Dracula Gender Essay

Gothic literature is a genre fashioned to portray concealed fantasies and unsocial behaviours, only to go against social boundaries and emphasise these by the end. This chapter focuses on the representation of male characters in the gothic text, Dracula by Bram Stoker. Gothic texts not only violate social norms but throughout the nineteenth century male characters have had a persistent need to conform to the high standards of society. Several writers within the Victorian era expressed feelings of repressed sexuality and issues surrounding gender, Dracula is one of many gothic novels that hold these issues central. Men have had to ignore their individual needs for sexual relations and playing along to fit into society. The gothic characterises this emotional war fought within the anxious males and expresses these ideas of homosexuality and violating social norms in a negative light. One of the major themes of Dracula is the triumph of the masculine over the feminine. This interpretation is not limited to the treatment of the characters. Even though the men – Van Helsing, Seward, Godalming, Morris and Harker do rescue the female character, Mina Harker, from the evil hands of another male, Count Dracula, their real triumph is over the feminine forces that he represents. In Dracula anxiety is displayed when the male characters are left alone with the females – Harker writes in his journal ‘I am alone in the castle with those awful women. Faugh! Mina is a woman, and there is nought in common. They are devils of the Pit!’ (p.46) here we see Mina contrasted to the three Brides of Dracula, Harker portrays them as complete opposites. Masculinity remains as the more powerful position, despite the depiction of powerful females on the surfac...

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...minals, savages and ape’s’, and stated that degenerates were a biological regression to primitive man .

To conclude, this novel intentionally exposes and reverses contemporary forces risking masculinity’s position as the dominant gender. These challenges attempt to subvert these threats ultimately only to reiterate their power and that of the female in society. Whilst Stoker promotes traditional female submission to the male, this represents the importance of the female, they are passive and will transform into the masculine if this is a way to gain authority. This is again confirming masculinity takes hold over the female character rather than lessening, the social power of the woman. Regardless of working to overcome weaknesses in masculinity, this novel only further exposes the vulnerable state in which the masculine gender finds itself in within this period.