Mina and Her Type-Writer

I think Mina in particular (as someone who seems to resist the label of “New Woman”) would find solace in the fact that her desire to be educated and useful fits in with this idea of a traditional noble woman in the workforce. We see her interest in intellect several times throughout the novel, and indeed it seems to be a key point to her character. When she first sees Dr. Seward’s phonograph in chapter seventeen, she “was much interested”.

The idea that Mina can educate herself in things like typing/transcribing and writing in shorthand and still maintain her status as a traditional woman of the time period likely painted her as an appropriately modern woman of the nineteenth century. The Keep’s article specifically discusses the benefits to having a woman work in the position of a typist:

“Female typists, by contrast, were willing to accept such work for half the wages that their male counterparts received. Furthermore, they were given to understand that their positions did not entail much in the way of prospects for advancement, and, should they marry, their positions were promptly superannuated.”

Indeed, we see with Mina that she is working to support her husband, and later in that latter part of the book, to help Van Helsing and the men organize and transcribe their thoughts as they plan to hunt after the Count (where they “asked [Mina] to act as secretary”). Her role here fits in with the Keep article where woman would often transcribe information that men either dictated to them aloud or had previously handwritten (Mina does both several times in this novel).

Her role both in men’s affairs/workforce and in her personal life is a strictly supportive role. Even though she plays a significant part in this endeavor (by transcribing Jonathan’s journal from shorthand and Dr. Seward’s from the phonograph, and organizing the entries chronologically), she takes no active role in hunting the Count - even though she is curious, she accepts her place:

“…though it was a bitter pill for me to swallow, I could say nothing.”

Not only is she seen as a helpful and intellectual woman because of her ability to juggle these indispensable skills of typing and shorthand, but she is portrayed as all the more impressive because of her ability to maintain her femininity as seen when she is comforting Arthur over Lucy’s death:

“I suppose there is something in woman’s nature that makes a man free to break down before her…We women have something of the mother in us that makes us rise above smaller matters when the mother-spirit is invoked;”

I believe that readers of Dracula (at the time it was written) would have been more accepting of Mina as a character given that despite her progressive tendencies in transcription and shorthand, she is still very much aware of her place and her duties of as a woman and to an extent she puts those responsibilities first.

I also imagine that the fact that she does not have children contributes to her working freedoms, as Keeps states:

“…women’s work managing the information flows upon which the economy increasingly depended is valued and necessary, but it must not interfere with the overriding need to reproduce the social relations of capital.”

She can be educated and involved in ‘a man’s work’ only so much as it does not interfere with her ability to fulfill her duties as a woman. Mina manages the dichotomy well.

Bottom oIt is significant to note as well that Mina’s image as an acceptable woman of her time was probably facilitated by the men’s infatuation with her. Van Helsing especially sings praises regarding her feminine intellect:

“Oh, but I am grateful to you, you so clever woman…There are darknesses in life and you are lights; you are one of the lights…your husband will be blessed in you…Your husband is noble nature, and you are noble too…”

Indeed, everyone from Van Helsing to Lucy’s suitors, (Quincey, Arthur, and Dr. Seward), and even the mentally unstable Renfield showed respect and devotion to Mina’s character. Being accepted as a learned woman by so many men no doubt influenced readers to accept her as an appropriate woman (despite her working status and association in the men’s affairs).

Mina also shows that the type-writer is an important and useful tool in the affairs of men. As Keeps mentions in his discussion of Dracula in relation to the type-writer, Mina’s transcription of the diaries and other assorted articles not only allowed her to organize everyone’s thoughts into a coherent narrative but also to provide copies of each piece, so that when Dracula demands the destruction of the manuscript, it is not the only copy as he believes. Moreover, without Mina’s progressive abilities no manuscript or copies would have existed in the first place. The men in this story simply do not have the time that a childless woman does.