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A brief summary of the dracula by Bram Stoker
Literary elements bram stoker's dracula
Gender issues during the Victorian era
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Have you ever wondered why females were placed on specific restrictions and guarded by their husbands in the Victorian period? Men were afraid of the manifestation that females would undergo; females would display horrific characteristics that could incinerate a man’s soul, engage in lustful activities that were unimaginable, and created an atmosphere that contained both despair and lust. However, men assumed that the female’s pure soul was being corrupted by a demonic force, which was out of their grip and understanding. In Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Stoker illustrates a group of men (Van Helsing, Johnathan Harker, John Seward, and Quincy Morris) who were afraid of Lucy’s transformation, and were willing to go so far just to end or destroy the manifestation entirely. …show more content…
However, Van Helsing proposed the concept of blood transfusion, so that the group of men could stop the transformation and save Lucy’s life. “As the transfusions went on something like life seemed to come back to poor Lucy’s cheeks, and through Arthur’s growing pallor the joy of his face seemed absolutely to shine” (106). As a result, the blood transfusions were preventing the transformation to complete, and Lucy’s pure soul was returning as well. Despite all their efforts, there were external factors that would prevent the treatment from completing, and Lucy would lose her life at the end of the night. So, the group of men did the proper gesture by placing her body in a coffin, which Lucy would slumber in peace. However, Lucy’s transformation wasn’t completed, the transformation would still proceed after her fateful death. Which would bring Lucy back from the dead, and she would return as a demonic entity that sucks the living life out of
As she sits at the “churchyard” we can almost see her reflecting the ideas of the Victorian gentleman whose morals are based on religion, and as a male you had the right to go anywhere or do anything you please as long as you keep your gentlemanly status. The setting of the “churchyard” is also ironic to the acts that follow as there was something “long and black, bending over the half-reclining white figure.” Dracula is our demon character in “black,” physically dominating over Lucy while Lucy is portrayed as innocent in “white.” This is much like “The nightmare” painting by Henry Fuseli, which portrays a demon sitting on top of an unconscious woman. The resemblance to Dracula is seen with the demon hiding in the shadows, but still controlling the woman by putting himself in a position on top of her while she is unaware. When Mina finally wakes up Lucy “she trembled a little, and clung to me.” This reaction could indicate that Lucy was unable to stop Dracula from biting her and was terror-stricken from the
...ed to kill Basil Hallard) and dies, his corpse acquiring the shape of his soul and the painting, his soul, regaining the purity of his youth. To regain the purity of his soul he must expose himself as he really is to the eyes of the world. It is, in short, an act of confession that will grant him salvation through the mercy of God. In Dracula, Arthur’s liberation of Lucy’s soul through strong thrusting of the stake, a three-foot long phallic symbol, through her heart is the regaining of the masculinity of England’s youth. The elimination of the Count and the resulting withdrawal of the forces of evil (the gypsies and the wolves) represents the reaffirmation of that masculinity against the foreign threat of the count. This ordeal has helped them to reencounter their true virtues and will enable them to guide the country to a brighter and more prosperous future.
Lucy poses a threat to the Victorian ideology by exposing herself as a danger to sexual propriety. She remarks about wanting to have more than one husband, which displays promiscuity, “Why can’t they let a girl marry three men or as many as want her?” this statement works as a threat which comes to fruition after Lucy is bitten. Once infected by Dracula, Lucy becomes sexually overt and aggressive; and is portrayed as a monster and a social outcast. She transforms into a fiend and feeds on children making her the maternal antithesis as well as a child molester.
In Dracula, Bram Stoker explores the fantastic image of a sexually dominant woman within a patriarchal society. The battle between good and evil within the novel very much hinges upon feminine sexuality: Lucy and Nina are embodiments of the Victorian virtues, which Dracula threatens to corrupt,
“Dracula, in one aspect, is a novel about the types of Victorian women and the representation of them in Victorian English society” (Humphrey). Through Mina, Lucy and the daughters of Dracula, Stoker symbolizes three different types of woman: the pure, the tempted and the impure. “Although Mina and Lucy possess similar qualities there is striking difference between the two” (Humphrey). Mina is the ideal 19th century Victorian woman; she is chaste, loyal and intelligent. On the other hand, Lucy’s ideal Victorian characteristics began to fade as she transformed from human to vampire and eventually those characteristics disappeared altogether. Lucy no longer embodied the Victorian woman and instead, “the swe...
Victorian Women were highly held back in their full potential. Their main role in the household was to “be happy - a sunbeam in the house, making others happy” (Hardy, E.J. 1887). On top of this, Women in the Victorian era were not allowed to display their sexuality or “tempt” men in public; they were meant to be submissive and meek (Causey S., 2008). The Victorian era lasted from 1837 til 1901, with women being punished everyday for crimes that are nowadays just part of living for a woman. Bram Stoker was born during this era and wrote his most famous novel, Dracula (Miller, E. unknown). One of the main discourses in this novel is that of Women and their Morality of the time.
