“Dracula” by Bram Stoker (post 5): Mina says she is “unclean,” meaning New Testament’s “unclean spirit” (demon possession theory of multiple personality).

In the last post, I translated what Mina said into the equivalent psychological term (multiple personality), but her repeated reference to herself as “unclean” (1, p. 279) means that she is not thinking in psychological terms, but in New Testament, demon possession, terms, where “unclean” refers to an “unclean spirit”; as, for example, in Mark 5:8-9, where Jesus exorcizes the Gerasene demoniac, saying, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit! And Jesus asked him, ‘What is your name?’ He replied, ‘My name is Legion; for we are many’ ” (meaning that the man had multiple personality and contained multitudes).

1. Bram Stoker. Dracula [1897]. Edited by Nina Auerbach and David J. Skal. New York, W. W. Norton, 1997.