Theme Of Gender In Dracula

In the novel, Dracula, by Bram Stoker, we are introduced to two specific ladies that are essential to the essence of this gothic, horror novel. These two women are Mina Harker and Lucy Westenra. The purpose for these two women was for Stoke to clearly depict the two types of women: the innocent and the contaminated. In the beginning, the women were both examples of the stereotypical flawless women of this time period. However, as the novel seems to progress, major differences are bound to arise. Although both women, Lucy and Mina, share the same innocent characteristics, it’s more ascertain that with naïve and inability of self control, Lucy creates a boundary that shows the difference between these two ladies and ultimately causes her

(Stoker 80). Lucy wants to be free from societal marriage constraints and pursue all the men; however, societal constraints decide that she can only be with one man, Arthur Holmwood. She writes to Mina, ?You and I, Mina dear, who are engaged and are going to settle down soon soberly in to old married women? (Stoker 78). Lucy follows the collective belief that marriage institutes settling down with one man.

In Dracula, Stoker portrays the typical women: The new woman, the femme fatale and the damsel in distress, all common concepts in gothic literature. There are three predominant female roles within Dracula: Mina Murray, Lucy Westenra and the three vampire brides, all of which possess different attributes and play different roles within the novel. It is apparent that the feminine portrayal within this novel, especially the sexual nature, is an un-doubtable strong, reoccurring theme.

Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” is a story about a Vampire named Count Dracula and his journey to satisfy his lust for blood. The story is told through a series of individuals’ journal entries and a letters sent back and forth between characters. Bram Stoker shows the roll in which a certain gender plays in the Victorian era through the works of Dracula. This discussion not only consists of the roll a certain gender takes, but will be discussing how a certain gender fits into the culture of that time period as well as how males and females interact among each other. The Victorian era was extremely conservative when it came to the female, however there are signs of the changing into the New Woman inside of Dracula. Essentially the woman was to be assistance to a man and stay pure inside of their ways.

Dracula is a novel written by Bram Stoker during the late 1800’s. The book starts out with Jonathan Harker, who is a smart young business man, who wants to travel to Count Dracula for a business ordeal. Many locals from the European area warned Jonathan about Count Dracula, and would offer him crosses and other trinkets to help fend against him. Mina, who is at the time Jonathans soon to be wife, visits to catch up with an old friend named Lucy Westenra. Lucy gives Mina an update on her love life telling her how she’s been proposed to by three different men. The men are introduced as Dr. Seward, Arthur Holmwood, and Quincey Morris. Unfortunately for her she will need to reject two of the men, and Lucy ends up choosing to marry Holmwood. Later on after Mina visits Lucy, Lucy starts to sleep walk, becomes sick, and then finds out she has bite marks on her throat. Due to this incident, another new character is introduced who happens to be Van Helsing. As the novel progresses, lady vampires are introduced and Lucy is eventually turned into one of the lady vampires as well. With the introduction of female vampires, the novel Dracula turns into a sexual and sensational novel by Bram Stoker. The female characters in the book are overly sexualized to where we can compare it to how women are viewed from back then in history to today’s world.

Have you ever wondered why women are the way they are today? Well, Dracula takes a very good look at how women were once treated and hints at what they will evolve into. Dracula takes place during the Victorian Era where women were considered less than men. Dracula was written back in 1897 and contains Religious references that aid the main characters to subdue the cruel vampire known as Dracula. During the Victorian Era women were stay at home wives and their only job was to have children and to tidy up the house. They were devoted to their husband and everything they did was to benefit their husband. Women were viewed as fragile creatures that should not be involved in anything dangerous. However, some of these women, such as the three vampire sisters, are very dangerous, capable of killing children so that they may live longer, which contradicts the thought that women are fragile and need protecting. In Bram Stoker’s Dracula the role of Victorian women in England have continuously evolved into what women are today.

