The book Dracula by Abraham Stoker is filled with many intriguing topics
and themes such as sexuality and gender. These topics and the way they are addressed in the book were very controversial when published in the late 19th and 20th centuries, and were seen as scandalous by its readers. Through this book, Bram Stoker made the idea of vampires become part of popular culture as it is today and allowed them to be interpreted as figures symbolizing sex and the transference of disease. During Stoker's era, women were looked down upon and were accused of being immoral for having sex outside of marriage and contracting any sexual diseases. These “women who lose their virtue become “fallen women,” outcasts doomed to death or secluded repentance”(Fry).
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Though these acts generally involve male participation, it is mainly the woman who must deal with the consequences, while the man is able to be free of judgement and continue his life. “The patriarchal tendencies and views of the Victorian society further enforced male superiority and dominance over women”(Podonsky). After all this being said, the question is, did some of this prejudice against women translate into the writing of Stoker's work Dracula? The answer to this question is that the thoughts held by the majority of men about women did impact what went into the book Dracula, but did not corrupt the hopeful mind of Abraham Stoker. Though this novel includes few female characters, the women who appear give readers critical insight about how women are viewed and what is expected of them. One of these women, Lucy, is a near-perfect depiction of an ideal woman of the time. She is characterized as loyal, loving, modest and aware of her position in society. To show how much men desired a woman like Lucy, Stoker has three successful men in the novel propose to her. Her response to this is very meek, and she asks her best friend Mina,“Why are men so noble when we women are so little worthy of them?”(Stoker 50).This line from Lucy makes one wonder, why does she think like this? The reason is simply that she is very much inclined to believe that as true due to the fact that she was raised in a male-driven society. Why does the author make her say these words? It may sincerely be what he believes, but more likely it is satire and Stoker is truly just revealing how women are seen as less than men. It could also be a call for women to stop thinking less of themselves and to be less dependent on the men in their lives. This is discussed in the book when Lucy is writing to her friend on the page prior and says,“women are such cowards that we think a man will save us from fears, and we marry him”(49). Stoker is practically criticizing women in this passage and is telling them to gather courage and learn how to protect and support themselves instead of being vulnerable and reliant on the other sex. Although Lucy is the ideal woman in the eyes of the majority, Stoker does not seem impressed and is searching for a more intellectual individual. Another influential female character in Dracula is Lucy's best friend and the main character's wife, Mina Harker.
Mina is a very complex person because she cannot be classified into a certain category and is not the typical woman which men are used to. She is very intelligent and is apparently well-educated. It is shown that she is a minority in her society as Professor Van Helsing tells her ,“good memory for facts, it is not always so with young women”(156). The author makes it clear that Mina is a great representation of a woman who defies expectations and provides him hope for the women in the future. Van Helsing, who is a well-known professor in England, is astonished by Mina's characteristics and makes it known to her right away that she brings him “hope, not in what I am seeking of, but that there are good women still left to make life happy”(158). He does not trust many women because he believes that they are deceitful and are easily corruptible. Mina makes him change his way of thinking and lets him know that there are still good women in this world who can provide for their own needs and also support and provide comfort to their husbands. Although she is very wise, based off of their standard for women, Mina is still not taken seriously and is often not told a lot of information simply because they do not think that she can grasp the severity of their current situation. While talking about what happened to Lucy with Van Helsing, the professor does not want to say anything, and tells her,“you do not, cannot, comprehend. Oh, but I am …show more content…
grateful to you, you so clever woman”(157). If a man who respects her intelligence feels this way, does it mean that every man felt that way about women? Do they truly believe that women at their peak are still not equal to men at their base? The worse part about biased opinions is that they often come from a kind place of heart and is unintentional. The prejudice towards women is captured through the emergence of three wicked, seductive vampires who give us a more accurate description of how women were seen in their Victorian society.
