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 …show more content…
to Mina sexually and morally. The desire to create through the men’s aggression and controlling nature is seen through event of the killing of vampire Lucy and the way they treat women. The Victorian era of England was a time where etiquette and being conservative in everyday life was normal. A time where a gentleman were seen as someone who did not need to do manual labour to make a living and as someone who would keep the most upright reputation. A woman’s etiquette was strict and was outlined in things such as how she ate fruit, how she walked down the street, how she greeted other men, and how she dressed. A woman’s dress would be conservative and be tight fit to show off child bearing hips (The Artifice). Everything a woman did was to eventually have a husband, a home, and a family to take care of for the rest of her life. This is contradictory of today since women are no longer bound to their homes and are free to work and make a living for themselves. With all of the etiquettes and ways to live the Victorian way of life outlined, one thing was importantly stressed by society and that was to repress any sexual desires. Men and Women alike were both sexually repressed by society. Women had the most restraints since they were taught that being a pure and “true” woman meant to submit themselves from any sexual desires. As a woman in the Victorian era the only way to be seen as “worthy” to get married was if they were pure. Women were taught to not even talk or think about sex since this was seen as an impure thing to do. Victorian women in childhood were kept under the rule of their mothers until they were seen fit to be married. Even when married, men and women were taught that marital sex was a shameful thing and was not to be a regular routine. To execute this moral, men and women slept in different rooms so that their desires could not be met by any conjoined physical pleasure (VictorianEra). Out of repression comes rebellion. The sexual rebellion that results from sexual repression was prostitution. Prostitution was at an all time high during the Victorian Era as numbers such as 80,000 prostitutes (3% of the population) were seen (VictorianEra). The psychological topic of libido can also be referred to in the Victorian era. Libido is the inner energy that gets created from sexual instincts. It is part of the id, which seeks pleasure. Libido can be expressed in different forms if it is repressed, just like it was repressed in the Victorian era (Cherry). The Victorian era ultimately changed the way sex was seen and it all led to the increase of feminism and the sexual revolution of the 1960’s (VictorianEra). The Victorian era ultimately changed the sexual world and the characters in Dracula, through their behaviours and actions are evidences of these changes. Their sexual repression releases through things like aggression and communicated desires. The antagonist, Dracula is the main culprit of this change as his desire to create is the most evident and the main problem in this novel. Dracula and his desire to create is exemplified by the building of his vampire army.
His main victims, Lucy and Mina, are the best examples of how he expresses these desires. Lucy Westenra is the first victim and the first point of emphasis for Dracula's desire to create in the novel. Once Dracula arrives in Whitby a mysteriousness comes about Lucy. She is sleep walking and seems like she has someplace to go or someone to get to. Mina observes this unusual sleepwalking “Strangely enough, Lucy did not wake; but she got up twice and dressed herself” (Stoker 74). The notion of sleepwalking describes the fact that Dracula is somehow trying to draw Lucy to give in and execute his creative desires. Eventually, Lucy escapes from her room, not seen by Mina and is later found in the middle of a graveyard. This is where Dracula executes his desires and makes Lucy his victim: “There was undoubtedly something, long and black, bending over the half-reclining white figure….I could see a white face and red, gleaming eyes” (79). This mysterious figure is Dracula and his making of vampire Lucy was marked with two hole punctures in her neck. These punctures are made from a bite. This action of biting someone's neck is both aggressive and sexual. A pleasure spot on a human beings body is the neck, it is sensitive to the touch of fingers/lips. It is an arousal technique and it just so happens that this is the common method for Dracula to create his vampires. This is a direct evidence to the unleashing of Dracula`s sexual repressions. Dracula’s desire to create and releasing of sexual repressions is also evident when he victimizes Mina. After Lucy’s death, Dracula goes after Mina and the first major event evident to this is when he makes her drink his blood through his chest. “Her white nightdress was smeared with blood, and a thin stream trickled down the man’s bare breast which was shown by his torn open dress” (242). The notion of blood and Mina being victimized by having to suck