The Portrayal of Mina in Dracula ans Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula analyzes the portrayal of Mina in both novel and film, it is found that Coppola has strengthened Mina’s role in making her part of staar-crossed-lovers and has given her supernatural power. She stated that Mina has moved from a woman oppressed by Victorian norms to one that is a reincarnation of someone else (in the film) being ruled and oppressed by male power. Moreover, in the film Mina is even less emancipated than in stoker’s novel because the submitting of dominance of Dracula by

In his Literary Theory: The Basics, H. Bertens classifies stereotypes of women in literature into a number of categories; dangerous seductress, self-sacrificing angel, dissatisfied shrew, and defenseless lamb, completely incapable of self-sufficiency, or self-control, and dependent on male intervention. Bertens concludes that the primary objective of these women – or “constructions” – is to serve a “not-so-hidden purpose: the continued cultural and social domination of males”. One such novel that came under feminist scrutiny for these particular reasons was Bram Stoker’s Dracula, although this perlustration didn’t occur until 70 years after Stoker originally penned his masterpiece. However, during the mid-1960s, the rise of the feminist

The first relationship explored in the novel, that of Dracula and Jonathan, defies the constraints of heteronormative sexuality. Dracula’s interest in seducing, penetrating and draining another male are desires that are acted out in the novel, however not solely by the Count himself, but instead by his three vampiric paramours. The homoerotic desire between Dracula and Jonathan is offered a feminine form for the masculine penetration that is being detailed (Craft,

In the late 19th century, when Dracula by Bram Stoker is written, women were only perceived as conservative housewives, only tending to their family’s needs and being solely dependent of their husbands to provide for them. This novel portrays that completely in accordance to Mina Harker, but Lucy Westenra is the complete opposite. Lucy parades around in just her demeanor as a promiscuous and sexual person. While Mina only cares about learning new things in order to assist her soon-to-be husband Jonathan Harker. Lucy and Mina both become victims of vampirism in the novel. Mina is fortunate but Lucy is not. Overall, the assumption of women as the weaker specimen is greatly immense in the late 19th century. There are also many underlying

Working as schoolmistress and takes an interest in her husband's work, which is unheard of during that time. Mina Murray also shows unyielding devotion to Jonathan for when she hears from him, goes to his bedside immediately to nurse him. The innocence, chaste, and purity slowly diminishes as Dracula makes his influence on both of the girls making them voluptuous beings like his three brides. As Lucy succumbs to illness she becomes more and more unlike a perfect Victorian woman prior to Dracula’s impact on her. Although she becomes weaker, paler, and closer to death, the woman becomes a wantonness being who her suitors admire and are afraid of.

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

Dracula is a novel that indulges its male reader’s imagination, predominantly on the topic of female sexuality. When Dracula was first published, Victorian women’s sexual behaviour was extremely restricted by social expectations. To be classed as respectable, a women was either a virgin or a wife. If she was not either, she was considered a whore. We begin to understand once Dracula arrives in Whitby, that the novel has an underlying battle between good and evil, which will hinge on female sexuality. Both Lucy Westenra and Wilhelmina “Mina” Murray embody two-dimensional virtues that have been associated with female. They are both virgins, whom are innocent from the evils of the world and that are devoted to their men. Dracula’s arrival threatens those virtues, threatening to turn Lucy and Mina into the opposites, noted for their voluptuousness, which could lead to an open sexual desire.

Critical analysis of the novel reveals the themes of sexuality and the buried symbols held within the text. Due to feminism and sexual ideas presented in the book, the stories focus the attention on men who fall victims of the forbidden female pleasures and fantasy. From the setting of Dracula, Victoria Era, the novel encompasses all social prejudices and beliefs regarding the roles assigned to women and men. Men used to have enough freedom and lifted up to authority while women were suppressed socially. Bram Stoker uses the two women; Lucy Westenra and Mina Harker and Professor Van Helsing to express the ideal women should be and should not be in the ideal society. The dissenting opinion gives threat to the patriarchal Victorian society to end in ruins.

These women would often rely on men to make decisions for them or take them out of danger. Lucy Westenra in Dracula relies on all of her suitors to save her, but she herself can only think of men; Lucy personifies a “good” Victorian woman. She leaves all the important thinking to the men and inevitability dies. Society raised and encouraged her to be weak, while the same society taught the men in her life to be strong. While Lucy is a weak woman, Mina Harker is a bit stronger. Mina had ideas of her own and even showed masculine traits. In Pages from a Virgin’s Diary, Mina is not sexually oblivious as Lucy was when she tries to seduce her fiancé. She survives the vampire attacks, while her weaker counterpart, Lucy, does not. While Mina still relies on the men around her to save her, she also uses her intuition to save herself from peril without Mina’s smarts, Jonathan’s diary would not have been translated and the impending danger would not have been discovered. Even after she proves her intelligence, the men step in and do most of the thinking. Van Helsing simply consults his books and knows what to do for the rest of the