Foreign.

[Angelina Stanford]

Welcome back to the Literary Life Podcast. Today we will be covering chapters eight through 11 in Bram Stoker's Dracula. I am really having a good time with this, and to discuss it today with me are my. My two faithful companions. And I'm really wondering, Mr. Banks and Ms. Rollins, would you give me your blood?

[Thomas Banks]

I. Wow. Wow.

[Angelina Stanford]

My husband and you hesitated.

[Cindy Rollins]

Wow.

[Thomas Banks]

It's only the right type.

[Angelina Stanford]

Wow. Okay.

[Cindy Rollins]

Yeah, but you just.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yeah, I know.

[Cindy Rollins]

All of us are like, yeah, this is. It's not how this works, but okay.

[Angelina Stanford]

Okay, we're gonna jump into that. I actually did my medical research because I'm gonna. I'm gonna poo poo the naysayers. I'm. I'm tired of people saying, oh, I rolled my eyes at that point. Don't they understand about how bloodshed editor of my.

[Thomas Banks]

The editor of my Dracula also rules. You can see them rolling their eyes in the footn.

[Angelina Stanford]

All right, well, we'll get to that. We'll get to that. I'm sure the medical community listening to this is like, wait, does she not understand about blood types? Indeed I do, but we're going to talk about what. What people at this time thought about the medical procedure. See, now we're just rushing ahead, so let's stop and pause a second.

[Cindy Rollins]

I would open my veins for you, Angelina.

[Angelina Stanford]

Thank you. Okay, that's all I want to know. And you. Well, you owe me. That wedding ring says you owe me.

[Thomas Banks]

It's supposed to be around the vein that goes to the heart, right?

[Angelina Stanford]

That's exactly right. I'm glad you got that it's the outward sign. That's Mina said, of course I would give you my blood too.

[Thomas Banks]

Oh, that's so sweet. Kind of morbid, but so sweet.

[Angelina Stanford]

All right, let's just jump in commonplace quotes and then let's do this. Okay.

[Cindy Rollins]

I was gonna say, you mean jump into our commonplace quote. I do.

[Angelina Stanford]

I mean, enough to chit chat. Okay. I'm rolling up my slee, letting Dr. Van Helsing cut my veins. I'm ready. Y' all see how I can beat a dead metaphor, right? I can do this. Challenge accepted.

[Cindy Rollins]

All right, well, I am. I'll go. Because mine is completely off track with Dracula, but it is on track with Thanksgiving and the idea of what it means to be thankful. And one of the things that I've been thinking about so much is that in Stratford, Caldecott talks about in Beauty and the Word, the idea that there is a sense which education is us being thankful that we are given a gift. And when we get that gift, we're thankful for it and we give it back. We procreate it. But that reminded me of a quote that I found in Robert McFarlane's little booklet called the Gifts of Reading. So here in this quote, Robert McFarlane is actually quoting Art Lewis Hyde and a classic book that he wrote called the Gift. And this is about thankfulness and the imagination. All right? Once the imagination has been awakened, it is procreative. Through it, we can give more than we were given, say more than we had to say. This is a beautiful double proposition that art enlarges our repertoire for being, and that it further enables a giving onwards of that enriched utterance that broaden perception. Ah, I know that's a little esoteric in a way. A lot of big words in there. But I just love this idea that there is this weird sense that education comes down to thankfulness. And.

[Angelina Stanford]

We.

[Cindy Rollins]

We procreate because we've been given something. And when we are given a gift, and that is what we want our students to have, we want them to have the eyes to see the gifts that are given to them.

[Angelina Stanford]

Oh, absolutely. I think that goes really well with, you know, with my belief that the product of education should be humility. You should be, you know, overawed by how big the world is and the universe and how small you are. And I've said this before on the podcast, but it bears repeating that when I finished my master's degree, one of my professors said to me, the point of this degree is to show you how much you don't know.

[Cindy Rollins]

Yeah.

[Angelina Stanford]

And I never forgot that. I think about that all the time. And. And we should be humbled by how much there is to know and how little we can ever know. And I think that keeps us in a really good posture for learning more. And. And I think that goes right along with the gratitude, Cindy. And you're right. We've spoken a lot in this podcast about modern education. And debunking.

[Thomas Banks]

It reminds me a little, by contrast, of. It was said of Mortimer Adler that, I mean, powerful mind as he had, he tended to use his learning as a bicep to beat smaller people down with.

[Cindy Rollins]

Right, right. Instead of giving back a gift, in a way, he was more like just beating it, trying to beat it people up with it.

[Thomas Banks]

Okay, I have. I have two, both of them short. One is from Walter Savage Lander, one of my favorite odd books, Imaginary Conversations. He says the passions are more powerful than the gods. If the gods speak, which they seldom do, the passions drown their voices. Oh, and the other one, kind of. Kind of tying into today's reading from the French poet Le Comte de Lisle. He says the gods love blood, le do on me, le song, which is true, and also kind of oddly turned on its head by Christianity and fundamental ways.

[Podcast Announcer]

But, yeah, the gods love blood.

[Angelina Stanford]

Wow. Well, that's good.

[Cindy Rollins]

All right, well.

[Angelina Stanford]

Oh, go ahead.

[Cindy Rollins]

No, I'm just thinking, going back to the Iliad and those. Those books.

[Angelina Stanford]

Well, that was certainly. You love blood. That was. His accusation to Zeus in the Iliad is that he was enjoying all of this arbitrariness. All right, well, my quote. I'm continuing to think through this idea of meaning, and where does meaning come from? My. My fellows, My group of fellows in our fellowship program have been just deep diving into all this stuff, and. And we've been really looking through George McDonald and a lot of the things that he says. And I've got a quote here from again from Dish of Orts. This essay is a sketch of individual development, and he's talking about what happens to human beings if they think meaning is derived from inside themselves. Of course, this is a big divide we have in our culture right now. The traditional view is that meaning and truth are transcendent and they come from outside of you. And, you know, you try to discern this truth and discover this truth, but ultimately exist outside of yourself. And in the modern perspective, we believe that truth is. Exists inside of us and truth is determined. It's not discovered. So kind of by our own will, we can just decide this is. This is what things mean. So he's talking about what happens if you think that and where that leads you. And ultimately, he thinks it leads you to despair and meaninglessness. So here's the quote. What can the world be to him who lives for thought if there be no supreme and perfect thought? Capital T. None. But such poor struggles after thought as he finds in himself. Take the eternal thought from the heart of things. No longer can any beauty be real. No more can shape, motion, aspect of nature have significance in itself or sympathy with human soul.

