Mina’s Joke in Dracula : The Danger of Women’s Laughter

When Mina first meets Van Helsing in Bram Stoker’s Dracula , she plays a trick on him by giving him the shorthand version of her Whitby diary, which she anticipates he will not be able to read. This essay looks at the central positioning of Mina’s practical joke as an opportunity to consider how Stoker represents women’s capacity to be funny through Lucy, Mina, and Mrs. Bilder, the zookeeper’s wife. The three major theories of humor—superiority, relief, and incongruity, along with nineteenth-century discussions of women and comedy—help clarify how sexualizing women’s laughter through vampirism threatens conventional Victorian sensibilities and masculinity.