#Jonathan's world view on women and femininity in general is still painted in social biases despite being his preference over masculinity
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immediatebreakfast · 7 months ago
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Well, the consequences for Jonathan's disobedience were quite terrifying, on top of destroying an aspect of Jonathan's beliefs as a character.
We already have seen plus noticed how Jonathan identifies with what femininity, and women represented in the 19th century. He is a male character that expresses so much love for the ideas of safety, and comfort that the feminine entails without the narrative trying to paint this in a derogative light anywhere.
So, it's not wonder that the visit from the Weird Sisters (a.k.a. the speculated brides, and housemates of Dracula) left him totally traumatized. Nothing that Dracula has done so far has gained such huge reaction from Jonathan.
Great God! merciful God! Let me be calm, for out of that way lies madness indeed.  ... for now, feeling as though my own brain were unhinged or as if the shock had come which must end in its undoing, I turn to my diary for repose. The habit of entering accurately must help to soothe me.
In his journey as a gothic heroine as he is trapped in the castle, Jonathan has been surviving by employing the same ideas used by fictional heroines he admires and looks up to in dire times, and he has comforted himself with Mina's memory, and his undefying love for her. Everything that Dracula represents regarding masculinity means danger for Jonathan, he is scared how the power that the Count holds over him; not as a man towards another man, but as a man towards a conceptual woman within Jonathan's mind that is part of his being.
All of this concludes in Jonathan taking a nap in the ladies' chamber room, away from Dracula's aggresive masculinity in his tainted designated room, and inside what he now deems a safe space because women lived there.
Then the Weird Sisters appear in their ethereal, beautiful glory, and as Jonathan recalls the incident in his diary, the feeling of angry loosing sanity is written with an underline tone of pure defeated betrayal. It feels as if Jonathan keeps asking himself "why did they do that to me? Aren't they in the same position as me?"
The feeling of what Jonathan calls repulsion cut through the sexually charged scene like a knife. All of the soft adjectives to describe the Sisters' appearance, Jonathan's attraction to them as he shames himself for thinking like that because of Mina, the emphasis of voluptuos charm laced with danger, all of it gets cut when Jonathan realizes what the Weird Sisters are planning to do.
There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive, and as she arched her neck she actually licked her lips like an animal.
The ladies that he thought were a dream at first are there to use him the same way that Dracula has been doing... the only difference is that the vampire ladies made very clear that they will kill him. So out it goes the kind language to describe women, and what enters is the language that Jonathan uses to describe the Count.
The femininity that Jonathan felt comfort in to shield himself from the horrors he has seen is now fractured to incorporate the monsterhood of the Weird Sisters. It's a realization that shatters him, not all women are soft, and kind, these women would have killed him if not the Count arriving, and if Jonathan cannot go to the Weird Sisters for safety against Dracula, then it means that the only being who stands between his death and life is the Count himself.
The man who is keeping Jonathan as a prisoner in everything but name is who he has to run to if Jonathan wants to keep living... What a nightmare indeed.
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