blood from Dracula is a sexual connotation. Blood is a fluid in which comes from the body, and so are sexual fluids. The fact that Mina was sucking this blood is direct evidence of Dracula unleashing his sexual repression from his desire to create. The way Dracula creates Vampires, evident in both Lucy and Mina, has great sexual reference. His whole vampire army is a result of his desires and not only does he create vampires, but he controls wildlife. His controlling nature of wildlife feeds his desire to create as control makes people feel powerful. Not only does Dracula control wildlife, but he also refers to wildlife as children; “Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make!”(15). Dracula controls wildlife as a parent controls it’s children. The ways in which Dracula creates through things like sucking of blood, biting the neck of his victims, and Dracula's controlling hand over his creations are all evidences towards his execution in pleasing his creative desires and unleashing his sexual repression. Although the men in the novel have a controlling nature like Dracula, aggression is also evident in the ways they deal with certain events such as the killing of vampire Lucy. Jonathan Harker, Arthur Holmwood, Quincey Morris, and Van Helsing are all typical Victorian men, full of etiquette, proper, and controlling over women. The controlling nature of these men is evident throughout the novel and is a direct evidence of how they express their own desires. Through their controlling nature, the men gain ego and their boost of ego is an outward expression of their sex drive caused by their sexual repression. This is also known as "narcissistic libido", which is when ego becomes a “love object” (International Dictionary of Psychoanalysis). The building of the men’s ego through their controlling nature is an example of this “narcissistic libido”. This controlling nature is seen in the ways they treat Lucy and Mina. Mina and Lucy are both referred to as “Little Girl”(198) by Quincy Morris which is a abasing term for a woman. Lucy is the best example for control as her confining in her tomb is a physical representation of control. “He evidently did not know that there was a leaden coffin, or at any rate, had not thought of it”(178). A lead coffin for someone who is dead is not a necessary object to have. Lead is a heavy protector and is hard to escape from. This lead coffin is a physical representation of Lucy’s imprisonment from the control of men. The fact that lead is used, proves the fact that men will always want control of the women dead or alive, which is a direct expression of their sexual desires or “narcissistic libido”. Not only do the men control women to express their desire to create, but they also use aggression. Aggression is a result of the desire to create because because it is one of the ways libido is expressed when repressed. This notion of aggression is evident when the men kill vampire Lucy. Arthur Holmwood kills vampire Lucy; “Arthur placed the point over the heart, and as I looked I could see its dint in the white flesh. Then he struck with all his might….the blood from the pierced heart welled and spurted up”(185). The theme of penetration is evident in this quotation. Penetrating a stake through Lucy’s heart was the way of killing her and penetration also has sexual connotation as the creation of a human being is a result of the penetration of the penis into a vagina. Arthur uses this method of penetration, this is a direct evidence of him expressing his creative desires and unleashing his sexual repression. All of the men release their sexual desires through aggression because not only does penetration kill Lucy, but they go to such extremes as to cutting off her head and filling her mouth with garlic. “Then we cut off the head and filled the mouth with garlic”(186). This was an unnecessary precaution and out of the whole novel it is the most gruesome death. The reason for these is to emphasize the aggression the men express as a result of their sexual repression. Although controlled, Lucy’s character is contradictory of the average proper Victorian women seen through her desires to have sex with multiple men. The average Victorian young woman was expected to be chaste and express no sexual desires whatsoever. Mina and Lucy are the two examples in the novel that are polar opposites in this category. As a result of this, Mina is depicted as strong and heroic and Lucy is depicted as evil as she becomes a vampire (The Artifice). These two character traits derive from the fact of how they express their sexual desires. Mina is the usual Victorian woman, her sexual desire is kept in. Mina is never sexualized throughout the novel as she is seen loyal to her husband while he is gone away and takes care of her husband not paying attention to any other men. “No news from Jonathan. I am getting quite uneasy about him…” (72). This quotation is one