[Cindy Rollins]

Yeah, that goes. That continues to go along with beauty in the word. And what he speaks about. Dialectics. Stratford Caldecott being. Yeah. How do we get to this place where we can throw all of this out? Well, it has to be because we're looking for it where it doesn't exist inside of ourselves.

[Angelina Stanford]

Exactly. And I. And I like how he connects it to the loss of beauty, that once you destroy truth, Truth's handmade in his beauty, and you destroy that, too. And it's been really interesting to listen to the feedback we're getting on this show. A lot of people have said that they were exposed. We'll use the word exposed. They were exposed to some Freudian readings of Dracula, and it really soured them. And they said that they feel like we're redeeming the book for them. And I think that's part of what we're talking about here. The beauty of this story is being restored to people once we rooted the meaning in the appropriate places and got it out of, you know, our inner Freudian world. So that. That's really exciting to me. Yeah.

[Cindy Rollins]

Freudian world is always so gross.

[Angelina Stanford]

Well, it is. It is, it is. And I. I told our Patreon. So I'll say this on the air for people who aren't Patreons, but I told our Patreons in our last meeting that I would not give examples of what the Freudian reading of this book is, because I know so many of our listeners listen to this with their children. And really, you can't unhear some of this stuff, so. So I won't. But the. The section that we're doing today is actually a big Freudian reading in the. In this section. And it is icky. And I think we're going to see there's a whole lot more going on here. All right, so let's jump in then. Chapters 8 through 11. Let me pull my.

[Cindy Rollins]

Yeah, you really, really did a number on us on this, Angelina. I had to read chapter 12. And I'm sure that most people listening have an accident.

[Angelina Stanford]

I just divided the chapters up evenly over the weeks, and I didn't realize where that one. Where that one went.

[Cindy Rollins]

That's okay. It kept us reading.

[Angelina Stanford]

All right, so we've got a number of things coming to a head here in this section, and I think he's developing a little bit more. You know, what? We're supposed to think about all of this. So the first thing is we're introduced to Mina's journal. And I. And I, as we talk about Mina today, I want to circle back around to. We made some jokes last week about Lucy, and Cindy said you didn't want to be Lucy. And I just held my tongue because I knew I didn't want to talk about what was going on with Lucy until I got to this section of Mina's journal. It's been so hard to keep my mouth shut on these podcast episodes and think, no, wait for it, wait for it. So in her journal, she's typing away, and she's. She makes reference to the New Woman, capital N, capital W. And I want to talk about what the New Woman is. This book is written in 1897, in the late 1800s is when the New Woman gets really bantered around in a lot of novels. She even goes so far as to say in this first letter, some of the New Women writers will someday start an idea that men and women should be allowed to see each other asleep before proposing or accepting. But I suppose the New Woman won't condescend in future to accept. She will do the proposing herself. And a nice job she will make of it, too. So this is kind of a little. Little feminist thing here. And. And so I want to talk about that. If you've been following this podcast, you've no doubt heard me talk about the Victorian view of women. And we rehearse that a little bit for anybody who's new to the podcast. And then we'll talk about this New Woman idea. Because I do think Bramstone, well, he's. I don't think he's doing. He's drawing our attention to the fact that he is bringing up the New woman. So we've talked in the past about the Victorian view of women as the angel in the house. She is a house ornament. She's not even caring for her own children or cleaning or cooking, because, of course, as a sign of her status, she would have servants to do that. She's. She's not really educated. She. Basically, the whole focus of her education is to make herself as attractive as possible to a suitor snag a man. That is. That is it. I mean, girls schools at this time were just really glorified etiquette schools. Even one of them famously had a carriage inside the school. So you could practice. Ladies could practice getting in and out of the carriage attractively. Maybe we need to offer a class of humane letters on that. My husband's grinning here. And a little bit of French, a little bit of drawing, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. Just music. Music. Just enough to make yourself sort of an interesting char. A charming, not an interesting. Whoa. Angelina. Not that. Not interesting. A charming conversationalist. But you can't be really good at anything because that might turn a man off. And there were all kinds of rules of etiquette. A, A woman cannot tell a man she loves him first, not even until after they're engaged. Just. Just really strict rules. By the time you start getting to the late 1800s, people are starting to raise questions about this. Women are having breakdowns, understandably over the fact that they don't have a life of the mind. And I mean, we're not even talking about, like, the modern day stay at home mom who's, like, more busy than she even knows what to do with, right? She's caring for her children, she's taking care of her house, she's, you know, cooking and cleaning and who knows else? What else but, you know, chauffeuring kids here and there. I mean, super busy. These women have anything to do. A sign of her status is she's not doing housework, she's not raising her own children, and they might read novels, although that was questionable whether or not it was appropriate. But really they're just a house ornament and they start to have breakdowns. They called it neurasthenia, for which they diagnosed that you should have a total rest cure. The irony. Charlotte Perkin Gilman story the Yellow Wallpaper is about that. So these women are having nervous breakdowns because they're bored to death. And the doctor would diagnose them as well. They have overwrought nerves, so they need total rest. And so you couldn't even write or draw or read anything. Total rest. And then some women were literally losing their minds. So we still just say, my friend.

[Cindy Rollins]

Linda and I used to say, how do you have a nervous breakdown? Like, where they send you away to get rest?

[Angelina Stanford]

Yeah, you want one? You want a rest?

[Cindy Rollins]

I have nine children. So it was like, what is this thing? The nervous breakdown?

[Angelina Stanford]

Exactly, exactly. So when you get to the late 1800s. And this is 1897. So this is, you know, almost as late as you can get. Or is it 1899?

[Thomas Banks]

This is 1897.

[Angelina Stanford]

1897. I don't know where 1899 popped into my head all of a sudden. Sorry. I read so much research about late Victorian architecture to learn about my house. I'm getting all the dates mixed up. But so you get this idea of the new woman, capital N, capital W. Okay, so culturally, and this really anticipates the Gibson girl, the Edwardian women, the rise of modern feminism, or I should say the rise of modern first wave.

[Thomas Banks]

Feminism, between the death of Queen Victoria in 1901 and the beginning of World War I, say, every other novel out there features a suffragette, a new girl, you know, this new type of woman in some way or other.

[Angelina Stanford]

H.G.

