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Gender Stereotypes In Bram Stoker's Dracula

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Bram Stoker’s Dracula, tells the story of a vampire that preys on the blood of people to gain nourishment and replenish his health from the lack thereof. Dracula is a character that much like any other vampire tale, chooses victims that are easily manipulated or are easy to lure into his vicious cycle of blood sucking and neck biting. The story of Dracula criticizes gender roles, social statuses, and ideologies that are within members of a society. There is great emphasis placed on the idea of ideologies and how this fundamental notion shapes the reality of the characters in the story. To further explain this, it is important to mention that Louis Althusser, a French philosopher, modified Karl Marx’s theories of base and superstructures, in
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The central idea of this excerpt from Dracula was the fear of the prisoner living in the castle of Count Dracula who felt trapped and alone. The authors use of first person point of view of the prisoner was able to develop this central idea of fear because prisoner was able to describe his feelings first hand living in the castle with the Count as well as emphasize the thoughts that were scattered inside of his head during this time. An example of the author using first person point of view to help develop the central idea of fear was when the prisoner had realized that he was helpless in the situation of his current living conditions. The prisoner said "I think I must have been mad for the time, for I have behaved much as a rat does in a trap" (lines 4-5).

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A stereotype is a fixed and basic image or idea of a particular type of person or thing. A person who is often stereotyped is expected to live up to society's expectations, or so the stereotype suggests. It can be suffocating for an individual to live through preconceptions because it is not who that person is. These stereotypes cause others to dismiss that individual as a person and the qualities they have. Such stereotypes still exist now and have been impacting many people for a long time.

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1461 Words | 6 Pages

Bram Stoker, describes one of the verbal taboos of the Victorian era, violence, through the representation of vampires as “monsters” through the point of view of their victims in his novel Dracula. Stoker portrays violence in three distinct categories- physical, visual and psychological. Each one of these categories is described by one of the antagonists in the Novel, with Count Dracula as the physical aspect of violence, his underlings, the female vampires as the visual and Renfield, the patient at Dr. Seward’s mental asylum, as the psychological aspect of violence. This essay looks at the portrayal of such Categorical violence as different renditions of a “monster” and considers why Stoker would segregate violence in such a manner.

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901 Words | 4 Pages

The essay I chose to compare Dracula with was “Kiss Me With Those Red Lips: Gender and Inversion in Bram Stoker’s Dracula” by Christopher Craft. The essay explains the sexuality in Dracula, desire, gender, and even homosexuality. Craft mentions his essay gives an account of Stoker’s “vampire metaphor” (Craft 108). He highlights certain and very valid points in the story of Dracula that breaks the Victorian gender role, writing, “a pivotal anxiety of late Victorian culture.” (Craft 108).

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1218 Words | 5 Pages

In Dracula, Bram Stoker makes a contrast between two types of women in this novel. Women who are in the vampire state are vastly more powerful than the everyday human woman, but seem to still be subordinate. Towards the end of late 19th Century, the new woman develops toward the economic change as well as the sexual changes in society, with both men and women struggling to find a sense of this new order. The new woman was strong, finding a sense of independence and men were beginning to become terrified of their own woman. Stoker explains his idea behind the characters of the women in Dracula, he believes that “for women to deny their traditional role was to deny their womanhood, to challenge the distinctions between women and men upon which

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785 Words | 4 Pages

In Bram Stoker’s gothic novel, Dracula, the overall and fundamental theme of the book is given away the further you read, expressing Stoker’s view of religion. The novel is an account of the paths taken by many different characters such as Count Dracula, Van Helsing, Jonathan Harker, Mina Murray and Lucy Westenra. Since this poem was written with ideas focused primarily on the concepts of evil, as it was viewed during an appearingly-conservative nineteenth and twentieth century society, the book can be seen as a parallel to Eliot’s and others’ own religious quests. While Bram Stoker attempts to acquaint the reader with a frightening tale on the accounts of a dreadful vampire named Count Dracula, he also expresses the goal of strengthening

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696 Words | 3 Pages

The major theme in the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker is the threat of female sexual expression. During this time period, female sexual behavior was frowned upon. Women were said to have to be either a virgin or a wife and mother. Social standards were very strict during this time, making it unheard of for women to show sexual expressions. In is era, the main concern was the role women had in society.

