In Stoker’s novel, Mina and Lucy are portrayed as fulfilling the role of ideal Victorian women.  There are significant differences between how these women are portrayed in Stoker’s novel and Coppola’s film.  In the movie, the first time we see Mina, she is dressed in a conservative dress with her hair pinned up, she is very affectionate towards Jonathan and is initially portrayed as the ideal devoted Victorian wife, consistent with her character in the novel. At the end of the scene, when Jonathan and Mina say goodbye to each other, Mina pulls him into a courtyard and onto a bench and passionately kisses him.  This is quite a contrast to her depiction in the novel, where Mina’s sexuality is mysterious and ambiguous. She never voices sexual desires or impulses which allows her to maintain her purity, which is a central theme in the text.  In the film, Lucy is portrayed as flirtatious and dresses much less conservatively than Mina, this effectively highlights Mina’ purity and depiction as the Victoria ideal but is inconsistent with the novel.

In both the novel and the film, it is evident that the battle between good and evil hinges on female sexuality. In the novel, both Lucy and Mina are chaste, pure, innocent and devoted to the partners, which is not so much the case in the film, as discussed above.  In Stoker’s novel, Dracula threatens to turn these two women into voluptuous and sexually desiring women.  Dracula succeeds in transforming Lucy into a vampire which leads Van Helsing’s men to destroy her in order to return her to a purer and more socially acceptable state.

There are several important differences between the portrayals of  Mina and Dracula’s relationship in these two works.  In the novel, Dracula forces Mina to drink his blood and she is horrified by this, however in the film, Mina is given the choice of whether or not to drink his blood and she herself decides to drink his blood despite the fact that Dracula tells her that he loves her too much to condemn her to be a vampire.  In the film Mina slowly falls in love with Dracula, however in the novel Mina despises Dracula because of what he has done to Lucy and for terrorizing her and tries to fight him off and remain loyal to Jonathan.  Importantly, in the novel Dracula does not seem to love Mina or any other woman from his past, however a key part of the film is that he falls in love with Mina because he believes she’s a reincarnation of Elisabeta.

There are significant differences between the portrayals of the female characters in Stoker’s Dracula and Coppola’s film.  Much of this seems to be related to creating a more appealing story-line for a modern audience, which can also account for the romance between Mina and Dracula that is central to the film’s plot but absent from the book. In this way, Coppola’s film gives the female characters more independence. However, the extent to which this represents the women being given agency is questionable given that the relationship between Dracula and Mina in the film as well as the female character’s sexuality seems to fulfill male fantasies.

Mysterious Deaths, Revivals, Gold, and Vampires in Ireland?

Early last month, three brothers were found dead in their beds in Drimalegue, county Cork, Ireland.  The boys had no signs of having been attacked in their sleeps and all were previously in good health.  The morning of their deaths, a wake was held at their home.

Kate, a young woman from the village is said to have approached the boys’ father and told him that she would save the man’s sons if he agreed to give her Gort na Leachtan (a field of stone heaps) and to marry her to his oldest son.  Kate sent all of the town’s people out of the house.  When she reopened the doors to the family’s home, she sent the boys’ father inside to wake his sons.  The three brothers were found groggy, but in good health and had no memory of the previous night.

The following week, Kate married the family’s eldest son.  The couple and their families have since found huge amounts of gold buried in Gort na Leachtan.  The families believe that the money had been the Derrihy family’s.

An anonymous informant claimed that Kate had disappeared the night before the three brothers’ “deaths”.  Kate has since reported that she had been summoned by Michael Derrihy’s corpse the night that the boys were “killed” and that he had slit their throats and consumed their blood in oatmeal that night.  She reported that the corpse later told her that the boys could be saved by three bites of their blood and oatmeal, luckily although she had instructed to consume the boys’ blood with the man, she had managed to conceal the food and stash it in the boys’ home.  She claims that this is how she saved the three brothers.  The boys’ deaths and revivals remain a mystery but it seems that vampires may once again be active in Ireland.

