In the story, The Vampyre by Polidori women are marginalized and seen as powerless whereas in the story, Carmilla by Le Fanu its heavily female centric with both of the main characters being female. The vampire, Carmilla, in Carmilla presents some complexities when considering traditional gender roles whereas the vampire, Lord Ruthven, in The Vampyre by Polidori heavily carries a masculine gender role. For instance, Lord Ruthven carries this masculine gender role by asserting his power and privilege status which imposes that all women want to be with him and all the men want to be his friend. A depiction of Lord Ruthven’s masculinity is seen in his pursuit and sole sexual intentions towards the Italian girl. In comparison, Carmilla does not
abide by the traditional gender role for a woman; she indulges in lesbian love. In addition, she is outspoken and opinionated whereas women during this time period were typically passive. An illustration of her behavior can be seen in her discussion with a male where she insists nature is the creator over God as the creator. Lord Ruthven behaves manipulative killer and is seen as an ominous figure throughout the story. In contrast, Carmilla behaves as a horrid but graceful killer. She is not an obvious monster, on the outside Carmilla is portrayed as a defenseless, beautiful, young girl. Le Fanu amplifies fear in his already horror story by adding homosexual relationship which was seen as a threat during this time. Carmilla is a lesbian who only chooses young female victims. In addition, vampires have been portrayed in numerous past stories of being sexual creatures which emphasizes the threat of Carmilla’s sexual orientation, therefore would of shocked the reader of its day.
Since the dawn of man and women, the issue of gender role has existed. Throughout history the norms of each gender have shifted. The two texts of Beowulf and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, both support a single sex, but are on opposite sides of the spectrum. Beowulf, written in around 800 AD represents the time of men superiority over women, who were the dominant figures in society and their families. On the other hand, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, depicts the contrary, the time of the 1960’s where women’s power grew stronger in contrast to men. In each test the power of each gender is perceived as threatening to the opposite sex, to keep in place, the supremacy of their own gender.
This essay explores the blurring of gender roles within Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Angela Carter’s The Lady of the House of Love, focusing on the presentation of a sexually assertive female and its threat to the patriarchal society, and the duality of the female characters as they are presented as enticing and thrilling, but also dangerous and somewhat repulsive.
Over the years people have given new out looks on the original vampire, Dracula. He was a tall non-attractive looking man who would never come out during the day. Hollywood however has made new vampire stories such as Twilight, True Blood, and The Vampire Diaries/The Originals that have new ideas of a vampire. These novels/books all have differences, but some still have key characteristics of the original vampire.
Bram Stoker and Sheridan Le Fanu’s texts, Dracula (1898) and “Carmilla” (1872), use gothic tropes in similar ways to captivate readers with horror and terror. This essay will illustrate how, in comparison, both texts include gothic tropes: the New Woman, sexuality and setting, in order to provoke emotions and reactions from the readers. To achieve this, this essay will focus on the women that challenge traditional gender roles and stereotypes, and deconstruct each text in regards to the very strong undertones of homosexuality; specifically between Carmilla and Laura, and Dracula and Harker. By discussing the harshness and darkness of the environments described, including ruined castles and isolated landscapes; this essay will also explore the
Due to traditional stereotypes of women, literature around the world is heavily male-dominant, with few female characters outside of cliché tropes. Whenever a female character is introduced, however, the assumption is that she will be a strong lead that challenges the patriarchal values. The authors of The Thousand and One Nights and Medea use their female centered stories to prove their contrasting beliefs on the role of women not only in literature, but also in society. A story with a female main character can be seen as empowering, but this is not always the case, as seen when comparing and contrasting Medea and The Thousand and One Nights.
conceptualizations of gender in literature are situated in a culture and historical context ; the
As the saying goes, “Women can do everything Men can do.” In the Gothic Novel Dracula by Bram Stoker, there is a constant theme of sexuality, from both male and females in society. In the Victorian era, the roles of male and females have caused a lot of tension. After reading Dracula, some would argue the roles men and women hold in society. As mentioned in Dr. Seward’s Dairy from Val Halsing., “Ah, that wonderful Madam Mina! She has man’s brain—a brain that a man should have were he much gifted—and a woman’s heart. The good God fashioned her for a purpose, believe me, when He made that so good combination” (Stoker and Hindle, 2003 250). A women’s mind is not the always the first thing on a males mind. Some would overlook what a woman really has to offer.
