Mina Harker  

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Wilhelmina "Mina" Harker (née Murray) is a fictional character and the protagonist of Bram Stoker's 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula.

In the novel

She begins the story as Miss Mina Murray, a young school mistress who is engaged to Jonathan Harker, and best friends with Lucy Westenra. She visits Lucy in Whitby on July 24 of that year, when schools would have closed for the summer.

After her fiancé Jonathan escapes from Count Dracula's castle, Mina travels to Budapest and joins him there. Mina cares for him during his recovery from his traumatic encounter with the vampire and his brides, and the two return to England as husband and wife. Back home, they learn that Lucy has died from a mysterious illness stemming from severe blood loss as the result of repeated attacks by an unknown, blood-drinking animal; — the animal, they learn, was none other than Dracula taking a different shape.

Mina and Jonathan join the coalition around Abraham Van Helsing, and turn their attentions to destroying the Count. After Dracula learns of this plot against him, he takes revenge by visiting — and biting — Mina at least three times. Dracula also feeds Mina his blood, destining her to become a vampire at her death. The rest of the novel deals with the group's efforts to spare her this fate by killing Dracula. Mina slowly succumbs to the blood of the vampire that flows through her veins, switching back and forth from a state of consciousness to a state of semi-trance during which she is telepathically connected with Dracula. Mina then uses her inherent telepathic abilities to track Dracula's movements.

Dracula flees back to his castle in Transylvania, followed by Van Helsing's gang, who kill him just before sunset. As a result, Dracula's spell is lifted and Mina freed from the curse.

The book closes with a note about Mina's and Jonathan's married life and the birth of their first-born son, whom they name Quincey in remembrance of their American friend Quincey Morris, who was killed by Dracula's Szgany minions during the final confrontation. The birth of Jonathan and Mina's son signifies hope and life of the new as the novel heads into the 20th century.<ref>Experts Milhousen and Frytopen.</ref>

In other media

Mina (or a similar character) has appeared in most film adaptations of Stoker's novel.

In Stoker's original novel, Mina Harker recovers from the vampire's curse upon Dracula's death. However, in many films, books, plays and songs, she does not lose her vampiric abilities.




Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Mina Harker" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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