Comparing Gender Roles In Dracula And The Lady Of The House Of Love

2299 Words5 Pages

CP644 CREATURES OF THE NIGHT: VAMPIRES IN LITERATURE AND FILM
Assignment 1 (3000 words)

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.

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, …show more content…

The passage depicts the unnatural occurrence of the female’s sexual advances, and establishes the link between vampirism and sex that is seen throughout the novel: unlike Mina and Lucy, who are idyllically virtuous and pure, these un-dead women are insatiable and dominant. Stoker takes the fantastic image of the sexual woman to its most extreme manifestation, and suggests that Harker would not only lose his reputation by indulging in these sexual acts, but also his life. The three vampires that Harker encounters in Dracula’s castle are embodiments of the ‘beautiful nightmare’ of the male Victorians; they are representations of everything that the Victorian society states that women should not be – they are sexually aggressive, ‘voluptuous’, and seductive. This sexual proficiency, though appealing, is rebuked and seen to undermine the male dominancy within the patriarchal society, and therefore must be destroyed. The notion that a woman can be both attractive and repulsive is also presented by Angela Carter in The Lady of the House of Love. The character of the countess is presented as both the predator and the prey – the victim and the vixen. Just as the female vampire in Dracula is described as “thrilling and repulsive”, the countess is described as “beautiful and ghastly”. Despite her beauty and “fragility”, the countess …show more content…

The ideal man is brave and strong, and in The Lady of the House of Love, the soldier is unafraid despite the strangeness of the surroundings, and remains untroubled when the Countess reveals that he shall be her prey. Therefore, it could be said that he fits the typical masculine role. However, it is abundantly clear that he is a rational character, and so does not believe in the supernatural; therefore, it may be said that he is not heroic, but simply ignorant – he is not afraid, because he is unaware that there is something to be afraid of. Whilst the soldier is rational and protective, some of the masculine and feminine roles in the story have been switched: the soldier is good, kind, and gentle, whereas the Countess is cruel and sadistic – this is illustrated by their behavior with the lark. The countess enjoys keeping the lark trapped, and takes pleasure from the control, whereas the soldier releases it from its cage with “a lift of joy in his heart” (Carter 123). This reversal f gender roles can also be seen in the Countess’ assertion of power over men. The traditional, extremely sexual, scene depicts a male vampire feeding on a female, but by taking on the role of the vampire, the Countess becomes the predator and the villain. Typically, women are the submissive gender, but Carter

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