Gender Roles In Bram Stoker's Dracula

Victorian England, as depicted in Bram Stoker’s Dracula was a much different time then the world that we live in today, this much should be obvious. The biggest difference, perhaps, is the one that is seen through the gender roles expressed in the novel. In Victorian England women were expected to maintain their chastity, at least until marriage or they would be shunned from society, or looked down upon. Once married they had “womanly duties” that were expected of them, duties that depended on them taking care of the home sphere of Victorian life. As could be imagined, men were expected to be chivalrous, “knights in shining armor,” who provided and protected for their families. But I feel as if in Dracula, the main characters experience a

kind of shift in the normal gender roles of the time. Mina Murray, Dracula, Johnathon Harker, and Lucy Westenra, are all characters that exist in the Victorian Era, but do not truly convey the stereotypical gender roles of Victorian England.
Mina Murray is in many ways the typical Victorian Woman, she remains chaste until marriage, and it seems like through most of the second half of the novel, Van Helsing and his crew seem hell bent on protecting her virtuous state. However, I feel like Mina is less of a pure Victorian woman than what is expected of her. For one, she uses the typewriter and can take care of herself financially. During this time period it was very rare for a woman to be so stable on her own, without a man’s help, and even less common than that was a woman was able to learn and then properly use technology, another thing that was generally associated with men. But it goes further beyond that, considering that Mina is “part of the gang.” She plays a crucial role in the downfall of Dracula, and she shows off her intelligence as well, proving that she may be more of a woman that fits into the norm of today’s society rather than a woman of the Victorian Era. However, despite all of these factors, she still plays her role in Victorian society, a much more oppressive time for women. “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 a combination” (Stoker, 201). A female such as Mina was coveted by the men of the novel, a “true” Victorian woman, but the case of Lucy was a much different story.
In many regards, Lucy Westenra was much like Mina Murray at the start of the novel, your typical, run-of-the-mill Victorian woman. But her features draw not one, but three suitors to her and she plays the role of a “flirt” much more comfortably than a Victorian woman should. In fact there are several times in the book, where I thought that although she scoffs at the idea because that would be considered unacceptable, there was a part of her that wouldn’t mind succumbing to lesser desires. This character trait was one of the main differences between the book and the movie by Francis Ford Coppola, where Lucy’s “flirty-ness” was much more exaggerated than it should’ve been. However, in the novel, once she is seduced by Dracula, her worst desires become seen when she becomes undead and has more of a craving, one that would not be accepted in the society as it stood in the novel. In many ways it was her baser desires that led to her demise in the first place. It wasn’t until she was finally defeated at the hands of the group that she returned to a more socially acceptable state. In a sense, I kind of saw Stoker’s portrayal of the two main female characters as opposite sides of the spectrum. Lucy was a warning, an “after-school special,” of what could happen if a woman gave into promiscuity, beyond turning into a Vampire and dying. Mina on the other hand was woman who played by the Victorian rules, even though there were times that it seemed that she stepped out of that role, which is why she survived and was never lost at the hands of Dracula.
Jonathon Harker is one of the major characters that plays an important role in the downfall of Dracula, and in many ways, he is supposed to be the image of a “true” Victorian man.

He makes an honest woman out of Mina and protects her from the dangers posed by Count Dracula, providing and protecting like the male hero he is depicted as. However, there is a part in the novel where this image of Harker being a typical Victorian Era male is shifted: and that is when he is the prisoner at the hand of Dracula’s wives. In many ways, Harker takes on the role of the “Damsel in Distress,” allowing the women to feed off of him without fighting back, and also being rescued from the female vampires by Count Dracula himself. Dracula even claims ownership over Harker, saying, "How dare you touch him, any of you? …This man belongs to me! …Yes, I too can love…I promise you that when I am done with him you shall kiss him at your will" (Stoker 46). In a way this puts Harker in a female position, in the sense that he belongs to Dracula. Following his escape from the castle, we see him questioning his sanity and his reality, going into fits of hysteria, “. . . In his delirium his ravings have been dreadful; of wolves and poison and blood; of ghosts and demons” (Stoker, 131-132). It wasn’t until after his medical recovery after six weeks that he is able to take on that role again, as a true Victorian man who marries and then saves Mina. So, yes, Harker is the image of what a Victorian man

should be, like Mina is a true Victorian woman. But like his wife we can see parts of the books where he does not take on the stereotypical characteristics of his gender. The source of both these gender roles becoming skewed and the corruption of the characters of Mina, Lucy, and Harker, all come from the same source: Count Dracula and Vampirism.
Count Dracula is not your typical Victorian Man.

For one, he is a Vampire. In Victorian Society as I have previously, it was typical for a man to commit himself to one woman only and vice versa. However, the way that Dracula planned on creating his empire was by seducing several women and using them to turn men. As a vampire, he uses his powers of seduction to control people to do his bidding, and has the effect on both men and women. Because he seduces several women using deception in the cover of night, and drinks their blood so that he can turn them into the undead, he kind of takes on the role of a promiscuous man. Granted his intentions with these women are not the same as a typical man, because he wants to turn them into his vampire servants. But his actions are kind of “taboo” for the time, and may, in some way, show the hidden desires of men during this time period; desires that men couldn’t act on because of the connotation that these desires were associated with during the Victorian era. So Dracula, like many of the other characters in the novel, takes on characteristics that aren’t typically expressed in the particular genders of this time

period.
In conclusion, Bram Stoker’s Dracula is an accurate depiction of Victorian England, but one that pushes the boundaries of typical gender roles. In many ways the gender roles of the main characters in the novel are skewed. Jonathon Harker acts more feminine then masculine in the beginning of the novel, becoming more of a “Damsel in Distress” than anything. Mina Murray proves that she is one of the guys and plays and integral part in the defeat of Dracula. Lucy has extremely promiscuous desires and acts upon them once she becomes undead, much like the desires that Dracula acts on from the start of the novel. However, it is only when the characters return to the accepted gender roles, like Mina and Jonathon, that they survive, while the negative qualities that are not accepted play a role in the downfall of both Dracula and Lucy.