We are introduced to two particular women in the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker. These two women are Mina Harker and Lucy Westenra. These women were presented to serve as Foil characters and show the two types of women: the pure and the vulnerable.Early in to the novel, they were described as the stereotypical perfect women in this era. As the story progresses , significant differences are shown by both women. Lucy will show the difference between which allows Dracula to capture her with his spell first. This will show the similarities and differences of MIna Harker and Lucy Westenra.
Mina Harker is the embodiment of the stereotypical Victorian era woman. Dr. Van Helsing , a Dutch professor described her as a heavenly woman. Dr. Van Helsing said "'She is one of God's women, fashioned by His own hand to show us men and other women that there is a heaven where we can
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enter, and that its light can be here on earth. So true, so sweet, so noble, so little an egoist - and that, let me tell you, is much in this age, so skeptical and selfish.'" (Chapter 14) This shows Van Helsing describing and praising the ideal Victorian womanhood. Keeping her innocence and purity while being a captive of the main antagonist , Dracula , was one of her biggest obstacles. In one incident , where Dracula was sucking her blood, a wafer was put on her head leaving mark , she yelled , "Unclean! Unclean! Even the Almighty shuns my polluted flesh! I must bear this mark of shame upon my forehead until the Judgement Day." (Chapter 22) This proved that she would remain pure and innocent and showed the perseverance she had.The purity and innocence she had helped her stay to her roots and traditions. Mina also has a characteristic that should be foreign to women. She is a man’s greatest desire but is also a man’s greatest weakness. She is docile towards men but is also very intellectual around them. In summary, she did not change from the Victorian woman she was even after the conflicts she had. Lucy Westenra is affectionate and vulnerable. She is described as naive, youthful, and playful. Near the beginning of the novel, we find out she has three lovers and has to choose one. While talking to Mina she says "Why can't they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble?" (Chapter 5) She’s the type of person to light herself on fire to keep others warm. She’s very indecisive about what she wants in life. Hence, she could be manipulated easily. She is also sensitive and voluptuous. The gap difference of self control separates Mina and Lucy. Which could add to the reason which allowed Count Dracula to possess her first. The self-control Mina had allowed her to seek God when Dracula came for her.
For example she would say , “God pity me! Look down on a poor soul in worse than mortal peril. And in mercy pity those to whom she is dear!" Then she began to rub her lips as though to cleanse them from pollution.” (Chapter 21) Lucy on the other hand has less self-control and acted helpless. She would try to forget what happened with Dracula. In the end, while Mina and Lucy went through the same struggle, only Mina went back to her pure state of being. Lucy turned into a vampire. As a vampire, her unpleasant qualities were more obvious than when she was pure.” Lucy's eyes in form and colour, but Lucy's eyes unclean and full of hell fire, instead of the pure, gentle orbs we knew. At that moment the remnant of my love passed into hate and loathing. Had she then to be killed, I could have done it with savage delight. As she looked, her eyes blazed with unholy light, and the face became wreathed with a voluptuous smile.” (Chapter 16 pg.3) Sadly, Lucy was a threat to everyone. So the only way to get her innocence back was by
death. These two women who had similar qualities but also great differences were used to highlight Dracula. In this period of time, women were stereotyped to be pure, refined , chaster and modest. Women were stereotyped to flawlessness. The difference between Mina Harker and Lucy Westenra showed women who were pure and women who were vulnerable. Mina who was intelligent , clever and kind-hearted was able to fight her obstacles and keep her pureness. While Lucy who was timid and naive fell under the power of Dracula and was never able to achieve her aspirations. These two women portrayed how Bram Stoker saw how people should act no matter how hard any obstacle is.
Dracula has many themes which are represented by the characters themselves. While the most prominent theme included the focus on the imbalance of religion and science, a very subtle but important statement was made about the impact of evil on women. The graveyard scene summarizes Lucy’s progression from an innocent girl to an evil temptress. Not only does this apply specifically to women but anyone who is turned by Dracula.