example of the care Mina has for Jonathan. On the totally opposite spectrum Lucy is highly sexualized throughout the book (The Artifice). This is evident when she is being courted by multiple men and does not know who to pick; “Why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as mant her, and save all of this trouble” (50)? Lucy fancies all three men and wants them all which implies that she wants sex with all of them. This is an expression of the sexual repression Lucy has gone through as a woman in the Victorian era. Lucy later in the novel is sick and is in need of blood transfusions. These are given to her by the men; “we are about to perform what we call transfusion of blood, to transfer from full veins of one to the empty veins which pine for him. John was to give his blood, as he is the more young and strong than me” (105). This quotation explains only one of four blood transfusions that Lucy receives. Blood has a sexual connotation as it is a bodily fluid and through sex bodily fluids are exchanged just as blood is exchanged from the men tp Lucy. Lucy got her wish to “exchanged fluids” with all of the men, this is a direct evidence of the releasing of her sexual repression. Overall Lucy and Mina both represent a type of person that existed in the Victorian era. Mina the follower of the proper Victorian and Lucy the rebellious Victorian when it comes to sexual desires. The Victorian era influences Dracula’s themes in major ways, sexual repression and the desire to create is one of these themes. Evidences of this are seen throughout the novel and are exemplified by the characters behaviours. Some including, the men’s expression of aggression, Lucy’s sexual desires, and Dracula’s intense desire to create. Sexual references such as blood and penetration are also used to emphasize these points. Stoker way of expressing these characters sexual desires has a representative meaning as the characters represent the change of sexual society in the Victorian era. In Dracula, sexual repression is best expressed by the character’s desire to create, and Stoker represents this exceptionally.
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.
Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” came to print in 1897, at the height of Nineteenth century Victorian life in Europe, a progressively modern era that saw much medical and technological advancement. This era brought with it the contentious idea of an empowered woman, the “New Woman,” a woman who aspires to be educated as well as sexually and economically independent. Stoker gives a contrasting view of this notion in “Dracula.” While the main characters, Lucy and Mina, are clearly opposite in personality, they are both portrayed as unequal, defenseless objects that are to be protected and desired. However, one woman’s fate is determined by her weakness, while the other is determined by her strength.
“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...
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.
Dracula is a mythical creature designed to wreak havoc on the lives of mortals through the terror and intimidation of death by bite. Vampires are undead beings that kill humans for their blood to survive. Human blood is the vampire’s sustenance, and only way of staying alive. Throughout time, humans have come up with ways to repel vampires, such as lighting jack-o-lanterns on All Hallows Eve, placing garlic around the neck, a stake through the heart, sunlight, etc. Both beings have a survival instinct, whether it be hunger or safety, both are strong emotions. In the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker, the characters Lucy, John, and Van Helsing strive for survival, therefore killing Dracula.
Bram Stroker's Dracula(1897) setting and characters depicts of late nineteen century Britain had failing Victorian social systems. The story also tells of class system, values, technological advancement, and intellectual understanding of British people. This new change in end of nineteen century have impacted Dracula's writing. Studying this can enrich our understanding of historical implication of the book by observing locations, Characters, and important symbolism within it.
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.
Stoker uses phenomenal imagery to produce a late nineteenth century setting, located somewhere within eastern Europe. Transylvania, the infamous home to Dracula himself, is described in great detail in Harker’s journal. There, Stoker purposely and meticulously outlines Dracula’s castle and the surrounding town. Stoker manages to do this with a very gothic tone, immediately lowering the societal status of women. In conjunction with Dracula’s gothic tone comes the understanding of male and female traditional roles of the era. The reader sees that there is no hesitation differentiating between the two, as Stoker “ cast[s] men as rational, strong, protective and decisive…[and] women as emotional (irrational), weak, nurturing and submissive.” (Tyson, 82).
