The Novel Dracula written by Bram Stoker is an essential book in horror literature. Like most novels which are written by men, Dracula is more pleasing to the male audience and male fantasies. Primarily, it is more than obvious that there are strong themes of female sexuality and its symbolism. The Victorian culture is focused around the male dominance of women and their belittlement reputation is evident in scenes throughout the story. Finishing with a ‘moral’ of the story concerning these “New Victorian” views. Though Dracula makes up the horror part of the novel, the true ‘terror’ lies in the development of female sexuality and their gender roles. In Victorian society, women were limited to their gender roles. Practically, there are …show more content…
Both, the characters in this novel and the readers experience these fears, for, the exchange of gender roles is simply ‘forbidden’. In this novel the female characters are shown as being sexually aggressive, and the results of their aggression vary in the novel’s three main sexual scenes: Lucy’s final death at the hands of the brothers in altruism, Jonathan being seduced by Dracula’s three brides/sisters, and Mina drinking blood from Dracula’s chest as Jonathan lies powerless close by. Lucy’s death done by three men who once desired to marry her was a consequence of her sexuality being released. She begins as a good woman with hair of “sunny ripples” (Ch.12) who is labeled sweet and pure. Furthermore, being contaminated by Dracula, the word used to describe her is “voluptuous.” In her transformation as Woman in White, she becomes dark haired, symbolic as good versus evil. As non-motherly she pulls children to the cemetery and throws a baby, “callous as a devil” (Ch.16), to the ground. The men’s reaction to Lucy’s transformation is divulging. When Van Helsing informs Seward of what he intends to do with Lucy’s “Un Dead” body, Seward writes: “It made me shudder to think of so mutilating the body of the woman whom I had loved. And yet the feeling was not as strong as I had expected. I was, in fact, beginning to shudder at the presence of this being, this Un Dead, as Van Helsing called it, and to loathe it” (Ch.15). The desire that Seward felt for Lucy has turned to hatred, and now there is no turning