[Thomas Banks]

Wells actually devoted an entire novel to exploring the. The position of this type of woman.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yeah, you see it. You see it everywhere. E.M. forster, George Gissing's the Odd Women. I read that this last year and really liked it. Thomas Hardy deals with it. Elizabeth Gaskell starts to deal with it. You see some precursors earlier in the Victorian era. But to see the actual term new woman, you're talking about the 1880s and on. So what was this new woman like and how did people respond to it? Because I think that's part of what Bram Stoker is working with here in this novel. There were really kind of two ways that the new woman could be portrayed. And again, this is a prototype of feminism. So you can totally see what's happening here if you just think about our own culture. So one of the ways in which the new woman could be portrayed, and this would be. Be a middle class woman who. So you see, like, the rise of secretarial schools. As a woman who's got a job and career, she's thrown herself into causes like suffrage.

[Thomas Banks]

Typing is a professional acquisition.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yep. And of course, Mina is typing and Mina is calling herself the new woman. And she's learning stenography and all this other stuff. So she would. She would have been like your early working girl and would have been very independent, often described somewhat mannishly often, oddly enough, celibate, because, well, George Gissing's Odd Women deals with that. The, the concern was that, you know, there's really not a place a woman's gonna have to choose basically between a career and. And having a family. So a lot of times she was portrayed as choosing celibacy and choosing to have a career. You see Dorothy Sayers and Gotti Knight if you go back to those episodes we did on that, she's dealing with the same thing. Harriet Vane is won a life of the mind. Can you have a career? Can you do something with your life and still have a family? So, you know, you were talking in the 1930s and 40s, they're still wrestling with, I mean, heck, for that matter, we're still wrestling with it in 2022. The other way that the new woman, so that would have been like a more conservative one. She would have had really a traditional view of sexuality and things like that. But she would have thought, well, you know, I have a mind and I want to be educated and I want to do something useful. The other side of that, and this is the less dominant view. But you start to see the new woman associated with sort of free love and aggressive sexuality in response to the angel in the house, that kind of thing. So in this book we have two women, two very different women, and one of them has self identified here in her journal as a new woman. She is, she is, she's typing. She was a school mistress.

[Thomas Banks]

She was Lucy's teacher.

[Angelina Stanford]

She was Lucy's teacher.

[Thomas Banks]

That's, I've forgotten that detail.

[Angelina Stanford]

She's, she's associated with technology. She's saying the really radical thing. Maybe one day women will propose to men and do a better job of it. So she's, she's a little bit of a prototypical feminist. And I don't know, we shouldn't all get, you know, grab the smelling salts, because this would not be third wave modern feminism, but this would be somebody saying, oh, you know, maybe a woman has a mind. Maybe we should explore these other things. Maybe she doesn't just need to be a house ornament, but she can be an active role. We also see some of these ideas even in her conversation with Jonathan and the marriage and where he says, this is, we're going to have an open and honest marriage. There will be no secrets here. That is a, that's a kind of a, you know, I, I, I'm just going to use the word feminist for lack of a better term, even though I feel like the word right now has almost lost its meaning. Can you think of a better term than, than feminist, actually, in the 1890s?

[Thomas Banks]

It's funny, it's a horrible word, but one you saw bandied about a bit was mulierist, from, from Latin, mulier, which, which is another word for woman. It's probably good for just marketing purposes that the feminists chose feminist, which is at least not an ugly word.

[Angelina Stanford]

The woman is.

[Cindy Rollins]

Yeah, problems with that right out of the starting gate.

[Angelina Stanford]

So, you know, they have again, if you're a house ornament in the Victorians, your, your husband is basically, don't worry your pretty little head over things. It's that kind of attitude. There's a lot of infantilizing of women in the Victorian era and you can blame Jean Jacques Rousseau for that because he argued that women were just overgrown children. So we, and, and I guess that's all I really want to say about Mina for now, but I think we should pay attention to what's going to happen to her in the book and, and, and her relationship with the men especially, and the role she will take in ridding England of this, you know, this blight because she is associated with a new woman. Lucy, on the other hand, and Cindy, I think this is why you found her so distasteful, is much more the angel in the house. She is treated like a child by everyone. Oh, little miss oh you dear child. I mean, she's about to be married, but she's just.

[Thomas Banks]

And she's kind of okay with that.

[Angelina Stanford]

She's kind of okay with that, yes. So if the whole point of, of a woman's existence is to make herself as attractive as possible to a partner, she has succeeded in that and she is delighting in it. She gets all of these marriage proposals and, oh, I wish I could just keep all of them. And she's enjoying, you know, being, being the one that's so, so charming and everyone who meets her just, you know, falls at her feet. And Mina, no one has that response to Mina. They have a different kind of response to her. And so. Yeah, yeah, so, so I guess I'll just park that right there and then we'll say, let's see what Bram Stoker is going to do with that with these, with these two women.

[Cindy Rollins]

Yeah. It is interesting how the, especially in these next four chapters, how this kind of plays itself out with, with Lucy, especially like the, these proposals, how they end up for her.

[Thomas Banks]

I enjoy Mina though. She's, she's got a pluckiness which is rather kind of Mary Poppins, sort of. I don't know why I picture Mary Poppins when I think of when, when I read about Mina. But Mary Poppins versus Dracula, that could be, that's a franchise possibility.

[Angelina Stanford]

So we see with Mina, of course, that even though she's the new woman and she wants to be really, really helpful, she's still home centered. Right. She wants to use these skills to be the best possible help meet for her husband. And again, so we'll see what Bram Stoker is going to do with that. So it is interesting though that Mina is off stage now. She's taking care of her husband and now is when Lucy is going to be attacked by Dracula, which I, I find that super interesting.

[Cindy Rollins]

Well, that is true. Mina saves her from this first attack that she, or the first attack that we know of while she's still there. She, you know, they have that first episode.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yes, yes. All right, so we'll get to that. So let's, let's talk about, though, she's finding out what happened to Jonathan. And so Jonathan, all this time has, he's escaped, we don't know how, and he's ended up at a convent hospital a country away.

[Thomas Banks]

A country away in Budapest.

[Angelina Stanford]

And so they write to her that he's had a brain fever. And of course, you know, they don't even want to say what the, they just cross themselves. Oh, the ravings, the ravings of a man with a brain fever, you know, but he still loves you. And don't worry, he hasn't done anything to betray you. This is of entirely different nature. And she really enjoys this active role of nursemaid. Mina wants to be active, Mina wants to be useful and helpful. Full again. That's a characteristic of the new woman. So she, she and Lucy could not be more drastically contrasted for activity and passivity. Right. Lucy. No one tells Lucy a thing. She's treated like a child. No one says to her, it's all just like, oh, you sweet child, just put these flowers on. It's medicine. And nobody tells her really what's going on. And it's, you know, it's that that leaves her vulnerable where Mina's much more.