Women are viewed as the downfall of men and evil things are typically portrayed as feminine or of that nature. It is no coincidence that “the novel's “villains”, or vampires, are disproportionately female while the novel's heroes are disproportionately male”(Carol). The witches are described as beautiful temptresses who had a “deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive”(Stoker 32). In Dracula, they are his subordinates and are supposed to follow his orders and obey his commands. He is much more powerful than them, so they operate in fear of his wrath. This can symbolize the actual relationships which Stoker has witnessed in which the wife or spouse is completely dominated by their male counterpart and submit to his every demand in fear of not fulfilling their husband's wishes. The three vampires disobey their master's commands when the main character, Jonathan, comes across them and they attempt to prey on him in a very sexual manner and grasp him by arousing his sexual desires. Dracula becomes furious by this disobedience and lashes out on them. After he does this he grabs a child as a sacrifice and gives him to the witches as a person throws a steak-bone to a dog. They devour the child like rabid animals as Dracula looks down upon them as inferiors and pure
savages. Bram Stoker ends the scene with Jonathan hoping that it was all just a dream and ends up being frightened by the three subordinate vampires more than Dracula himself. The author suggests that women are often attributed the characteristics of the vampires rather than the characteristics of Mina and Lucy. It is very interesting that Stoker had created three evil women in the book in comparison to only two good depictions of women found in Mina and Lucy. He makes it very clear that Mina is nothing like the witches and has Jonathan say “I am alone in the castle with those awful women. Faugh! Mina is a woman, and there is nought in common”(45). Jonathan seems to be so overwhelmed with the foulness of women he is in contact with and almost forgets that there are still good women in this world, one of them being his future wife. This makes it transparent that there were more women who would have been identified as sinful then there were of women being seen as clean and righteous. That is why the character Mina is so important, she shows the reader that to be considered an exceptional women, she must have little to no visible flaws and must study twice as hard to even just simply be recognized as somewhat intelligent by a man. She reveals to us how women are often judged immediately and must prove to others their worth, while men do not have to face those same challenges. The text highlights this mistrust of women through Professor Van Helsing's statement to Dr. Seward about if they can ask the maids for blood to save Lucy “I fear to trust those women, even if they would have courage to submit”(127). He then later adds,“A brave man's blood is the best thing on this earth when a woman is in trouble”(128). These lines give major indications to the thought that only a man can be a hero and that even the most courageous woman would not be good enough to accomplish any major deed without the aid of a man. This way of thinking is unprogressive and will not allow society to function at its highest capacity. As we know through facts given by Barack Obama “communities that give their daughters the same opportunities as their sons, are more peaceful, are more prosperous, develop faster, are more likely to succeed." Research has proven this information, so just imagine how advanced the 19th century could have been if they had just let women have access to equal participation in society and were not seen as inferior. Many good women often ended up conforming to how society viewed them and fell into the trap of becoming another statistic. Lucy could be considered one of these women, because in the novel she gets bitten by a bat-like creature and finds her lively characteristics sucked away by what the bite mark entails. She fights her sickness for as long as she possibly can, but eventually loses the battle and transforms into one of “them”. This bat symbolizes society and how it will persistently press its views onto people until they finally crack and submit to what is expected of them. Lucy
Mina clearly demonstrates her awareness and knowledge of the New Woman movement; whereby she exhibits her familiarity of the debate by referring to the term “New Woman” twice in her journal entries. Grant Allen’s “purity school” New Woman consisted of female characters that expressed particular interest in social problems while still maintaining their propriety. This sense of knowledge is exhibited when Mina attempts to reassure the oversensitive Lucy as they stopped for a “severe tea” (Stoker 141): “I believe we should have shocked the ‘New Woman’ with our appetites. Men are more tolerant, bless them!” (Stoker 141). The New Woman was a common subject of controversy in journalism and fiction (Senf 34). Mina’s preliminary reference merely characterized her as a well-informed young woman of the 1890s. Mina remains neutral and simply suggests her familiarization with the New Woman’s assertion on greater freedom and physical activity. Bicycle riding, badminton playing and bloomer wearing women may have shocked certain conservative people of the 1890s, but they were not enough to worry Stoker’s heroine (Senf 34). Nor was it a shock to her that the New Woman was often characterized as a professional woman who was capable of financially supporting herself. After all, Mina easily fell under this category of the New Woman; her career was not an archetypal Victorian housewife. She was often “overwhelmed with work […] [because] the life of an assistant schoolmistress [was] sometimes trying” (Stoker 83). Mina is able to support herself and by using her note-taking talents she is also able to support her husband too, outside of her domestic role. This notion was revolutionary at the time. Gail Cunningham notes that while independence and in...
Mina is also vastly unlike the contemporary female Gothic tropes due to her financial independence. Although Mina could be described as the ideal Victorian lady, Stoker also managed to include qualities associated with the much feared and controversial New Woman in her. She and Lucy mock the independence of the New Woman and joke that the New Woman will try to introduce the inversion of gender roles that contemporary society feared;
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.
The passage depicts the unnatural occurrence of the female’s sexual advances, and establishes the link between vampirism and sex that is seen throughout the novel: unlike Mina and Lucy, who are idyllically virtuous and pure, these un-dead women are insatiable and dominant. Stoker takes the fantastic image of the sexual woman to its most extreme manifestation, and suggests that Harker would not only lose his reputation by indulging in these sexual acts, but also his life. The three vampires that Harker encounters in Dracula’s castle are embodiments of the ‘beautiful nightmare’ of the male Victorians; they are representations of everything that the Victorian society states that women should not be – they are sexually aggressive, ‘voluptuous’, and seductive. This sexual proficiency, though appealing, is rebuked and seen to undermine the male dominancy within the patriarchal society, and therefore must be destroyed. The notion that a woman can be both attractive and repulsive is also presented by Angela Carter in The Lady of the House of Love. The character of the countess is presented as both the predator and the prey – the victim and the vixen. Just as the female vampire in Dracula is described as “thrilling and repulsive”, the countess is described as “beautiful and ghastly”. Despite her beauty and “fragility”, the countess
The late nineteenth century Irish novelist, Bram Stoker is most famous for creating Dracula, one of the most popular and well-known vampire stories ever written. Dracula is a gothic, “horror novel about a vampire named Count Dracula who is looking to move from his native country of Transylvania to England” (Shmoop Editorial Team). Unbeknownst of Dracula’s plans, Jonathan Harker, a young English lawyer, traveled to Castle Dracula to help the count with his plans and talk to him about all his options. At first Jonathan was surprised by the Count’s knowledge, politeness, and overall hospitality. However, the longer Jonathan remained in the castle the more uneasy and suspicious he became as he began to realize just how strange and different Dracula was. As the story unfolded, Jonathan realized he is not just a guest, but a prisoner as well. The horror in the novel not only focuses on the “vampiric nature” (Soyokaze), but also on the fear and threat of female sexual expression and aggression in such a conservative Victorian society.
