Women and Children First: the Complexity of Societal Change in Dracula and NOS4A2 by Sarah White Honors Thesis Department Of

Women and Children First: The Complexity of Societal Change in Dracula and NOS4A2 By Sarah White Honors Thesis Department of English and Comparative Literature University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill 2020 Approved: (signature of advisor) _________________________________ Dracula, published in 1897, is a fictional compilation of letters, telegrams, and journal entries which have been written by the novel’s main characters and put together by one of its protagonists, school mistress Mina Harker. The novel has been interpreted in many ways: a representation of the fear of Eastern Europeans invading and colonizing the West, a reaction to increases in communications technology at the turn of the century, or a response to increasing independence for women during the 19th century. NOS4A2, published by Joe Hill in 2013, recreates Dracula in a contemporary setting while reimagining what it means to be a vampire. Its villain, Charles Manx, does not drain his victims in the same way that Dracula does by drinking their blood. Instead he strips them of their negative emotions through a special power that allows him to bring others into his own imagined world, a place where it’s always Christmas. This ability also allows him to become younger while returning his victims to a more naïve state of mind. In reinventing the vampire myth, Joe Hill’s NOS4A2 reimagines Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Therefore, how can Hill’s choice of repurposing Stoker’s novel impact the way that Hill’s novel is interpreted? NOS4A2 is undoubtedly an unofficial adaptation of Dracula, and I will argue that this choice might have a basis in the paradoxical and ambiguous way Stoker’s novel treats the advent of New Womanhood, a feminist idea of the late 19th century which supported increased independence for women by fighting for their right to work and for the freedom to explore their sexuality. NOS4A2 uses this same paradoxical and ambiguous approach in its response to the contemporary fears surrounding the preservation of childhood innocence and how it has been affected by the introduction and accessibility of new technologies such as iPads and smartphones which allow children to easily access information that was once out of reach. This ambiguous and paradoxical approach to the emancipation of women as a result of emergent technologies may be the reason that Hill chose to reimagine Dracula in the writing of his novel. The idea of New Womanhood and the preservation of childhood innocence are both controversial because of the way that women in the late 19th century and young people today are challenging the roles in which society has placed them. They are both branching outside of ideas of purity and innocence that are expected of them in their times. In the 19th century, there was an expectation for women to behave in a childlike fashion and not grow into sexual beings or adults who contributed to society. Women were essentially treated as children during the 19th century and were encouraged to remain dependent first on their parents and then on their husbands. This childlike regard towards women opens the possibility for contemporary writers to use 19th century novels that treat the evolving role of women in order to shape how their novels treat the role of children today. Both of these social anxieties come from the widespread belief that women and children should remain pure and innocent and not be exposed to ideas that would challenge this innocence. The similarity of these two anxieties allows NOS4A2 to update the plot of Dracula to fit contemporary culture while also using that structure to create a response to its society that mirrors that which is presented in Stoker’s novel. By looking at Dracula as a critique of 1890s society and interpreting views about women with regard to their sexuality and independence, one can start to understand the critique that NOS4A2 makes of 21st century culture and its views on childhood innocence and the desire of preserving that innocence indefinitely. Dracula makes multiple references to the feminist movement occurring in the 19th century, referred to as the New Woman. The New Woman was an idea that arose in England during the last half of the 19th century. She was “understood as both product and instigator of new rights and freedoms campaigned for by a growing feminist movement” (Schwartz 1369). The traditional role for women at this time was to get married and take care of children at home, but the New Woman challenged these traditions and was defined by the pursuit of a career and the possibility of exploring her sexuality before marriage. While the New Woman was “often a professional woman who chose financial independence and personal fulfillment as alternatives to marriage and motherhood” (Senf 35), her views on sexual liberation led her to be seen as destructive and a challenge to traditional views. As Carol Senf writes, “When it came to sex the New Woman was more frank and open than her predecessors. She felt free to initiate sexual relationships, to explore alternatives to marriage and motherhood, and to discuss sexual matters such as contraception and venereal disease” (Senf 35). This embrace of sexuality greatly defied the views and roles of traditional womanhood and was often the point that was most highly regarded as detrimental in the prominence of the New Woman. The treatment of the New Woman in Dracula has been interpreted in various ways because it can be extremely contradictory, as it is influenced by both the acceptance and rejection of the New Woman during Stoker’s time writing as well as his upbringing. His mother, Charlotte Mathilda Blake Thornley, was a feminist that fought for the rights for women to work and gain the same respect as men. She believed that “training in manual skills could enable disadvantaged Irish women to realize these prospects” (Wainwright 652). The prospects to which this quote refers are the possibilities of worthwhile lives for women in the middle class, particularly unmarried women. She also spoke to the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland, insisting that women should be able to find value through work rather than being completely valued by their marriage. With this in mind, it is clear that Stoker’s treatment of women in his novel is the product of both his society and his childhood. Similar to how the New Woman shaped Dracula, NOS4A2 focuses on the ways in which an increase in technology during the 1980s and early 2000s impacts childhood innocence and imagination, and how the loss or indefinite preservation of these qualities may affect people. Before the increased accessibility to the internet in the 1990s, children were forced to experience the world solely through the events of their community. This increase in access to information through technology has led to concerns that children are unable to remain innocent and imaginative for the same amount of time they were able to do so in the 1980s and the decades before, leading parents to question whether technology is harming their children. In 1991, the World Wide Web opened to the public, and technology has continued to evolve into the 21st century and become increasingly available at an exponential rate. This rise in technology means each new generation is introduced to the internet earlier in their developmental stages. This has led to the question of whether or not it is healthy for children to have access to technology and the internet at such a young age. There have been many concerns raised over the increased use of technology and the internet during childhood and adolescence, to the extent that “a report by the American Pediatric Association directly implicates social networking sites such as Facebook and not the common ‘storm-and-stress’ of adolescence as being responsible for some of the more pronounced clinical symptoms seen by clinical professionals today” (Farber et al. 1226). Some of the symptoms the article refers to include “Depression, sleep deprivation, social anxiety, aggression, Internet addiction, social isolation … the adverse effects of sexting, online sexual solicitation, and online harassment” (Farber et al. 1226). These concerns have led to parents wishing for days when there was less reliance on technology and kids were able to develop without the influence of people through the internet and the constant access to public forums that it provides. However, it is also possible that these concerns have been overstated and are not as great a threat to the next generation as many believe due to the lack of research dedicated to the possible influence of technology on the mental state of children and adolescents. There is also the question of possible long-term effects of technological dependency. However, there has not been enough time since technology became ubiquitous to conduct extensive research. Despite this uncertainty, the rise in childhood technological usage and the spread of more information about the dangers of the world through the internet has led to a new cultural phenomenon in parenting: helicopter parenting. This form of parenting is described as “parents’ use of developmentally inappropriate forms of involvement, control, and problem-solving, aimed at fostering offspring’s success in attaining various tasks and life goals” (Rousseau and Scharf 920). While it is described as an attempt to generate success in tasks, it is also used in order to protect children from things their parents believe to be harmful. People described as prevention-focused are defined as “oriented toward security, safety, and compliance with perceived obligations and duties… individuals tend to avoid difficulties, failure, or negative experiences as they perceive them as a sign of incompetence rather than an opportunity to learn and develop themselves” (Rousseau and Scharf 920).

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