British literature has always had a penchant for the damsel in distress. The Gothic novel, however, takes the idea of the damsel and distress and complicates it. The damsel is no longer simply a woman in danger, but specifically a virginal young woman in danger from the supernatural. These women are young, pure, and untested by the world, and yet they come into direct contact with the supernatural. In the Gothic novel, it is very common for these pure, virginal women to become endangered and corrupted by the supernatural, and the men who have tainted them, and must then rely on more pure men to save them. In Bram Stoker’s Dracula, this trope reveals itself in characterizations of Lucy Westenra and Mina Murray Harker. Mina is cursed and corrupted by Dracula but is eventually saved in the climax of the novel. Lucy, Mina’s best friend, is slowly and unknowingly sapped of life by Dracula before turning into a supernatural creature herself. These two women are perfect examples of the endangered virgin, though Lucy complicates the trope. Interestingly, Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray also has an endangered virgin—Dorian himself. Using Lucy as a concept bridge, Dorian Gray can easily fit into the loosened strictures of the endangered virgin. While he is not a woman and does not get his redemption, Dorian is an extremely feminized character who begins as pure before falling prey to corrupting magics and ideas, embodying the trope of the endangered virgin that is exemplified by Mina and complicated by Lucy. My presentation will examine the endangered virgin model presented by Mina, address the complications present in Lucy’s classification, and use these complications to address Dorian’s presentation as the endangered virgin that is so common to Gothic literature.
About the presenterHaydn Woodward
A graduate with a BA in English and a minor in Teaching Education from California State University Sacramento, Haydn is now a MA student at the University of Colorado Denver studying English Literature. When he is not spending time skiing down the Rockies, Haydn is doing research on the Gothic and tracing the ideas presented therein to tendencies in the contemporary Science Fiction and Fantasy novel. His studies also include an attention to progressive ideals, feminist theory, and disability studies.