To conclude, Mina Harker is not quite a gothic damsel nor is she a heroine but a blend of the two. She is the ultimate Victorian woman and Van Helsing’s praise of Mina testifies to the fact that she is indeed the embodiment of the virtues of the age. She is
...have a strong desire to maintain control within and outside of marriage, they also have the support of a male dominated society. Stoker displays this struggle in the main characters of Dracula. Lucy Westerna is the obtuse, innocent, fragile, yet sultry siren of male desire; her aggressive sexual power is threatening to the Victorian man, making her not quite pure enough of mind or strong enough of will to be saved. On the other hand, Mina Murray Harker is a clever, unadulterated, strong, yet motherly woman, the kind of woman all women should strive to be. Therefore she is deemed superlative and worthy of salvage.
In Dracula, Bram Stoker explores the fantastic image of a sexually dominant woman within a patriarchal society. The battle between good and evil within the novel very much hinges upon feminine sexuality: Lucy and Nina are embodiments of the Victorian virtues, which Dracula threatens to corrupt,
“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...
Stoker uses 5 women in total to portray the Women discourse. The first is Mina Murray, a sensible young woman engaged to the main protagonist of the novel, Johnathon Harker. Mina is a highly educated woman for her time and was very fortunate to have a job as a teacher. Ms Murray, as well as being in the women discourse, is also one half of another very important discourse by Stoker: East meets West, or in other words, Traditional vs. . Mina represents the West and the good side of Women, abiding by the laws of society. The East and the evil is represented by Dracula’s three brides.
In Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, Stoker’s use of inverted gender roles allows readers to grasp the sense of obscureness throughout, eventually leading to the reader’s realization that these characters are rather similar to the “monster” which they call Dracula. Despite being in the Victorian era, Stoker’s use of sexuality in the novel contributes to the reasoning of obscureness going against the Victorian morals and values. Throughout the novel the stereotypical roles of the Victorian man and woman are inverted to draw attention to the similarities between Dracula and the characters. Vague to a majority of readers, Bram Stoker uses Dracula as a negative connotation on society being that the values of the Victorian culture are inverted amongst the sexes of characters, thus pointing out the similarities of the characters and the so called “monster” which they call Dracula.
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 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.
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, 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 Crockett, 1).... ... middle of paper ...
Similar to almost every piece of literature ever created, Dracula by Bram Stoker has been interpreted many different ways, being torn at from every angle possible. Just as one might find interest in interpreting novels differently, he or she might also find interest in the plot, prose, or theme, all of which ultimately lead to the novels overall tone. Throughout the novel, it becomes blatant that the novel contains an underlying theme of female incompetence and inferiority. Through a true feminist’s eyes, this analysis can clearly be understood by highlighting the actions of Mina and Lucy, the obvious inferior females in the book. Through Stoker’s complete and utter manipulation of Mina and Lucy, he practically forces the reader to analyze the co-existence of dominant males and inferior females in society and to simultaneously accept the fact that the actual text of Dracula is reinforcing the typical female stereotypes that have developed throughout the ages.
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.
In reading Bram Stoker's Dracula, I find the treatment of the two main female characters-- Lucy Westenra and Mina Harker-- especially intriguing. These two women are two opposite archetypes created by a society of threatened men trying to protect themselves.
There are a few characters in Dracula that embody society’s views of the time towards the uprising of women for better rights. On the other hand there are also characters that portray the Victorian ideals that men are stronger than women and how it should stay that way. As author Bram Dijkstra mentions in his response essay, “Stokers work demonstrates how thoroughly the war waged by the nineteenth century male culture against the dignity and self -respect of women had been fought”.(Dijkstra , p.460).
Bram Stoker’s Dracula is the story about how the small company of men and a woman lead by Professor Abraham Van Helsing combats against Count Dracula, who moves from Transylvania to England in order to manipulate people as “foul things of the night like him, without heart or conscience, preying on the bodies and the souls of those [they] love best” (223). Stoker employs an epistolary format in this novel and nowadays, Dracula becomes one of popular literary works representing epistolary novels written in the nineteenth century. The term “epistolary novels” refers to the novels composed of different types of documents, such as journals, letters, newspaper clippings and so forth. One of the effects created by using an epistolary format is providing the characters’ inner state throughout the story, which “focuse[s] on a broader exploration of the insights that made up the conscious self by and [the broader context]” (Ştefan 73). Consequently, Stoker’s use of fragmentary narratives delivers the main characters’ emotions and thoughts in more picturesque ways. In Dracula, the epistolary format of the novel increases terror and suspense, which derived from tension when the story alters after alluding characters’ insecure future and immense power of Dracula affecting not only the main characters, but the third parties who are irrelevant to them.