Oct 5, 2021
In Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), Mina Harker makes it to the final battle against the vampire, even though she fell victim to his bite along the way. Her best friend Lucy Westenra wasn’t that lucky. A vivid character in her own right, she succumbs to Dracula and becomes a vampire. Even more disturbingly, she preys upon children. The methods the men use to stop her are gruesome: she is staked, and her head is removed. To top it all off, the men seem more disgusted by her forward and unladylike behavior as a monster than by her vampiric exploits. In Gwendolyn Kiste’s story “The 8 People Who Murdered Me (Excerpted from Lucy Westenra’s Diary),” we get Lucy’s story from her perspective. She breaks down how she became a victim and almost “a footnote in a story that’s not my own,” but it turns out that Lucy may use her immortality to take control of a life that wasn’t necessarily hers while she was mortal.
Links mentioned in ep:
The story:
On Lucy Westenra's character:
https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/why-do-so-many-dracula-adaptations-screw-over-lucy-westenra
Recommended in this
episode: W. Scott Poole's Wasteland
On the next episode: Elsa Lanchester and The Bride of Frankenstein
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Our social media is @MonsterWrote on Twitter and Instagram. Our email is monsterwrote@gmail.com. This episode was produced and researched by Lisa and Mel. Theme music is “Misconception” by Nicolas Gasparini, used with permission.