[Cindy Rollins]

I, I keep saying Van Helsing, for all his intelligence, just, you know, leaves out a lot of information.

[Angelina Stanford]

Well, he still calls people Little Miss Pretty Child Dear Thing. So they're, they're all, they're all treating her that way. So I thought it was really interesting though, the convent run, the hospital run by nuns versus the asylum run by Dr. Seward. That's an interesting counterpoint to me. And then of course, the nuns are also a counterpoint to the three vampire women with Jonathan.

[Thomas Banks]

Oh, that's very good. Yes.

[Cindy Rollins]

Yeah, I didn't think about that.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yeah. So I, I, I, when we get to Dr. Stewart, I took a lot of notes about the way that he thinks about things are psychologically and physiologically right. So he doesn't he's not talking about Renfeld. Might have something wrong with his soul. It's like, oh, this is an interesting psychological. Oh, let us observe him.

[Thomas Banks]

And how many times does Renfield escape from confinement? Like, I'm wondering, like, what kind of mall cops are in charge of guarding them?

[Cindy Rollins]

And the time that he's supposed to escape, he doesn't. He's.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yeah, well, you say that, though, but I had a friend. I have a friend whose son was. He. He was a. What do they call nurse, an orderly at a. At a mental hospital. And they do escape that. His. His job is a big guy. He's a cop now, but he. He. He had stories about chasing naked inmates of the asylum, like, down the interstate trying to catch them. They. They escape. Oh, wow. Okay. I thought that. That part ran. Ran. Rang very true. So the. The convent, though, is. Well, it's a hospital. It is, though, a place of healing for the soul. And they're. They're treating Jonathan a. Differently than Dr. Seward does to Renfield. I just thought that was a really interesting character point.

[Thomas Banks]

The nurse, the. The sister of Charity, or whoever she is who is assigned to him, seems to understand that it's not just a. His ravings are not just a neurological. Whatever spiritual significance to them.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yes.

[Thomas Banks]

I mean, she. Again, with all the crossing of herself, she seems to think that there's something. Something demonic at work here.

[Angelina Stanford]

Exactly. So in chapter eight, as Cindy referenced, this is before Mina leaves to go help Jonathan, she saves Lucy. So Lucy's first attack is at Whitby when she's sleepwalking, and. And Mina goes out there and. And saves her. Now, what do y' all make? I've been trying to think about this. What do y' all make about Lucy's sleepwalking? This. Their sleepwalking makes her vulnerable to Dracula.

[Cindy Rollins]

Yeah. Now, where. I wonder where that came from. Was there an episode where she was in, like, we know she had this one episode, but she was already sleepwalking before that, right?

[Angelina Stanford]

Yes, it said she did it since she was a kid.

[Thomas Banks]

Yeah, she says that one of her journal entries and. Yeah, it's.

[Cindy Rollins]

But.

[Angelina Stanford]

But I mean.

[Thomas Banks]

I mean, that's almost as vulnerable as one can be. And it's just one. One more instance of how she is. And she's an unguarded person.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yeah.

[Thomas Banks]

Someone. One of nature's victims, kind of.

[Angelina Stanford]

I was also wondering, too, if there's not this idea that the angel in the house sort of sleepwalks through her life.

[Cindy Rollins]

Yeah, I think there's something like that.

[Angelina Stanford]

Going on.

[Cindy Rollins]

Because we see that when she is like she really wants. I mean, obviously she's under a spell, but when she is, she resents their help. She resents them stopping the. The stuff from happening. You know, she's the one who is helping the window to get open, and she's the one who's doing all these things, even though she's not in her right mind and she's under a spell when it happens, it is like a war within her between, you know, this life that she's living and some more exciting life.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yep. Yep. That. That's how I read it too.

[Cindy Rollins]

Yeah.

[Angelina Stanford]

There's something warring in between her, inside of her. And I think we're gonna. I think we're gonna see that a little more as we go. Let's see. It's hard to know what order to. To deal with. Yeah.

[Cindy Rollins]

Everything is all right.

[Angelina Stanford]

So she goes now. But there's an interesting point and counterpoint to stuff that's happening. The convent and then stuff that's happening with Dr. Seward. And so again, I. That's just so large in my mind, this scientist idea and this psychological explanation versus the spiritual explanation of what's. What's going on. Okay, so maybe next. Let's see. Let me make sure I've got everything here. Well, we'll get. We'll get to that. Of the stuff. Let's talk about Renfield. So, Renfield, what's going on with Renfield, do y' all think? And I'll tell you what I think is going on.

[Thomas Banks]

Well, we know he has some connection to Dracula, but exactly what. That. What that connection is has not been fully explained to us. He has a morbid fascination with the lower forms of animal life and has taken to eating flies. So he. He eats bugs. And he's, it seems, naturally servile.

[Cindy Rollins]

He's kind of Uriah Heap kind of guy.

[Thomas Banks]

Kind of, yeah.

[Cindy Rollins]

Only grosser.

[Thomas Banks]

So I heap with bugs.

[Podcast Announcer]

Right.

[Angelina Stanford]

One of the things I'm going to suggest here and just say, if I was teaching this at class, I'd say, let's see what Bram Stoker is going to do with this. As I don't want. I don't want to give away the game here too early, but that we've got, you know, the dragon Satan is coming into. Into England here. And we're going to see some language here which is going to suggest the nature of this particular evil. And what we have right here with Renfield's language, you don't count. I don't want to talk to you. Now the master is at hand. And then he's even like, twisting up Bible verses. The bride maidens rejoice. The eyes that wait. The coming of the bride.

[Thomas Banks]

The life is in the blood, which is actually for. From Deuteronomy, which is why the Hebrews could not eat the blood of a killed animal.

[Angelina Stanford]

I'm here to do your master bidding. Master, I am your slave. This is all John the Baptist language. So Renfield is the John the Baptist for the coming of the dragon.

[Thomas Banks]

And in a different way, John the Baptist also had a. Insects formed part of his diet.

[Angelina Stanford]

Oh, yes.

[Thomas Banks]

I haven't thought of that.

[Cindy Rollins]

Oh, very good.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yes. And so he. He's this. This kind of out in the wilderness kind of crazy guy, and he is foretelling the coming. And, you know, this whole John the Baptist, I must decrease so you can increase. We see all of that kind of thing.

