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This will contain mostly reviews. I will keep spoilers to a minimum where possible, but I can't guarantee spoiler free.
One of the things I love about Dracula is how quietly subversive it is. Every time the men try to protect Mina from the violent realities, they imperil her. Every time they think of something clever, it turns out Mina anticipated them. She is c;lever, competent, and practical, despite the men trying to pretend she is a delicate flower and damsel in distress. I love the class criticism too. Dracula is an obvious symbol of this, being a literal parasite out to conquer the world and live on the backs of ordinary folk, but look at what stoker does with sir Arthur Holmewood. He has so few ideas of his own, one expects his head to rattle, and the two times he thinks of something, it's a bad idea, they must gently dissuade him from following. He is well meaning and generous, but is right up there with Bertie Woster for needing men who aren't gentry to do his thinking for him. you have upper middle class professional men, Harker who was from a less privelged background, but working his way up on merit, his intelligent wife, and Quincey Morris, who while a stereotype of an American, is clearly a contrast to the other two suitors who talk to much and don't act decisively enough. Morris says little, but when he does, it's to the point and intelligent. When he acts, he acts fast and decisively in the right way. Even when he fails, it's not though dithering or bad decision making, but because the deck is stacked against him. I have always felt he's a deliberate contrast to Holmewood, his opposite: a man of know family, intelligent, and effective. The book is not a historical novel, but it does address some of the things you'd want an historical novel to address. The new woman (mina0 vs the damsel in distress (Lucy), the tension between able rising professionals/foreigners (Morris/Von Helsing) and the aristocracy. no, it doesn't get into the imperial ambitions of Britain directly, but there's touches of whatever the British version of ugly American is in Harker's observations of the eastern Europeans during his trip to the castle. It's not perfect; it's not neat, but it does a lovely job at trying given it's period. That's more than us moderns manage a lot of the time.





 
 
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