Imperialism And Gender In Dracula Summary

Imperial, Christine Elisa C.

Dr. Trish Ferguson

Textual Analysis of Literature of the Long Nineteenth Century

20 April, 2015

Critically Examine the Relationship Between Imperialism and Gender in Dracula and The Sign of Four.

The fin-de-siècle of the nineteenth century was a period wherein people believed that time was running out. Tracey Hill in her essay “Introduction: Decadence and Danger” writes that there was an almost tangible sense of temporality, of the reality of time (1).” During this era, the state of the British Empire started to waver with uprisings such as The Indian Mutiny was a need to reassure the country and its people of its imperial superiority (Keep, 208). In a sense time was running out for the empire. Moreover, the

The men in Dracula are fearful of Dracula’s ability to colonize them, vamp their women, and invade their progressive world (Arata, 626). Dracula values the old and traditional. He speaks of his family’s lineage and boasts of the power they possessed. When he says that “Blood is too precious a thing in these days of dishonorable peace, he is saying that the contemporary world is a chaotic world and the glories of the great races are as a tale that is told (37).” Dracula says this right after he speaks of the glory his people once had, giving the phrase a sense of foreboding and condescension. He believes his race and the ways of his race are superior, and the status they once possessed must be

Dracula is upfront about his desires. Conforming to the masculine ideal of stoicism does not restrict him. Lucy is much stronger than the individual male. It takes four men to subdue her and ultimately kill her. This monstrous representation of the physically superior, vamped woman represents how the feminine must be controlled. By injecting their blood into Lucy, they are trying to inculcate the patriarchal culture of Victorian society back into her. The only way to bring her back to civilization is to turn her back into a “proper woman” born to raise a family and to serve a man. A transfusion is forced. The image of a needle puncturing into the skin and pushing a fluid into one’s conjures the image of invasion, of foreign forces reconfiguring the natural way of life. The transfusion of blood is of many men, while Dracula’s invasion, in this case, the puncturing of his culture and draining of British culture is done solely by him, showing how the strength of the “primitive” foreigner emasculates the male