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Feminist Reading: Dracula between Beauvoir’s and Roth’s Ideas In her article, “Suddenly Sexual Women in Bram Stoker’s Dracula” Phyllis Roth argues that Dracula is a misogynistic novel which is obvious in the system of power in which men are dominant and active figures whereas women are just followers and obedient to their system. She draws on Simon de Beauvoir’s idea that “ambivalence as an intrinsic quality of Eternal Feminine”, in order to show that women are victims to men powers. In her chapter, “Myth and Reality”, Beauvoir discusses the way that anybody in the society, specially men, doesn’t do their job in taking a step towards the oppressed women, but to act just like what the system of myth impose them to act.

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1350 Words | 6 Pages

At first glance, the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker appears to be a typical gothic horror novel set in the late 1890s that gives readers an exciting look into the fight between good and evil. Upon closer inspection, it becomes apparent that Dracula is a statement piece about gender roles and expectations for men and women during the Victorian age. Looking at the personalities, actions, and character development of each of the characters in Dracula bring to light startling revelations about Victorian society and how Stoker viewed the roles of men and women during this time period. To really understand Dracula, it is important to note that this novel was written during a time “of political and social upheaval, with anxieties not just about the

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3478 Words | 14 Pages

Trinity Lam ENG 1302 Professor Loubser May 3, 2023 Dracula and the Anxieties of Victorian Culture Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula, explores Victorian anxieties prevalent during the era that the book was written in. In contrast to Western uniformity, the cultural norms in England at the time were outmoded and constrictive; old and conservative values were highly respected and frequently connected with modesty and purity. With the Protestant ideals of Victorian society largely influencing the narrative, Stoker's work tackles the tension between yielding to one's desires and fighting them. Feminist Criticism is a School of Literary Criticism that refers to the masculine language used to subsume the role of women and construct a representation of

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2103 Words | 9 Pages

In Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), women play a role of overall incompetence and are shown to be powerless and obedient to men. Women’s role in the 19th century during the Victorian era of the United Kingdom consisted mostly of taking care of the children and maintaining the house because they were unable to work or vote until nearly two decades after Dracula’s conception. This way of society led to Stoker depicting women to be lesser than men and exist as victims in the aspect that Dracula exploited various women throughout the story. In Stoker’s Dracula, women are depicted as feeble, dependent, and exploited by men which is directly related to the setting Stoker wrote the story in.

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332 Words | 2 Pages

The topic I have chosen for my essay is how Dracula is meant to remind society of the importance of religion, specifically Christianity, in Stoker’s time. I intend to do this through analyzing symbols in Dracula, drawing connections between these symbols and Christianity, and analyzing the implications Stoker attempts to make. I chose this topic because vampires and their sacrilegious implications, such as burning when touching a cross, have always been of interest to me, hence why I chose to study Dracula in the first place. My thesis is: Stoker uses Count Dracula as symbol to represent what society may become if they abandon religious beliefs.

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667 Words | 3 Pages

In the novel Dracula, Bram Stoker highlights the theme of sexuality that challenge ideas of sex to both the female and male characters. The author objectifies the female characters in the novel to be over sexualized and portrays sex to empower women. Stoker may present the theme of female sexuality; however, he demonstrates gender inequality triumphs at the end leaving women in the shadows again. Women in the eighteenth century hardly had any type of power outside of overseeing the household and they probably contained much less power expressing any type of sexual emotions. Stoker’s novel gives readers a different perspective of the female sexuality as if almost empowering women and stating that they too can be sexual creatures like men.

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682 Words | 3 Pages

Although written and published in Victorian England where the culture revolves around societal constraints and restrictions of expressing sexual desires, Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” has many scenes that seem to revel in sexual language and sensual description, yielding indications of repressed lust and sexuality. Such sexual connotations are not directly expressed, but camouflaged by vampire attacks and the act of blood sucking. Rape, one of the erotic overtones recurring throughout the novel, illustrates how penetration and blood sucking function as an insinuation of sexual intercourse, at the same time revealing different expectations the Victorian society imposes upon women. 　　Several rape scenes are disguised through the use of symbolism

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1384 Words | 6 Pages

Dracula is a household name; however, the actual meaning is not as well known. The novel Dracula by Bram Stoker contains a unique story, one which due to the structure of the book there are multiple main characters. The book is written in the form of letters, allowing the focus to be on many different people and viewpoints. Dracula starts out with Jonathan Harker an, Englishman, who takes a trip to Transylvania to meet Count Dracula. On his way to the castle he is warned of the dangers of Dracula, however, Jonathan chooses to persist.

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