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Feminism In Bram Stoker's Dracula

1991 Words8 Pages

It’s A Man’s World
Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a highly controversial work of fiction. Bram Stoker’s Dracula touches on many different categories of literature which is why it can be analyzed in many different ways using an assortment of different criticisms. Throughout this piece, however, it is only focused on the patriarchal society and how women are portrayed throughout, leading to the expectations of women during this time period. Amongst this novel a feminist approach comes into play, but cannot be used to analyze Dracula as a whole but, more so to analyze multiple female characters. Bram’s stoker’s Dracula can be seen through a feminist and patriarchal lens, analyzing Lucy Westenra, Mina Harker, and the three brides of Dracula and how …show more content…

However, this does not mean that the bride’s do not represent patriarchies. From the start of this novel, the three brides are trapped in Dracula’s castle. Jonathan Harker is confronted by the brides who mesmerize him into a daze of “anticipation” and “desire”. This is because, when hunting their prey, the bride’s seem to arise sexual intent to take their prey ‘off guard’. This much can be concluded when Jonathan writes “I felt in my heart a wicked, burning desire that they would kiss me with those red lips” (42). In the lens of a feminist approach, in a patriarchal society, there are “good girls”, like Lucy and Mina, who are pure and useful to their husbands, and there are “bad girls” who are sexually explicit in nature and seen as impure as well as not the “marrying type”. In this case, due to their sexual nature, the brides would fall under the category of “bad girls”. However, a feminist approach would argue that both types of categories are patriarchal in that they objectify women instead of treating them as individuals. In other words, seen as though the bride’s should be considered more dangerous than anything due to the fact that they suck people’s blood and hold them hostage to weaken then. Instead they are portrayed as sexual in nature because they are seen as

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