In “The Unnatural and Accidental Women” the scenes are described to have a “black-and-white picture feel”, animated by the “bleeding-in color” as the scenes unfold, allowing the reader or viewer’s imagination to illustrate the scene. “Colours of personality and spirit, life and isolation” create the women’s realty and create a particular landscape within the women’s worlds and hotel rooms.  Aunt Shadie and Rose are at the top level from the beginning, which represents their own spaces and their own world.  The elements of Act One are “trees falling, falling of women, earth, water flowing/transforming.” The falling down of trees and women is reminiscent of Lee Maracle’s idea that the violence against the earth is directly related to violence against women.  The environment or “place” in this play is quite dark and obscure, which not only represents the women’s reality living in the Downtown Eastside and the isolation which they experience in this context, but also allows the reader to project their understandings onto the scene. In the second act, the scenes take place in Rebecca’s apartment in Kitsilano, “but reflect the symptoms of urban isolation even without being on Hastings Street.”

Though the setting of “The Kiss of the Fur Queen” is quite different to that in “The Unnatural and Accidental Women,” the themes of repression and social isolation are also central.  The residential school which the boys go to has enormous rooms in which the boys lose their identity and cultural heritage.  When Champion arrives at the school, the narrator describes  “long, white passageway(s) that smelled of metal and Javex.”  The school is described as a “sprawling orange-brick edifice” with “two enormous gravel-covered, fenced in yards.”  These descriptions of the school emphasize the oppressiveness of the residential school and for me were reminiscent of a prison.  The “space” of the residential school is very different to the “space” in which the boys grew up in Manitoba where they had many more freedoms.  Later on in the novel, the city is described as a place with lots of violence as well as a space for the brothers to become artists and independent individuals.  As the lecture notes describe, cities in the novel are described as “the last frontier” and “uninhabited lands,” I think that in a way these descriptions speak to the effects which settlement has had through the changing landscape of the boys’ hometown.  “The last frontier” evokes the sentiment that this land is something to be conquered or taken over for settlement.

In both of these pieces, the characters are in radicalized spaces which as Goldberg says is a way to regulate city spaces by preventing minorities “from polluting the body politic  or sullying civil(ized) society.”  These marginalized individuals are also excluded from or experience oppression in white, middle-class areas and are either forced or given incentive to remain in marginalized and racilized areas.  In the case of “The Unnatural and Accidental Women,”  much of the play takes place in the Downtown Eastside which is home to many Indigenous women and in Highway’s novel, the boys go to Winnipeg after leaving residential school which has had the highest urban aboriginal population in Canada.

In Highway’s novel the Kiss of the Fur Queen, tribal history is very impactful.  The author describes a story which centers on the relationship between Cree tribal identity and modern colonial Western institutions, exemplified through government policy and residential school.

The author’s tribal history is evident throughout the novel in the vivid descriptions of the legends of births, the Fur Queen, the trickster, and the Weetigo spirit.  The recurring imagery of the kiss of the Fur Queen with focuses on the kiss  itself, the photograph, and it’s effects throughout the unvierse, through the birth of the fetus is another example of the author’s tribal history impacting the creative work.  Dance and music which are central to the brothers’ relationship and to their survival through residential school and later life is also significantly influenced by the author’s tribal history, which the boys become increasingly detached from later in the novel.

The juxtaposition between Cree and Western culture is highlighted early on in the book.  In the scene where Abraham’s son whom they have named “Ooneemeetoo” is baptized, it is evident that the Okimasis family is somewhat at odds with the Catholic priest who renames the child Gabriel.  The narrator describes the baptism as a “curious ritual” from Champion’s perspective (p. 36).  This tension becomes more evident when Mareisis and Abraham discuss whether Champion will have to go to the South to go to residential school.

