Dichotomy In Dracula

It is noteworthy in Dracula that the reader only witnesses detailed vampiric transformations taking hold on women. This must be significant in some way. Perhaps Dracula only preys on women because he intends to make them powerful over men; perhaps he gets some enjoyment from removing women from submissive societal roles, free to be sexually aggressive vampires. Or since Dracula could be a normal person, perhaps this means that he wants women to change. Eric Yu remarks that the Count is “as austere and diligent a scholar as Van Helsing… a champion of intellectual labor” with “surprising modernity” (160). The Count is intelligent and sophisticated, deliberate and efficient in his encounters with others. Based on this notion, the Count resembles

a progressive social figure. He empowers women by infecting them with vampiric strength- getting them out of the household and liberating them from male control.

Just as Count Dracula could be considered a progressive figure, Lucy and Mina could easily represent the virgin-whore dichotomy. The virgin-whore dichotomy, according to Wyman and Dionisopoulos, “illuminates how women are often defined by patriarchal needs, thus contributing to social inequities by undermining the power of women to define themselves” (209). Furthermore, that “the premise [of Dracula] revolves around both male and female characters attempting to define themselves, and each other, by exploring various facets of sexuality and power” (212). Vampire's view and act is strange and enigmatic, as Lucy. Although she and Mina are close friends, they are different kinds of Victorian women. Mina is content in her modesty, satisfied with her sole suitor, excited to “be able to be useful to Jonathan” when the two are married (125). Furthermore, she is never physically described in any image-evoking detail. Lucy, on the other hand, has several men pursuing her until she finally chooses one. She is described in great physical detail that goes as far as “a

very beautiful corpse… quite a privilege to work on” (378). While Mina is known for having “a man’s brain,” Lucy is simply the alluring “little girl” that everyone seems drawn to (545/537). Lucy’s natural allure, her hushed sexuality, gives her power but is ultimately tied to her destruction. If Lucy is the sexually dominant woman who gains further power through courting and vampirism, then perhaps the goal of the Van Helsing men is to stop the vampire because it poses a threat to their own dominance, rather than for the sake of humanity. Wyman and Dionisopoulos regard the following in relation to Lucy: “While some whores are depicted as powerful- using sexuality to gain advantage- they are simultaneously strongly associated with evil and viewed as a threat to those around them. The depiction of powerful whores as a “problem that has to be solved” negates the legitimacy of any power she displays” (213).
For the Van Helsing group, it's okay for Lucy to be attractive.

However, she remains "the inessential." (Beauvoir 1413) when she transforms into a vampire, she becomes more powerful and can control men over her sexuality. She should not take the man's position and be desirable (Beauvoir 1414), she should be inferior as the rest of the women. So in stopping the vampire, the group relies on their educated minds alongside brute strength and physical force. Whether monitoring Lucy’s illness, performing blood transfusions, or eventually pounding a stake through her chest, the Van Helsing men embody the typical image of the “everyday hero.” Their motives may not be so pure; however Nancy Armstrong claims that such action “suggests the upper- and middle-class male hostility towards their revered and idealized mates” (108). Arthur is ultimately the one to slay Lucy, forcing a stake into her chest, perhaps releasing his frustration towards his unconsummated marriage. Arthur only enters Lucy’s body to violently kill her, disgusted by the sexual and powerful being she has become. Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a triumph of a male, heterosexual, Christian ideal. It depicts a victory over a progressive and supposedly damaging social figure who attempts to empower and sexualize women. The happy ending provided by Stoker depicts a heterosexual, consummated marriage resulting in the birth of a son, named for a group of men with Quincey at the forefront. There is notable contrast between how the

group honors the fallen Quincey in comparison to Lucy. In the final entry there is no mention of Lucy at all; indeed it seems the men have forgotten her by now, encouraging their reader to do the same. Instead Mina is the female forefront, a new mother and sexually submissive housewife. Nancy Armstrong claims that “in the Victorian mind… a good woman only submitted to her husband’s bestiality in order to reproduce” (106). Honoring Lucy here would then contradict the entire basis of the journey. Why honor a fallen vampire you worked so hard to eliminate? What’s to gain by raising the sexual, disobedient being to sainthood?
The fear of the powerful woman, the true monster o for men, is the sexualized being turned physically dominant, is the driving force behind male characters in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Therefore they deny them and place them as vampires. All vampires, regardless of gender, possess otherworldly physical strength and promiscuity that gives them power and the ability to provoke fear. Fear of the female vampire is characteristically more sexual than fear of the male vampire, however. This fear is fuel for the mission carried out by the Van Helsing men to stop Count Dracula and kill his female accomplices, including Lucy. As is evident in the characters Mina and Lucy, there were obvious social- and sexual- expectations for women in Dracula. There were according consequences: Mina never displays sexual desire and therefore settles into a happy life of motherhood, while Lucy feeds from the power of Dracula and is violently killed by her husband before she can marry. Lucy ultimately meets this fate as the result or consequence of her allure, proving that male characters in Dracula are terrified of any women with sexual or physical power.