Bram Stoker uses to Mina to create a very innocent character that is violated to invoke emotion in the reader. To further this emotion, she begins to regret something that was out of her mortal control. “Unclean!”(Stoker 313). The very idea that she has been violated disgusts her down to her very bone. The men of the story seem to want to save Mina more than they ever did Lucy. This could be due to the fact that she is very innocent and they do not want Dracula to go there or because they wanted to avenge Lucy and save Mina. All of this caused because of violation. Sigrid Anderson Cordell, author of the article Sex, Terror, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula: Coppola’s Reinvention of Film History, analyzes a film that is based on Dracula. “Likewise, he associates Dracula’s desire for Mina with the use of film to put female sexuality on public display” (Cordell 2). This supports Stoker’s symbolism for sexuality as public display further violation in a large way. Stoker uses Mina to appall the reader when he violates Mina. Joan Acocella perfectly describes this in her article, “In the Blood”. “A terrible resemblance to a child forcing a kitten’s nose into a saucer of milk to compel it to drink” (Acocella 1). There is not much of a difference between the reactions to Dracula forcing Mina to suck Jonathan’s blood and if he had instead violated her sexually..The fact that these two actions are interchangeable, clearly supports the point that the whole time the world thought Dracula was about vampires(which it still partly is), it was really talking about
Podonsky, Amanda M. "Bram Stoker's Dracula: A Reflection and Rebuke of Victorian Society." Student Pulse: The International Student Journal. N.p., 2010. Web. 25 Mar. 2014.
Bram Stoker penned his novel Dracula at a period when women had restricted gender roles. The Victorian culture restrained women and their significance. The past Victorian women were considered to be clean, as well as innocent. However, Bram Stoker in his novel Dracula, disclosed another side of women that was never noticed. These qualities revealed by Bram Stoker are of the new woman feminist culture. The idea of sexual category roles in the 1890s differed a lot, and Dracula disputed the traditional feminist as well as masculine roles. In the Victorian period, gender roles were that of being caring and obedient. In the novel Dracula, women are expected to be respectful, to their husbands and the society. The theme of gender roles in Dracula
Lucy enjoys the attention of her male suitors and even indecently jokes about polygamy, expressing a hidden want for sexual autonomy. Once Dracula arrives in England, Lucy becomes his initial target. Lucy’s sleepwalking shapes her into an ideal victim, as she is exposed in a vulnerable state in which her subconscious yearnings are more accessible and she is also physically available to Dracula. For her break of social protocol, she is transformed into a vampire, characterized by “voluptuous wantonness” (Stoker 231). She becomes even more beautiful in her undeath, in a state where she can embrace her sexuality, which enforces the belief that visible sensuality in women is unorthodox. In addition, the traditional view of what a woman should be, a nurturer, mother, and wife, is drastically inverted for a woman who does not wish to stay confined. Lucy is denied the opportunity to be married and instead develops into a child-feasting fiend. Her susceptibility to seduction is punished with an unnatural, vulgar monstrosity. Subsequently, Lucy is finally killed and reverted to her original, pre-vampiric state, when her fiancee, the male figure she was to be subordinate to, stakes her. This action cements a patriarchal figure’s control over Lucy once again, who only then, can be returned to a peaceful state of purity, while the other two prospective suitors watch as Arthur exert his dominance over Lucy. Comparatively, the female character who survives the Dracula’s tactics is Mina who does not succumb by maintaining the socially demanded
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.
In Bram Stoker's "Dracula", Dracula is portrayed as a monster made evident by his gruesome actions. An analysis of Dracula shows that: shows his evil nature in his planning, brutally killing Lucy Westrenstra causing a violent response from Dr. Seward and others, and how his evil ways lead to his downfall. To characterize Dracula in one way, he is a ruthless, cunning monster who uses tricks, torture, and wits to manipulate people to his will. However when he trifled with some courageous people, he had no knowledge that it would be his undoing.
At first glance, Dracula is a typical vampire. He gangs all the typical qualities; sucks blood, transforms into a bat, pale with teeth, has no reflection, and is nighttime. In any case, burrowing further we see that Dracula is more than a straightforward vampire in what he speaks to. With regards to the Victorian age, Dracula speaks to the risks of secularism and the takeoff from christian esteems. Vampires have dependably been related with the Fiend, yet Stoker makes it one stride further. Dracula lives in eastern Europe among wanderers, who have dependably been