[Thomas Banks]

You know, something I apropos of John the Baptist eating grasshoppers. I'm told that grasshoppers actually in, you know, parts of the world where, you know, food is kind of scarce, protein rich, and actually are quite good for you. I'm not saying I want to try it. I'm just saying, like, different cultures, different customs.

[Cindy Rollins]

You know, I could tell you a story now from our family, but I would make me look bad. So I'm just not going to say there have been. There have been bugs eaten.

[Thomas Banks]

Was it inspired by John the Baptist?

[Cindy Rollins]

It was actually inspired by one. One of my sons ate spiders in college to make money. Oh, people would pay him. And I said, did you like it? And he goes, no, I hated it.

[Angelina Stanford]

But it was a really easy way to make money.

[Cindy Rollins]

Entertain the. Entertain the masses. And then. Yeah, and then one of my sons ate a cricket when he was a little boy. I'm not going to say why, because I was kind of complicit in that. Anyway, let's move on.

[Angelina Stanford]

Nice. So again we see Renfield is talking in this obvious Christian language. He's talking about his master is coming. There's. There's something happening.

[Thomas Banks]

He's a herald.

[Angelina Stanford]

He's a Herald. And Dr. Seward is saying things like, oh, he's suffering from some sort of religious mania, and let's give him some. And. And, like, we're even. Let's give us some C2HCL3O H2O. Like, just. Could he be more scientific in the face of this?

[Cindy Rollins]

But on the other hand, it is interesting. In the world of bipolar manic episodes that we know about, there is religious mania, is Part, you know, and it's not a Christian sometimes it's not actually a spiritual issue. It is a manic manifestation, maybe.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yeah, no, I, I get what you're saying. Yes. But I think that what Bram Stoker is doing by showing us that the spiritual presence is real beforehand, you know, he's giving us.

[Cindy Rollins]

Right. Right now.

[Angelina Stanford]

I agree.

[Cindy Rollins]

I just.

[Angelina Stanford]

But yeah, right, you're right. In fact, there's a. There's a bigger issue. I made a note of this to myself and I. And I wondered what y' all thought of this to make sure I'm not over reading it. But when Jonathan is out in the east, there's all the, like, outward trappings of Christianity. We can talk about whether or not it's a real faith or it's just superstition later on when we see how a few other things are brought together. But there's outward trick signs of Christianity. As Jonathan is leaving the west and going into the East. I sort of get the feeling here, and here's where I want you all to correct me if I'm missing something. I get the feeling, though, that the way that the people in England are acting is essentially secular, with a little patina of Christianity on the outside. But nobody's like really talking about anything. Like, nobody goes to church. I'm reading all their diaries. No one's going to church. No one's, you know, reading their Bible. No one's praying.

[Cindy Rollins]

It seems like you have that Eastern Western divide too, where the further you go east, the more superstitious people become, but also the more they believe in the spiritual side of things. Where I do think he's contrasting that with England where they, they have. They already are in a period of time where they deny the spiritual element.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yeah, let's kind of. Well, now I've forgotten what I was going to say. But yeah, just this, this is sort of middle class, respectable Christianity.

[Thomas Banks]

God in a top hat.

[Angelina Stanford]

God in a top hat.

[Cindy Rollins]

Right, Pip.

[Angelina Stanford]

What? What? Someone needs to say what? What? To Dracula before this book's over.

[Cindy Rollins]

I'm gonna be very upset.

[Angelina Stanford]

All right. Yeah. So that's what I think is going on with Renfield. All right, chapter nine, then. Now Mina is gone off to just to get Jonathan. And she uses a lot of sacramental language here. That's what I was joking about at the beginning when she says that the notebook is the outward invisible sign. So you have this. This recurring idea of hidden knowledge. Okay, so all of these men are keeping from Lucy the danger she's in. They don't at this point know it's a vampire, but they know she's in serious danger and they're keeping it from her and they're keeping it from her mother, both of which are for their own good. Now, Nina, however, has chosen to not know. But he offers, he gives her the knowledge and she chooses not to read it and says, this is, you know, this is the visible and outward sign, which is of course, sacramental language. There's from the. From the Anglican Church. And I just think that's an. That's an interesting distinction that she chooses here to remain in the dark and Lucy is not given a choice.

[Cindy Rollins]

Now, would you say that Van Helsing also doesn't know it's a vampire? Because I think he does know. I mean, I. Everything.

[Angelina Stanford]

Well, I. That question will be answered. Maybe we should just.

[Cindy Rollins]

Just leave it.

[Angelina Stanford]

We should just let it. Let it go.

[Cindy Rollins]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Angelina Stanford]

So all through chapter nine, we've got mysterious things happening to Renfield and mysterious things are happening to Lucy and she keeps seeming to get better and then she has something bad happen. And then of course, we get a Renfield breaking out of his cage and out of his prison cell and, and prison cell, asylum cell. And they. They chase him and they see him looking up at a bat that's flying west. So the bat is flying to London. And of course the next letter we get is that Lucy's. Lucy's much worse. But I thought this whole scene was a super interesting parallel to the wolf that breaks out of the cage.

[Thomas Banks]

Yes, that's right.

[Angelina Stanford]

So you've got these, these beings who are. Who are breaking out of their cages. And I do think that has. That goes back to what you said, Cindy, about Lucy. I do think there is a sense. I don't want to over read it. And we'll see, we'll see all the way what's going to happen with Lucy. But there is a sense, I think, in which she's also wanting to break out of her cage and in a dangerous way. So we'll have to see what Bram Stoker is going to do all that. I mean, the first image that Mina has of Lucy being attacked by the vampire, it's this willing pose, which of course, I mean, we saw the same thing with John Jonathan, that. That's the nature of. You're being tempted and seduced by.

[Thomas Banks]

She likes masculine attention of kind of whatever. Kind, whatever.

[Angelina Stanford]

So.

[Cindy Rollins]

There are. There's a couple different places. Like just to go back real quick, we have that letter about these boxes being delivered to Carfax. And is this just to let us know that, I mean, what is that?

[Angelina Stanford]

Oh, that's gonna be answered later as well. Okay, that's gonna be answered later as well. So we've got Lucy and we've got her mother. And a lot of people were saying, what's the deal with her mother? Her mother is a total angel in the house.

[Thomas Banks]

Down to being an invalid.

[Angelina Stanford]

Down to being an invalid.

[Cindy Rollins]

Invalid.