The comparison of the First Nations boys’ haircutting when they arrive at residential school to “slaughter” is chilling.  “He was being skinned alive in public; the centre of his nakedness shriveled to the size and texture of a raisin, the whole world staring, pointing, laughing.”  This scene becomes increasingly significant throughout the novel and is symbolic of Champion, now Jeremiah’s loss of his heritage culture.  The priests are described in an ominous way “Father Lafleur placed a hand on Champion’s thigh and like some large, furry animal, purred at him… The scent of sacramental wine oozed off his tongue, and incense appeared to rise like fog off the surface of his cassock.”  These dark, animal-like descriptions can be seen to foreshadow the abuse that Jeremiah and his brother will face.

Highway’s novel touches on subjects related to cultural heritage and history, abuse by settlers, loss of cultural heritage, as well as issues related to homosexuality and HIV/AIDS.  Through these themes, Highway touches on many topics which have been discussed in this unit of the course.

In Lee Maracle’s lecture about the connection between violence against the Earth and violence against women, she argues that when we lose our connection to the earth, we also lose our connection with humanity, creating violence (as well as disease).

Maracle describes driving along the coast of Vancouver Island on the Highway of Tears, a region that gets two-hundred inches of rainfall every year but that experienced draught and describes that she was “broken with grief” at the sight of the vast deforestation that has taken place.  This region is not only damaged by deforestation, but also has the highest rate of suicides and violence against women, which Maracle argues is due to the loss of connection with the earth.  Lee Maracle discusses the loss of landscape that she and her people have experienced and extends this idea, to immigrants arriving in Canada as well as other regions which have experienced a change in landscape as a result of deforestation and development.

Maracle describes herself as a converted environmentalist and passionately discusses how important it is to keep our connection to the earth and also to care for it.  She maintains that if we think of our earth as our mother, this increases our commitment to the planet and to keep it well-kept and in good condition.  Lee Maracle describes our connection to the earth, to other humans, to the animals, and waters and focuses on the importance of our connection to these elements.  She also emphasizes the idea that as members of our greater human society, we are all connected to each other as siblings.  Here, she draws a similar parallel of that between humans and the earth, arguing that if we think of all humans as being related to us, this makes violence against them that much harder.

Although her main focus is on the connection between the violence against the earth and the violence against women, Maracle also discusses the importance of the use of language, an issue discussed in this section of our course.  She describes being told as a young mother that her handsome son would be a “lady killer” and “heart breaker” and how problematic this language is.  Having raised her son to love women and respect them, she was troubled by the fact that her son was hearing and eating up these words as a young child.  This highlights the importance of discourse and how impactful this is not only in society, but particularly to youth.  She also discusses the importance of stories, and talks about the importance of stories within her culture and the importance of the lessons to be learned from these stories.

Intersectionality is a key component of this discussion, relating power, discourse, settlement, the environment, social norms, differences in social class and ethnicity to violence.

In the Kappa Child, Hiromi Gotto describes her experience as an immigrant Japanese-Canadian. The author raises many comparisons and contradictions between Japanese and Canadian culture. This can be seen in her comparisons between her journey and that of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s, for example in the part where the narrator reads to her sisters and draws the comparison between the Wilders and her family “being pioneers” (p.41) and says to Slither “See, we’re like that right now, get it?”. In this same scene the juxtaposition between the two families is also evident, as PG asks if “Laura’s pa hit the ma” (p. 41), highlighting that unlike the somewhat idyllic family portrayed in Little House on the Prairie, this family is somewhat dysfunctional, and highlights the abuse that the girls and their mother endure from their father.  The narrator uses Little House on the Prairie as a way to try to understand her family’s journey from British Columbia to the Alberta prairies.

The narrator’s experience as of being Japanese-Canadian and being influenced by both cultures is also evident in her numerous descriptions of herself, for example “my daikon legs” and “bratwurst fingers”.  This struggle with identity is also alluded to when the narrator decides to rename her sisters with names that people in Canada could pronounce. It appears that this is quite significant for the narrator, she writes “What’s in a name? some people say. A great deal, was my conclusion”.