Victorian Women were highly held back in their full potential. Their main role in the household was to “be happy - a sunbeam in the house, making others happy” (Hardy, E.J. 1887). On top of this, Women in the Victorian era were not allowed to display their sexuality or “tempt” men in public; they were meant to be submissive and meek (Causey S., 2008). The Victorian era lasted from 1837 til 1901, with women being punished everyday for crimes that are nowadays just part of living for a woman. Bram Stoker was born during this era and wrote his most famous novel, Dracula (Miller, E. unknown). One of the main discourses in this novel is that of Women and their Morality of the time.
Bram Stoker’s use of gender inversion is first evident in the novel when Dracula’s voluptuous brides attempt to seduce Johnathan Harker. “In an agony of delightful anticipation”, “The blonde girl's “deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive awaiting consummation with eyes closed in languorous ecstasy” (p. 48) Johnathan being quite coy “responds” to this occurrence by taking the approach “What happens in Transylvania stays in Transylvania.” As the three women lean over Johnathan he is attracted by their “red” succulent lips on his throat “so powerful an ambivalence, generating both errant erotic impulses”, but when the brides are about to feast and devour Johnathan, Dracula suddenly appears and puts an end to the party. Dracula openly displays his uncontrolled dominance over these women by saying “How...
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
As the saying goes, “Women can do everything Men can do.” In the Gothic Novel Dracula by Bram Stoker, there is a constant theme of sexuality, from both male and females in society. In the Victorian era, the roles of male and females have caused a lot of tension. After reading Dracula, some would argue the roles men and women hold in society. As mentioned in Dr. Seward’s Dairy from Val Halsing., “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 combination” (Stoker and Hindle, 2003 250). A women’s mind is not the always the first thing on a males mind. Some would overlook what a woman really has to offer.
Dracula accentuates the lust for sexuality through the main characters by contrasting it with the fears of the feminine sexuality during the Victorian period. In Victorian society, according to Dr.William Acton, a doctor during the Victorian period argued that a woman was either labelled as innocent and pure, or a wife and mother. If a woman was unable to fit in these precincts, consequently as a result she would be disdained and unfit for society and be classified as a whore (Acton, 180). The categorizing of woman is projected through the “uses the characters of Lucy and Mina as examples of the Victorian ideal of a proper woman, and the “weird sisters” as an example of women who are as bold as to ignore cultural boundaries of sexuality and societal constraints” according to Andrew Crockett from the UC Santa Barbara department of English (Andrew Cro...
Bram Stoker craftily allows women to take charge, though at times he allows them to seem pitiful creatures in need of male protection and care. Through the word "journal" in reference to Mina's writings, Stoker allows her to be equal with her male companions. She is also put on the level by being allowed to travel and be an active part of their discussions and works.
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’s novel Dracula, is a highly controversial work of fiction that is still being read for the first time today. Dracula touches many different categories including; sci-fi horror to 1800’s English romance literature. This is the main reason why the novel Dracula can be analyzed in many different ways using many different literary theories. The theory which stuck out most to me while reading this novel was the Feminist Theory. The Feminist Theory cannot be used to analyze Dracula as a whole novel, but it can be used in order to analyze the different female characters throughout the book. Therefore, Bram Stoker’s Dracula can be analyzed through the feminist theory by focusing on the characters Mina Harker, Lucy Westenra, and the three brides of Dracula.
The death of the child in Dracula and the death of babies in the book, Night, represents that children and women were depicted as feeble and fragile, which could represent the reformation of the belief that all children and women are feeble. In the book, Dracula, vampires often target those weaker to them. For example, Dracula would often feast upon women, while, female vampires would often target children. Therefore, the death of the child in Dracula represents the purification of the belief of natural weakness, "If my ears did not deceive me there was a gasp and a low wail, as of a half-smothered child. The women closed round, whilst I was aghast with horror, but as I looked they disappeared and with them the dreadful bad" (Stoker 42). Thus,
During the late 1800's, when this novel takes place, the woman's Suffrage movement was gaining momentum in Europe. It is said that Mina read about these new ideas and seemed to wonder how events in her own life would be seen by the New Woman. Including whether they would think she may eat to heartily for a woman. Although she is interested in the concepts, she does not see herself as living this way. Any new skills she learns are for the b...