[Thomas Banks]

That gives you an advantage in the angel in the house races.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yeah, so she's the total angel in the house. And again, so we see her again, her playing that role and them infantilizing her puts Lucy in danger. So we talked about this last time that Lucy's name, Lucy Weston, Remy's Light of the West. So if she is this ideal angel in the house, it makes total sense to me because of course, in, in the Victorian era, the angel in the house was considered the point of stability of Victorian society. Right. And so the dragon is coming. And of course, I mean, the dragon always goes after the princess, that, that's how dragon stories work. And so he's going after the Light of the West. And I think what we're see is the failure of anybody to protect her from this threat. The men treat her like an angel in the house, which only makes her more vulnerable. We only really see Mina as the new woman who offers her any kind of protection. Her mother makes it worse by taking off and opening the windows and taking off the garlic.

[Thomas Banks]

And I wonder if it's so much their attitude towards her as an angel in the house is the fact that the men, Arthur, Dr. Seward, their explanation for what is wrong with her is still a essentially medicalized, materialistic explanation. I mean, it's like, it's like, yeah, these people are living in a world with too few dimensions in it.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yes, yes to all of them. Yes to all of that. Yes to all of that. But you also have the idea that people are withholding life saving information. So yes, we're using the device that Mrs. Westerner's heart is just can't handle it. But that's not a far cry away from the typical Victorian attitude of, you know, let us do the heavy thinking, don't trouble your pretty little head, they don't want to trouble her kind of, kind of thing. All right, so Arthur at this point is concerned enough that he says, look, Jack, I know this is awkward and everything, but go examine her. I'm really worried about her. And so of course he takes her blood work, which I thought was just fascinating, and he's like, oh, blood work's normal. So maybe this is all in her head.

[Thomas Banks]

And she's by this point, obviously anemic.

[Angelina Stanford]

Obviously.

[Cindy Rollins]

And not anemic. That's the thing. He says, well, no signs of anemic.

[Angelina Stanford]

No signs of anemic.

[Cindy Rollins]

She's anemic.

[Angelina Stanford]

I know. And so, yeah, that's. So they have that really interesting conversation with Dr. Van Helsing. He's like, yeah, she's lost all this blood, but where has it gone? Right. She would be.

[Thomas Banks]

She would be.

[Angelina Stanford]

Her bed would be soaked with blood. So there is. There's obviously something mysterious and something beyond medical realm.

[Thomas Banks]

I think this. This section, it made me laugh a little bit. Just because Stoker, as a writer has to say so many times that she was pale, she was ashen gray, she was alabaster pale. It's like, how many. How many changes can I work on saying that she was really, really white.

[Angelina Stanford]

Deathly, deathly way. And now Dr. Van Helsing comes in. So he is Dr. Seward's old teacher and mentor. We're told that he is a philosopher and a metaphysician. I think that's important. He is going to be the foil for Dracula. So last time we kind of talked about whether or not there was, like, a fear of foreigners going on here. But Van Helsing's also a foreigner, so we have two. And so I think that is emphasized.

[Thomas Banks]

Like, he speaks kind of idiosyncratic English.

[Angelina Stanford]

The audiobook's doing a great job with that. You take the cigarette and you go and you take the walk.

[Thomas Banks]

One of the more recent TV version, I think it was a British TV version. It was David Suchet as Van Helsing. I don't remember if this was any good or not, but so what's okay.

[Angelina Stanford]

So what's going to be interesting? We have to see what's going to happen with Van Helsing here. But he's obviously, he's coming in as, you know, this advanced scientist. So he's a medical mind. But that's not all with a difference. Yeah, all he is. So when he gives his. His letters past his name, md, Deep, dph, D Lit. I had to laugh. So I was grinning so big. That means he's got a PhD in literature.

[Thomas Banks]

He's the kind of man who's. Whose qualifications exhaust the Alphabet.

[Angelina Stanford]

Okay, but this is so great because one of the running jokes that Mr. Banks and I have whenever we watch any kind of like, horror, suspense, anything, and we don't watch horror a lot, but any kind of like, supernatural suspense thing. I always say if only they brought in a literature teacher, they could tell him this is obviously what's happening. Why are you. Why are you asking a medical man when you need an expert in stories? And so I just think this is so delightful that he comes in here.

[Thomas Banks]

As far as blood transfusions and things go, probably best to stick with the medical man.

[Angelina Stanford]

You got to be like that. But this is going to be a threat that is ultimately going to be beyond science. And so he's. He's a man of letters. So he's going to come in and you're right, Cindy, that he has a suspicion about what's happening, and we're going to have to talk about a little bit later why he withholds it. And what, what, what, what. What explanation will he give for not just telling them? Because he's saying things like, this is no jest, but life and death, perhaps more.

[Cindy Rollins]

And he says that after it's too late. He still said. He's. He's like, no, there's still something at stake here.

[Angelina Stanford]

Well, we're not that far in the book.

[Cindy Rollins]

I know, but we are today. We will be there today.

[Thomas Banks]

I. I had really forgotten what type of a man he is. I mean, I remember him being a philosopher and a doctor and all that, but he's. Yeah, I mean, he's. He's like a very emotionally alive character. He's very intense. Van Helsing, I've forgotten. But, yeah, he's. I've known plenty of philosophers in my life. I take my hat off to philosophers. But he's. He's not, you know, the. You know, he's not approaching this and as a series of, you know, scholastic syllogisms or something.

[Angelina Stanford]

No, not at all. And he. He's a man of action, too. Although, you know, Seward admits to Arthur, though, that he's speaking somewhat codedly, and he says he will speak plainly enough when the time comes to be sure. All right, so he comes, and you all know what happens. We have a series of weird things, and she's looking worse and worse. And so he orders the blood transfusion and says, yes, you know, if there's. If there's a little bit of. If there's a little bit of life left in her, we have to. We have to help her. All right, so let's talk about this blood transfusion, because I think it's really easy for us to roll our eyes at this and say, this is crazy, but this was actually a real medical procedure at this time. And yes, we now know that it wasn't correct. But we, I don't want us giving Bram Stoker a hard time here because he really researched this book like crazy and they really did give blood transfusions just.