The narrator’s experience living in Canada and neither feeling truly Canadian or Japanese is a recurring theme throughout the novel. Hiromi Goto creates a counter-narrative by illustrating an “atypical” experience as an immigrant to Canada, through the narrator’s sexuality, physical appearance, and mythical elements in the story. I think that through this counter-narrative, the author challenges the concepts of borders (geographic, gender, sexuality) and the typical experience of migration.

The slogan which Ofred must live by “from each according to her ability; to each according to his needs” (p. 135) is an example of how Gilead uses language in an oppressive manner. The slogan not only excludes individuality and freedom of “choice” but also emphasizes that the handmaid’s are to serve men’s needs but there is no reciprocation of this.  Likewise, men in this society cannot be infertile and the use of the word sterile is forbidden.  Offred is appalled by the fact that the Commander’s wife suggests that maybe Offred isn’t pregnant because the Commander is sterile – Offred thinks that “it’s heresy” and that it is “only women… can’t, who remain stubbornly closed, damaged, defective” (p. 236).

Women are not only given the burden of fertility and infertility but are also made responsible of any sexual indiscretion, which is ironic given that they have little or no say in when or where they have sex. To make matters worse, men “can’t help it” and are exempt from culpability because “God made them that way.”

Offred is given the choice to participate in her arrangement as a handmaid rather than face death. Unlike in Juno, Offred does not have the option to keep her child as society does not allow for this and surrogacy is her way to survive. She says in the first chapter that she has already had a baby taken from her.  Latimer points out that the separation of Offred’s rights from those of “her potential child… satirizes the idea that women are not only adversely related to the foetus, or the future child, but are actually much less politically important.”  This is reflective of “pro-life” stances on the right of the fetus to live, while ignoring and putting this ahead of a mother’s right to choose a decision that is right for her circumstances.

The emphasis on patriarchy throughout the novel and the fact that women who are or should be fertile’s only use their fertility to reproduce is illustrated in the fact that women who are unable to reproduce are named “unwomen.” Latimer writes that such naming takes place in pro-life discourse, which takes the stance that “women who advocate or have abortions… are not properly female.” This discourse places enormous emphasis on women’s purpose for reproduction and represents the “feminine ideal” that all women should want to be mothers, as discussed in the previous lecture.

Portrayal of “Choice”

Latimer notes that one of the main reasons that Juno decides not to go through with her planned abortion is that the clinic smelled like a dental office. Latimer also points out that pro-life language affects Juno’s decision – after being met by a single pro-life advocate at the clinic who tells her that her baby has a heart and fingernails, while sitting in the clinic, Juno observes other patients and employees and notices them “scratching, typing, and tapping their fingernails” – these combine into a “deafening roar” that comes to sound like a heartbeat.  I think this scene highlights the fact that abortion is not as easy of a decision as Juno makes it out to be with her bluntness and humor.  The fact that Juno is influenced by pro life language is worrying in that this has been understood as a pro life win, making Juno “the movie pro-aborts will hate”, as Latimer quotes Jill Stanek. However, the fact that Juno first considers abortion as the best option to “nip it in the bud” and that her stepmom asks her when she tells them that she’ll give up the baby for adoption if she’s “considered the alternative” is important in that abortion is part of the conversation and it is an option for her. Juno’s stepmom also makes the very important point of how difficult giving up a child for adoption can be, and that it’s “unimaginable” how difficult this could be.

Reproductive Health Care

Reproductive health care is represented in a really interesting way in the movie. It appears that access to an abortion is quite easy to obtain, as Juno decides to go to Women Now because she doesn’t need parental consent and calls to “procure a hasty abortion”. Latimer notes that this ignores the fact that in Minnesota, minors in fact do need parental consent. Latimer also notes that the fact that the receptionist who greets Juno at the clinic is a “glib teenager who tell(s) patients about [her] own sexual exploits” undermines the fact that abortion clinics are staffed with trained personnel who often risk their own safety in their jobs.  This could be seen as another deterrent for Juno getting an abortion. Another interesting point in regard to Juno’s dealings with reproductive health care is that the only person in the film who is unsupportive of Juno’s decision to have the baby is the ultrasound technician.

