Sexuality In Bram Stoker's Dracula

Female Sexuality in Dracula

‘The New Woman’ was a term that arose in the Victorian era. The term was a reaction against the long-held notions of femininity and the proper social sphere for women. Many people of the Victorian era were against this alternative lifestyle, which gave women new found freedom in many aspects of their lives. Bram Stoker use the women in Dracula as a tool to insist that if Victorian women evolve into ‘The New Woman’, they need to continue to submit to men and continue to be maternal people with no sexual desire.

‘Good’ women in the Victorian era were believed to have no sex drive. The three vampire women in Dracula, represent women who are in tune with their sexuality. Although the Vampire women make appearances

The one striking difference that separates Lucy from Mina is that she is sexualized. This one difference is what ultimately seals her destiny to one of destruction and a morbid death, instead of living out a happy life as Mina does. The audience is first shown Lucy’s promiscuity in her letter to Mina where she flirtatiously asks “Why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all the trouble? But this is heresy and I must not say it” (Stoker 65). Lucy desires to break free of the restraints that society has put on Victorian women. It also implies that she has desires that simply cannot be met by becoming a house

‘Blood transfusion’ and ‘sexual intercourse’ are interchangeable in Dracula, just as ‘blood’ and ‘semen’ are considered one in the same. Lucy becomes more degraded and more defiant during each “blood transfusion”. She also needs more blood from multiple men in order to survive. Stoker's idea behind this is that a woman with a sexual appetite will always be hungry for more, and she will always look for more partners. Van Helsing understands that the transfusions are sexual and both participants are being degraded with each transfusion, yet continues on. He exclaims, “Ho, ho! Then though this sweet maid is a polyandrist, and me, with my poor wife dead to me, but alive by Churches laws, though no wits, all gone-even I, who am faithful husband to this now-no-wife, am bigamist” (Stoker 187). Lucy is sucking the very life out of the men during blood transfusion as sexual women are draining men of their power. The idea is that a whorish woman will turn a decent man into a barbarian whose only focus is