Victorian Women's Roles In Dracula By Bram Stoker

Victorian Women Roles in Dracula

The purpose is to examine the women social norms and differentiate them in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. During the Victorian era, the gender roles between men and women were defined by culture and society; it also was reflected by the literature throughout that period of time. In Dracula, the author reinforces and challenges those social norms through his characters and storyline. Throughout the novel, the characters distinguish many references related to masculinity and femininity. The characters demonstrate stereotypical interpretations of those gender norms, and the men are portrayed to play the more dominant roles versus the women upheld the more domesticated roles. In the story, Dracula defies those norms by

using sexuality to break through the social obstacles. Dracula’s intentions and doings marked a huge impression in the story, which pushes the boundaries of the ideal Victorian roles.
In Victorian era, the positions between men and women were understood to be contrary of each other.

Women were depicted to be pure and innocent while preserving their virginity until marriage. They were also expected to evolve into the ideal wives and homemakers. In Dracula, Mina Murray and Lucy Westenra are the main female characters in the story, and both characters are affected directly and indirectly by Dracula’s negative endeavors. In the beginning of the story, Mina and Lucy exchange letters to each other. These two characters represent two concepts, the Victorian Woman and the “New Woman.” Mina embodies the paramount illustration of a traditional Victorian woman. She is described as a schoolmistress, and she maintains her relationship with Jonathan Harker whom she eventually marries. Mina attempts to achieve the life pressured by Victorian principles, and she is unconditionally loyal to Jonathan especially throughout his mental breakdown after his visit with Count Dracula. In her letters, Mina expresses that she desires to become a good wife and mother in her marriage with Jonathan. After she marries Jonathan, she expresses with joy that she is “the happiest woman in all the wide world” (Stoker

235). She writes that her life will entail of “love and duty for all the days of her life” (Stoker 237). She describes a sense of duty towards Jonathan, and appreciates her responsibilities as his spouse. In her article, Senf mentions how Mina has trained herself for the traditional role especially when she states, “you can't go on for some years teaching etiquette and decorum to other girls without the pedantry of it biting into yourself a bit” (Stoker 337), and describes how Mina embraces the traditional feminine heroine, which differentiates her from Lucy in the story. In addition, the conventional manner that wives should uphold to their husbands, Mina correspondingly believes in the role as a mother. Within the story, even though Lucy and Dracula’s female vampires target children, Mina undoubtedly considers motherhood as an essential social role. She translates into the mother-figure role to the rest of the other characters:
I felt an infinite pity for him, and opened my arms unthinkingly. With a sob he laid his head on my shoulder, and cried like a wearied child, whilst he shook with emotion. We women have something of the mother in us that makes us rise above smaller matters when the mother-spirit is invoked; I felt this big, sorrowing man's head resting on me, as though it were that of the baby that some day may lie on my bosom, and I stroked his hair as though he were my own child (Stoker 512).
The awareness of Mina’s personality makes it evident of the Victorian ideals she reserves.
On the contrary, women challenged the conventional ways during those times as the Victorian era evolved in attempt to gain gender equivalence.

These women pursued and aimed for the idea of a “New Woman,” which meant to be liberal and not fit into the norms of social roles. According to Senf, “New Woman” roles explored through the domains of education, and financial independence. Women wanted to be emancipated from the demands of culture and society, and freely express their thoughts. Some women were successful in conquering the idea of the “New Woman,” while others were still under the authority of the dominant male. The expanding influence of the women may have left men powerless, but it resulted to promote the ideas of the “New Woman.” In the story, Dracula causes the commotion of giving women the sexual power in which society at time suppressed and inhibited. According to Miller, Dracula is used to instill fear within the characters and society because of his ability to liberate female sexuality. In the story, when Lucy is bitten by Dracula it symbolizes the liberation from her traditional role in society, and at the same time she created into a sexual being. Upon this transformation, Lucy represents women who emancipate themselves from the Victorian woman. In the beginning of the story, prior to Lucy transforming into a vampire, she is described as pure, innocent and scenic. She exchanges letters with Mina, and in one letter she

expresses:
Here am I, who shall be twenty in September, and yet I never had a proposal till today, not a real proposal, and today I had three. Just fancy! Three proposals in one day! ...Oh, Mina, I am so happy that I don't know what to do with myself. And three proposals! (Stoker 129)
Lucy illustrates a sweet and flirtatious image, and seems to have charmed herself into the hearts of three men. She receives three proposals and accepts one of them. During this time, women dedicated themselves to one man, yet Lucy fancies the idea of being proposed by three men. She states, “Why can't they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble? But this is heresy, and I must not say it” (Stoker 135), and this behavioral would not be acceptable in social norms. Lucy seems to lack a sense of discipline in comparison to Mina. In this quote, she is confessing her inappropriate wishful thinking, and admits that it is unorthodox to say because she understands that it is not within the standards of society. Furthermore, when Dracula empowers Lucy’s sexuality, the transformation seems to amplify her reserved sexual yearnings. Not only does Stoker portray Lucy the opposite of the conventional Victorian woman, but he also illustrates her as an incapable mother and unsuitable wife:
With a careless motion, she flung to the ground...the child that up to now she had clutched strenuously to her breast, growling over it as a dog growls over a bone. The child gave a sharp cry, and lay there moaning. There was a cold-bloodedness in the act which wrung a groan from Arthur (Stoker 472).
Lucy is a threat to the dominance of men and she furthermore embodies the idea of the “New Woman.”
At the end of this story, Stoker continues to restore the different social domains of the Victorian age, Dracula is demolished while the female sexual empowerment is contained and imprisoned, and the social norms are maintained. The goal was to reestablish what women were anticipated to achieve, and keep the intended gender roles maintained.