Representations of Teenage Pregnancy

Juno calls herself a “cautionary whale”, however she is treated with much respect throughout the movie, with the exception of the ultrasound technician. When Juno tells her parents, her dad says that he thought she was the “kind of girl who knew when to say when”, her response that she doesn’t know what kind of girl she is challenges the assumptions about what pregnant teens are like.  This reminds us of Ann Fessler’s work “A Girl Like Her” and the New York Times Magazine article that highlights the diverse range of experiences that women have with pregnancy and abortion, as well as how much their backgrounds can differ.  Juno does not represent that the reality of teen pregnancy (discussed in the lecture slides) is that “many unwanted pregnancies ending in abortion in both the US and Canada, and those that do go forward happening to most often to poor women, and young women of colour.” Her experience is not by any means typical (she is caucasian, middle class, well supported emotionally and financially) and it challenges assumptions about teen pregnancy, and interestingly portrays only one instance of negative judgment.

The Maternal “Ideal”

It’s interesting to note than in “Juno”, the heroine goes from a position of wanting to just “get the thing out” and hand it over to Mark and Vanessa, to understanding Vanessa’s excitement about having a baby. This is portrayed as Juno becoming more mature in her relationships with Mark, Vanessa, and Bleeker, as well as in her becoming more of a maternal figure – coming closer to the “ideal” which Vanessa represents. Initially in the film, Vanessa’s character is incredibly intense and is almost an exaggerated representation of the maternal ideal. She says that she was born to be a mother, Juno (like I felt watching the film) doesn’t seem to understand what Vanessa is talking about and seems to be much more attracted to Mark who is less excited about the baby and ends up backing out of the adoption. Over the course of the film, Vanessa and Juno’s relationship evolves and Juno appears to come to understand and even be committed to Vanessa through her decision to go through with the adoption after Mark backs out. This in a sense brings Juno closer to the “ideal mother” which Vanessa portrays.

Immediately upon accessing their website, having read “Welcome to cancerland”, I saw the links for “shopkomen.com” and “find an event”, I also noticed the abundance of what Barbara Ehrenreich calls “pink kitsch”.  One important thing to note is that men diagnosed with breast cancer may feel alienated by the focus on women and femininity.  Unlike the Komen website, BCAction does not have any pink at all, doesn’t have testimonials or catchy phrases like “breast cancer touches us all. It’s a journey we take together,” or pictures of “survivors”.  It’s important to note that as a (third-wave) feminist organization, BC Action rejects the phrase “survivor”, echoing Barbara Ehrenreich.

BCAction focuses on systemic interventions to reduce the number of women who develop breast cancer, die from breast cancer, and to eliminate communities bearing disproportionate burdens from breast cancer.  The Komen foundation works to “save likes and end breast cancer forever by empowering others, ensuring quality care for all and investing in science to find the cures.”  Their approach to their mission is raising awareness, fundraising, and addressing breast cancer through research, community health care, global outreach and public initiatives. This reflects their alignment with biomedical and scientific institutions.

BC Action tries to be inclusive to heteronormative as well as non-heteronormative femininities.  Those who identify with this culture want to address the “effects of inequalities, mobilize anger against the institutions of biomedicine, services and treatment activism.” This feminist culture of action also questions the use of the term “survivor”, addresses gender disparity within institutions, challenges medical and scientific authority, and critiques systemic forms of sexism and classism.  This organization fits in the Klawiter’s “culture of action” that focuses on the environment. They look for ties between the environment and cancer rates and holds corporations accountable for actions which may cause cancer – and they make this information available to the public – such that they can make their own decisions.

