Gender Stereotypes In Dracula

The Victorian era was a very conservative time when Western society was entirely patriarchal and gender roles where extremely strict. Dracula challenges this normative society by operating under the fear of “the queer” or unnatural. Bram Stoker’s queer, alien characters pervert gender roles in horrific ways and are punished with dire consequences. There are two main sources of these gender role perversions: the Count and every female character. It is striking that the two sources of the horror-creating “queer” are a blood-sucking undead monster, and women. By thus placing women who defy gender norms in a similar category with a monstrous antagonist, Dracula supports the return to traditional gender roles through the extermination

of the queer alien.
The novel Dracula upholds the norm of monogamy and consequently stresses the danger that arises from promiscuity and courting multiple partners.

The character that most obviously places this danger into perspective would be Lucy. Although Lucy ends up committing herself to only one partner, it does not stop her for being interested in the possibility of being with three men at once (61). The mere thought of polygyny was enough for the story to progress in such a way that Lucy would end up becoming a monster and being killed at the hands of each man that she attracted (227). Another warning comes in the form of the three vampire women that the Count houses. Their seductive appearance and sexual teases almost seduce Harker to death and Van Helsing to a stalemate (39, 391). Even Mina, when forced into the arms of another man while she was still married to Harker, would slowly turn into an undead because of her

nigh-

adulterous actions (297). Thus, it would seem, anyone who willingly or unwillingly succumbs to polygamous, norm-defying, relationships, regardless of how brief, suffers fatal consequences. However, it is important to note that the Count force feeding Mina is similar to a rape. Therefore, even though the act makes Mina “unclean” and “polluted [her] flesh” she was still redeemable and saved at the end of the story (313). Mina’s fate contrasts with that of Lucy, who willingly falls into debauchery and is seemingly unredeemable, and therefore killed.
The second large perversion of gender roles in Dracula that creates the horror of the “queer” is the distortion of motherhood that is littered throughout the novel.

The first instance shown is the three vampire women who feed on the child that the Count brings them (41). Traditional maternity roles are heavily distorted in this scene. Firstly, it is the Count, a man, who is literally delivering a child to his wives, instead of his wives giving him a child. Secondly, the role of a mother is to provide nourishment and protection to children, but the vampires end up taking nourishment from the child by feeding on it and they spit on the values of motherhood by taking the child’s life. This is not a unique characteristic of Dracula’s harem either, for when Lucy turns into a vampire she begins to feed on children in a similar manner (222). In the novel, being a female monster is synonymous with being a perverse mother. Another prominent example is when the Count force feeds Mina from his chest (297). In this instance, instead of a mother feeding a baby with her breast milk to give her child life, a grown man force feeds a grown woman with his blood from his chest to give her un-life. The imagery is very

deliberate

as the Count could have achieved the same goals through a cut on his wrist, but instead purposefully decided to breast feed Mina.
All the vampires and would-be vampires (such as Lucy and Mina) clearly identify with what is classified as the queer. Their existence in Victorian England defies gender norms by embracing promiscuity and the perversion of motherhood. These queer creatures are portrayed as blood thirsty monsters and deemed worthy of killing at all costs. In other words, extremely invasive and defensive acts of disturbing graves, breaking into homes, and murder are all portrayed as necessary and justifiable in order to preserve the supposedly natural gender roles of Victorian society. The alien in this case, the vampire, then, personifies the dangers of the “queer” and promotes the preservation of traditional gender roles.