Bram Stoker’s use of gender inversion is first evident in the novel when Dracula’s voluptuous brides attempt to seduce Johnathan Harker. “In an agony of delightful anticipation”, “The blonde girl's “deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive awaiting consummation with eyes closed in languorous ecstasy” (p. 48) Johnathan being quite coy “responds” to this occurrence by taking the approach “What happens in Transylvania stays in Transylvania.” As the three women lean over Johnathan he is attracted by their “red” succulent lips on his throat “so powerful an ambivalence, generating both errant erotic impulses”, but when the brides are about to feast and devour Johnathan, Dracula suddenly appears and puts an end to the party. Dracula openly displays his uncontrolled dominance over these women by saying “How...
Bram Stoker’s Dracula illustrated fears about sexual women in contrast to the woman who respected and abided by society’s sexual norms. Joseph Sheridan LeFanu’s “Carmilla” represented not only the fear of feminine sexuality, but also the fear of sexuality between women. John William Polidori’s “The Vampyre” showed society’s fear of sexuality in terms of the seductive man who could “ruin” a young girl.These texts are representative of vampire stories in the Victorian Era, and will be the focus here.
The Victorian England setting and culture of “Dracula” by: Bram Stoker attributes to many stylistic components and character behaviours in the novel. One of which is the behaviour and actions characters express that are a result of sexual repression. In Dracula, sexual repression is best expressed by the character’s desire to create. This desire is exemplified by the way Dracula creates other vampires, Lucy’s sexual desires, and the men’s expression of aggression. The creation of other Vampires is evident through events including Dracula’s aggressive encounters with Lucy and Mina, and the fact the Dracula is building up a Vampire army. Lucy’s sexual desires are exemplified through her longing to have sex with multiple men and how she compares
Lucy, who is considered promiscuous by Victorian standards, becomes a vampire because she is scandalous, which is what Bram Stoker is trying to say. If you are “loose” and have four different men’s fluids running through you, you become un-pure, which is appalling in the Victorian people’s minds.
In Case's article “Tasting the Original Apple,” it talks about the role that now the new woman has and how it comes into conflict with how men react towards it as stated “Dracula is often read as a largely reactionary response to the threat of autonomous female sexuality posed by the phenomenon of the "New Woman," with its anxieties about female sexuality being most clearly visible in Lucy Westenra's story. Particularly once she has been "vamped," Lucy's sexual assertiveness seems to link her with the New Woman. But Lucy's actions as a vampire, like those of the "awful women" (42) Jonathan encounters at Dracula's castle, perhaps owe less to the specific threat posed by the New Woman's insistence on sexual autonomy than to the ambivalences built into the model of Victorian womanhood from the start. Since ideal womanhood (and the ground of male desire) was characterized by a combination of total sexual purity and at least the potential for passionate devotion to a man, this model...
Dracula is selecting the women he wants to transform very meticulously. He will not settle for a plain Jane, he must have the beautiful Lucy.
In Bram Stoker's Dracula, the most blatant and powerful symbol is blood. He takes the blood that means so much to the believers of this legend and has it represent more than even they could imagine. Blood is the main object associated with vampires and vampirism. From a mythical standpoint, it is the basis of life for the vampires as they feed off of the blood of young, vibrant souls. From a more scientific standpoint blood is what would drip out of the corpse's mouth when family members would dig up their dead kin to check for the dreaded disease. Stoker takes the significance of this symbol and puts his own unique twist to the meaning of blood. He combines the traditional folklore of vampirism and the immense sexual undertones of the Victorian era to create a simply horrific tale which completely confuses the emotions of his readers. Stoker knew bloods importance in vampire history and used the overwhelming symbolism to convey his own personal lust and sexual obsessions. The scenes where Lucy is receiving transfusions; first from Holmwood, then from Seward, and the unforgettable vampire baptism between Dracula and Mina all have these very erotic, sexual feelings associated with them. What makes these so powerful is the combination of violence and sex. As a reader, you know that what Dracula is doing are horrific and wrong, but because they are so sexually described and associated you think you should enjoy them, but you can't. This is the confusion which stoker implements into his readers minds, especially ones of the Victorian era. This is why stoker used blood as the most important symbol in the novel; to create an intense horror that was not just in the words of the book, but in the minds of the reader.
...ny other novels of the time, Stoker’s Dracula purposely highlights the superiority of men, while simultaneously belittling women. After only a few pages of this novel, the reader should understand just how helpless the females become. No matter what the issue or controversy, they are unable to find any sort of solution, successful or not, without the help of the male characters. Stoker even goes as far as almost teasing Mina, by allowing her to aid in the hunt for Dracula, yet giving her trivial duties. Lucy on the other hand creates the novel’s most blatant case for male superiority. She is forced to constantly depend on four men for her survival. All blood transfusions she received were from men and even that could not save her life. Stoker manages to make a bold statement by pinpointing the inferiority of the two female main characters in the novel.
Despite popular culture today with shows like The Vampire Diaries where vampires are often continuing their daily lives as if they are human and being the heroes to their friends and/or family, Dracula is a depiction of how vampires have, for centuries, been exposed as bloodthirsty, supernatural beings with sexual appeal. The way women are portrayed in Bram Stoker’s, Dracula, is a result of the Victorian ideals. Once Dracula begins to feed on the women, they become bloodthirsty temptresses which are exactly what society fears and try to prevent. In Dracula, Stoker makes sexuality directly linked to the vampirism in the novel. This is seen through the change of Lucy’s somewhat modest behavior into a temptress, the blood-sharing between characters in the novel, and the description of the way Lucy was killed.