Komen celebrates normative femininity and is Klawitzer’s “remaining” culture of action. The Komen foundation represents the mainstream breast cancer culture, one which has faith in science and medicine and is aligned with these institutions. They promote biomedical research and early detection and emphasize this over finding the environmental factors that may be causing cancer, which is BC Action’s primary approach.  Within this culture of action, are events like Race for the Cure which is a celebration of normative femininity and in this realm “shopping is activism.”

One of the striking differences between the two websites is that on the Komen website, the ways to get involved are to donate, participate, be involved in corporate partnership, or “shop Komen,” reflecting more of an emphasis on fundraising. This is quite different from the ways that BC Action suggests that individuals become involved, which includes making educated choices and becoming empowered by learning more, petitioning and activism, becoming involved as a volunteer, and fundraising.

Despite the many criticisms that can be made of the Komen Foundation and the mainstream breast cancer movement, I do think that it’s really important to acknowledge that this is an organization that is accessible to many mainstream women and much of this appeal has to be with having a sense of community and solidarity for those who do not identify with feminism, and for this reason cannot simply be discounted.  Breast Cancer Action offers an important resource to those who do and do not identify with normative femininity and may feel alienated by mainstream organizations like Komen. Although their stances differ substantially, “social justice for all” is necessary, but finding a cure (however far out that may seem) is also so important in reaching BC Action’s goals to reduce the number of women who develop breast cancer, die from breast cancer, and eliminate communities bearing disproportionate burdens from breast cancer. I would argue that although the ideologies of these organizations are very different, their goals do not have to be seen as mutually exclusive.

Aimee Mullins, using the story of her friend telling her in all seriousness that it wasn’t fair for her to be able to change her height, beautifully explains how there has been a shift in the conversation about amputees from one of disability, to power, esthetics, and allowing her and other individuals to be the architects of their own identities by designing their bodies from a place of empowerment. According to Arthur Frank’s paradigm, Aimee Mullin’s talk does not really follow the typical structure of life narratives discussed in the lecture material, she focuses less on her own experience (without mentioning any struggles she has faced) and uses it as evidence of changes in society, which is the focus of her talk. However, I would argue that there is an element of the “quest” in that she is a hero to many and focuses on the positive experiences she has had as an amputee (and not as a disabled person) and how she is working towards social change regarding perceptions of disability and amputation, opening up conversations, and improving the quality and esthetics of prosthetics.

As Courser discusses in relation to many illness narratives, Aimee’s narrative is political in the sense that she questions the social constructions of terms such as “healthy”, “beautiful”, and “disabled”. She says in her talk that people often tell her that she doesn’t look disabled and she says laughing that she doesn’t feel disabled. It’s important to note that as discussed in the lecture notes, “disability” refers to a socially imposed category of existence rather than someone who is “ill”.

Her talk highlights that many of the issues surrounding life narratives are interdisciplinary. She discusses specifically how poetry and science can combine to create incredible prosthetics that are also pieces of art, as well as the social constructions embedded in our understandings of disability.

Courser asks what social factors cause certain illness narratives to materialize in particular ways, Aimee Mullin’s addresses this question in her story about using children’s curiosity about the world around them as empowerment and allowing them to make their own ideas about what it means to have a prosthetic leg. She says that children’s fears come from adult’s discretion, there is something so honest about this statement that children are curious and its not knowing, rather than knowing things that could be scary that is frightening.

Having seen my uncle struggle with adapting to life as an amputee, I have a huge appreciation for what Aimee Mullins is working towards. Having said that, I also think that it’s incredibly important to take into account the huge costs associated with being an amputee and needing prosthetics, the battles that some go through to have insurance coverage, the struggles of getting used to “new legs” and all of the malfunctions that go along with them. Nonetheless it’s really incredible to see how far prosthetics and we as a society have come and the huge changes that this translates to in the quality of life of these individuals.