[Cindy Rollins]

And they would have worked sometimes, right? They would have found the right.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yes. So it was super, super dangerous. Was more likely to kill the patient than not. But it was like a last ditch effort. And Bram Stoker himself, I feel like I need to defend him. So he really knew a lot about doctors. He personally knew the foremost doctors of the time. His immediate family was all full of really famous physicians. He actually came from a medical family going back generations. His uncle Edward Stoker had five sons, all who became super famous doctors. And he. Oh, they were all a big deal. But some of them especially were experts in blood at the time. So one of the cousins, let's see, was a celebrated physician and he was a surgeon of all these people fancy places. He actually became surgeon in ordinary to Queen Victoria in Ireland. And his research focused on blood and arteries phlebotomy. So yeah, so as much as we're rolling our eyes, we don't roll them at Bram Stoker. Roll them at the medical profession from the late 1800s because he. This is all up to date, scientifically accurate for, for the time period.

[Thomas Banks]

The copy of this book I'm reading the. The editor goes to town in the annotations on, on this chapter and several others. I. Yeah, it's, it's, it's snark to the extreme.

[Angelina Stanford]

See, I don't like that.

[Cindy Rollins]

I don't like that there are no leeches, interestingly enough.

[Angelina Stanford]

Well, so he's trying to fight vampirism with again, technology. So we've been seeing that and we. There were more technology in this section too. The telegram, the blood transfusions. But like, but, but since this book is so heavy with metaphor and symbol, what. What do y' all think is going on symbolically? So this is a place where the Freudians go absolutely bonkers because multiple men are giving her blood transfusions. But what do you think is going on here? And then I'll tell you what I think.

[Thomas Banks]

Essentially fighting a monster with the wrong weapons, which is something that happens in all kinds of monster tales. I mean it happened. I mean Beowulf has to go to war with, against Grendel with no weapons at all because he knows that none can hurt him.

[Angelina Stanford]

Exactly.

[Thomas Banks]

Sorry that, that wasn't actually a very helpful comparison, I guess. But, but yeah, I mean here using, using natural instruments to to fight a supernatural threat.

[Cindy Rollins]

I. Yeah, I actually think it's really sweet that all these men who really do love Lucy. Well, that one sounded weird. I love Lucy. All these men, Desi. And, you know, anyway, they. I just think it's a neat. A neat trick. Like, you know, they each one by one, give her blood and. Or they're so chivalrous. Yeah, they are in reverse order in. In a way. First Arthur, who, you know, who is engaged to her, and then Dr. Seward, who is still tortured by her in some ways. And then finally the Texan guy, you know, he.

[Angelina Stanford]

Oh, that's the next chapter. That's the weed. It's not today.

[Cindy Rollins]

That's the next chapter, Doctor. Oh, finally some other mysterious guy. Anyway, but I don't think you can take those one without saying all three. I think that is very.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yeah, I, I agree with you. So I. I think there's a few different things going on. First of all, this is a foil to Dracula. So Dracula has taken her blood. They are giving blood. Right? So. So. So, you know, in terms of the. The battleground over. Over Lucy. They're. They're sort of. They're sort of fighting fire with fire, though. He's taking the blood, they're giving the blood. We also have seen Renfield make the connection already that the blood is the life. And so not just symbolically or not just with words, but they're literally giving their lives for her.

[Cindy Rollins]

But no matter how much they give, Dracula takes more.

[Angelina Stanford]

That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And it drains them as well when they. When they give their. Their blood. And Arthur even says, you know, I give every drop of my blood for her. And. And he says, oh, well, we don't need that much. And that's before he even says it's going to be a blood transfusion. But that's the way we talk, right? I would give every drop of my blood to you. So they're all devoted to her, which I think if you look at her symbolically, as, you know, Victorian womanhood. Yes, they're all. They're all devoted to her. Will they be able to protect her in this Devotion from the dragon remains to be seen, but they are definitely devoted to her. I also thought the comment of Arthur, I would give her every last drop was an interesting counterpoint to Dracula, who's trying to take every last Dr. So I liked all of that and some more interesting points about Dracula as, you know, the dragon and the serpent. He has been described earlier as having canine teeth rather than The. You know, the. The moon.

[Cindy Rollins]

Oh, yeah.

[Angelina Stanford]

Sharp incisors. He actually has canine teeth, but when he bites Lucy, he leaves two little holes in the skin, like a serpent.

[Cindy Rollins]

Right.

[Thomas Banks]

Oh, very good.

[Cindy Rollins]

Yeah.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yeah. So I liked. I liked that as well.

[Thomas Banks]

Actually, you know something? It's interesting. I found out that the idea of garlic as a talisman to ward off evil. The Romans thought that it kept away poisonous serpents.

[Angelina Stanford]

Oh, is that.

[Thomas Banks]

Pliny the Elder, the Roman natural historian and scientist in his. In his great book. Yeah. Says that it's. It is thought to. It is thought to ward off serpents and other poisonous things.

[Angelina Stanford]

So the idea behind that, from what I've heard for vampire lore, is that the strong smell can ward off the strong smell of the undead, you know, because. So he has rank breath and everything that might actually be connected to the. The magic of, like, begets, like, so, like, if you. If you want. If you want rain, then the magician would pour out a glass of water.

[Cindy Rollins]

Sure.

[Angelina Stanford]

You know, it's like this weird.

[Cindy Rollins]

And also, they use plants that way. Like, if. If a plant was kidney shaped, then they took it to mean this. This plant will help your kidneys. Or if it's heart shape.

[Angelina Stanford]

Thank you. That's the word I was looking for. Sympathetic magic. That's exactly it. And so this is interesting, though, because Dr. Van Helsing is, in one sense, the advanced medical man, which the blood transfusions show just what an advanced medical man he is. But he is not opposed to putting garlic around her, which. That's superstition. And, of course, you know, Lucy's mother is going to remove the garlic and open the window. And she thinks she's helping, but she's making it worse. All right, so then we get the escaped wolf. This was a. This was a great scene. And I think he's a parallel to Renfield. And then we find out, of course, in. In this chapter that Dracula has called him to burst into the house so that he can get at Lucy.

[Cindy Rollins]

Yeah.

[Angelina Stanford]

And that's what kills Mrs. Westenra. Now that the wolf is called berserker, we think that's connected to, like, the Viking. Berserker.

[Thomas Banks]

That's where the word comes from. I mean, I.

[Angelina Stanford]

But I'm not sure what if Stoker's doing that on purpose or not. All right, so the last thing then is her really intense cliffhanger note, because she's pretty sure she's not going to make it through the night, so she's in bed. Well, okay, I want to back up a little. Bit They. I noticed too how much they talked to her about just obey. Just do what we're saying. Just obey. You know, we're not going to explain to you why you have to do any of this. Just do this stuff. And that makes her have. Feel safe when she's not safe. Right. Like, well, I'm in my room. There are downstairs. What could happen? Well, everything could happen because you've got a window and he can get into you. So she's not really protected. We also see her mother can't protect her. Her mother just, you know, dies of shock.