In the book Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, the women are portrayed as inferior to men in several different ways. Of the few female characters in this book, very few of them are mentioned throughout the entire book and none of them are considered main characters. The ideals of Romanticism emphasize the secondary nature of women to men. In addition, Shelley’s portrayal of the inferiority of women parallels Romantic ideals and some of today’s values but also contrasts some values of today’s society. Shelley uses these Romantic ideals in Frankenstein because all of the female characters are clearly subordinate and secondary to the male characters throughout the story.
Society often views individuals that do not conform to its expectations as separate from the societal group. The Story of the Marquise-Marquis de Banneville, by Charles Perrault, François-Timoléon de Choisy, and Marie-Jeanne L’Héritier follows two main characters, one of which does not fully conform to binary gender presentation. The Girl with the Golden Eyes, authored by Honoré de Balzac, portrays an “oriental” woman as an object to be purchased and used. In Le Roman de Parthenay Ou Le Roman de Melusine, written by Coudrette, the heroine is a half human, half fairy who holds great power. In this paper, I argue that the majority of biologically female protagonists in these novels exist in-between the expectations society has for them, which
While neither Machiavelli’s The Prince nor Shakespeare’s Henry V focus explicitly on gender roles, they both make assumptions and implications sufficient to illustrate their opinions about the nature and place of women in relation to men. In Machiavelli’s The Prince, men and women are depicted in traditional gender roles with women as tricky and unreliable, but ultimately yielding to men who are portrayed as tough and immovable. Shakespeare’s Henry V acknowledges these ideas, but also portrays women as able to influence events within the small domain they are given.
There are a few characters in Dracula that embody society’s views of the time towards the uprising of women for better rights. On the other hand there are also characters that portray the Victorian ideals that men are stronger than women and how it should stay that way. As author Bram Dijkstra mentions in his response essay, “Stokers work demonstrates how thoroughly the war waged by the nineteenth century male culture against the dignity and self -respect of women had been fought”.(Dijkstra , p.460).
In Twilight, Edward Cullen presents the question; “ But what if I’m not the hero? What if I’m the bad guy?” The role of vampires is very controversial. Back in the day they were evil, soulless monsters and people genuinely feared them. However, in the present day it seems that we have grown to love them and even hope to one day be them. There are a plethora of vampire stories and many of them have become immense hits. With so many vampire stories, it is not uncommon that readers are able to identify a vast amount of similarities. Although similar in aspects, there are still many differences between the classic and modern day vampires. Two highly popular stories, in which we can easily identify similarities and differences, are Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight.
In DRACULA, the general content is about the fighting between Dracula and humans, since Dracula tries to transform all the female characters into vampires. The language of the book is not very sexual, but the word “Voluptuousness” did shows up a lot in the book. The female characters, Mina, Lucy and the three sisters, they have different personalities, different attitude to love, and different virginity. When Dracula tried to transform them into vampires, they experience different processes and have different endings.
A. Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla are written very differently. Stoker chose to follow the storyline via journal entries and letters written by the characters, allowing us to see what is going on in the story from their points of view. This kept the audience from knowing more than the characters did and also showed the characters’ personal takes on the unfolding events. Le Fanu chose to show the story from the reflective writings of the main character, also limiting our knowledge to that of (one) character. Seeing things from only one perspective narrows things.
However, despite it’s popularity female desire was so alien to men the very idea of lesbian sex seemed futile and benign. Ultimately, these attitudes towards feminine desire lead to the creation of Hellenistic relationships between women that was the framework of a thriving homoscoial society. These societies one could easily connect to the “exclusivity of the [vampire] species (Hughes 143),” which was much like a secret contract of romance between lovers. This category of bonds was made up of “sporadic relationships, of temporary and fluid alliances amongst those who travel” (Hughes 144), which according to Hughes very much fit the lifestyle of vampires; and coincidentally, Carmella was a traveler and so was the women, Virginia Wolfe’s, Ms. Dalloway shared a moonlight kiss