[Cindy Rollins]

And she's the one who opens the window.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yep, she's the one who else opened the window and then. But I think you're absolutely right, Cindy, to see her kind of warring within herself because, you know, she's. She wants to go out to meet the vampire. That is the nature of the vampire, that these are all hinted at now. It's going to become much clearer later, so I don't want to say too much about it now, but we can look for that sort of, you know, attraction repulsion thing going on and figure out what that means. And then the weird thing where the servants. So she, she thinks, well, okay, I can't leave my mother here. The windows open. Her mother ripped the garlic off of Lucy's throat, you know, in the, in her death throes. And she thinks, well, the servant girls will come back up and stay with me, but they don't because they've all been mysteriously drugged.

[Cindy Rollins]

And where does that come from?

[Thomas Banks]

Wasn't it the laudanum in the, in the bottle of port?

[Angelina Stanford]

Yes.

[Thomas Banks]

Put there by who? I want thereby could we even figure it out.

[Angelina Stanford]

Put there by who? And so it ends with her saying, I don't know if I'm going to make it. Goodbye, dear Arthur. If I should not survive this night, God keep you, dear, and God help me. And we leave on a cliffhanger.

[Cindy Rollins]

How clever.

[Angelina Stanford]

You have to tune in next time to see what's going to happen to Lucy West. Denra. Any other. Any other thoughts? It's so hard because.

[Cindy Rollins]

One more question.

[Angelina Stanford]

Okay, go ahead.

[Cindy Rollins]

So at one point when Lucy and Mina are, you know, looking around, they're walking, they see the guy in the churchyard. His eyes blaze red. It could. Is that supposed to be. Isn't Dracula? Doesn't he have to be inside during the day? Or is it like the sun setting? What's going on there?

[Angelina Stanford]

Okay, so we actually do find this out later, but I can go ahead and explain it now.

[Cindy Rollins]

Oh, we Do. Okay. I actually read this book this year, and I told.

[Angelina Stanford]

We do. So the rules that Bram Stoker has put out. He's his most powerful at night, and that's why you see Renfield running to him then mostly he's inside during the day, but he doesn't have to be inside. So this is not like. This isn't Anne Rice's vampire, where if the sun touches him, it burns them, but he's in a weakened state during the day.

[Cindy Rollins]

Okay, okay.

[Angelina Stanford]

So you can see him during the day, but he doesn't prefer to be out during the day. He is in a more vulnerable state. And. But I think that's what's going on with Renfield. Why it's at. Is it at noon and then again at night that he. What are the two times that Renfield freaks out?

[Thomas Banks]

I don't recall. I'm sorry.

[Angelina Stanford]

I think it's noon and then. And then the other. And again at night. But. But just say there'll be a lot of exposition coming up in the book, because all of these people are going to have to be explained by someone what is going on? And who is this creature? Why is this happening to us? You know how it works in a horror film. Eventually somebody comes in and does the exposition. So here's what's going on. So it's coming. It's coming. Your questions will be answered. It's really hard for me to talk about this because I want to be like. And then this. And so you can see how he's going to develop this.

[Cindy Rollins]

Right, Right. It does all tie together, but we're not quite there.

[Angelina Stanford]

We're not quite there. But I think we've got some things to chew on now. I'm really trying to think through the Mina and Lucy thing in a new way, because my teacher did. My teacher in my vampire literature class, which was really, really good in a lot of ways, but he did do a Freudian reading about the women. And I. And I. I think he's wrong. And so I'm really trying to pay attention here and to see if I can figure out what Bram Stoker is doing with the women. But I'm reading it the same way that y' all are. Mina is the new woman, but she's not. But she's still devoted to husband and hearth, and Lucy is the angel of the house. But there's also something a little different about her, too. I mean, even her saying flirtatiously, couldn't I be married to all three men? That's not something a proper woman would say so. There. There's something on the edge about Lucy, too. You're grinning, but you don't.

[Thomas Banks]

Oh, no, I. I won't go there. I won't go there.

[Cindy Rollins]

I won't go there. Yeah, all of us are like, okay.

[Angelina Stanford]

Yeah. I mean, there's so much I could say about it.

[Cindy Rollins]

Say that. Can't say that. Exactly.

[Angelina Stanford]

Here's where the Freudians go wrong. Cover your children's ears. No, I won't do it, though. All right, well, join us here next week. We'll cover chapters 12 through 17. And, boy, if you think it's exciting, so far, you ain't seen nothing yet. And we're gonna see how Bram Stoker is going to bring all this together and what he's trying to show us with this book. So stick around for the podcast. Mr. Banks has got a poem. And please check out what's going on with our Patreon literary dot literary life. No patreon.com backslash the literary Life. There you go. I got it. Show notes, as always, are found at our website, the Literary Life. And again, shout out to our Patreon, who is killing it with this book. I just. I'm so thrilled you guys are doing such a good job reading this book, and I'm excited to see what they're going to do with this new information about the new woman they're going to be. They've been thinking through the dragon stuff brilliantly. I'm really excited about that. So if you're listening and thinking what? There are people who read this stuff together and think through it and talk about it in real time. Yes, you can do. You can join them, too. All right. Until then, keep crafting your literary life, because stories, not garlic, will save the world. Thank you for listening to the Literary Life podcast brought to you by our loyal patreon sponsors. Visit HouseOfHumaneLetters.com to find Angelina and Thomas and to sign up for our newsletter with podcast schedules and more. And keep up with [e-mail] Join the conference conversation at our member only Patreon forum or our Facebook discussion group. Visit patreon.com theliterarylife to find out how you can sponsor this podcast and get great bonus content. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review and check out our sister podcasts, the New Mason Jar and the well Read Poem. And now for a poem read by poet Thomas Banks.

[Thomas Banks]

A Dream within a.

[Podcast Announcer]

Dream by Edgar Allan Poe. Take this kiss upon the brow, and in parting from you now, thus much let me avow you are not wrong who deem that my days have been a dream. Yet if hope is flown away in a night or in a day, in a vision or in none, is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream. I stand amid the roar of a surf tormented shore, and I hold within my hand grains of the golden sand. How few, yet how they creep through my fingers to the deep While I weep, while I weep, O God, can I not grasp them with a tighter clasp? O God, can I not save one from the pitiless wave? Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream?