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The role of women in dracula
Females In Dracula Bram Stoker
The role of women in dracula
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More handpicked essays just for you.
The role of women in dracula
Females In Dracula Bram Stoker
The role of women in dracula
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Everybody knows the classic tale of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It is most famous for its introduction of the character of Count Dracula into both deep-rooted and contemporary literature and media. One critic claimed,” Bram Stoker set the ground rules for what a vampire should be.” It follows the story of Jonathan Harker, an English solicitor who visits Count Dracula in his castle in Transylvania – soon realising that he is being kept as a prisoner. Dracula forms a liking to the character of Lucy which ultimately leads to her death.
Lucy was unaware of Dracula visiting her at night because Dracula was able to put her in a trance and control her actions and the way she thought. This shows that Dracula is capable of attacking humans without letting his victims be conscious of his attack. This parallel is another example of Victorian society's fear of communicable disease because it could secretively invade Victorian England, similarly to how Dracula secretively invaded Lucy's room and attacked
The loyalty Mina presents to each character in the novel is uplifting. Due to the nature of their relationships, Mina’s loyalty is mostly shown to Jonathan and Lucy. When Jonathan Harker, Mina’s fiancée at the time, was being held prisoner at Castle Dracula, Mina remains a loyal fiancée to him, in hopes of his return. Upon discovering Jonathan had escaped Castle Dracula and was seeking shelter at a convent, Mina rushes to his side to support him through his mental
Her life has left her to Dracula, her soul is assumed trapped, and her flesh remains the same. The process even corrupts Lucy into a nightmarish version of herself. In her UnDeath Lucy specifically feeds on the blood of children (Stoker 198). It’s almost like Dracula corrupted Lucy into a dark version of motherhood. Instead of protecting children, she predates
Dracula traps Jonathan Harker in his castle, but he finally escapes without the Count killing him. Dracula then sucks Lucys blood and turns her into a vampire. At this point everyone is against the bloodsucker. Since Lucy died, well turned into a vampire. Lucys friends have to stab her in the heart and cut off her head.
Also, when the three female vampires appear before Jonathan, he characterizes them to have “dark, piercing eyes” and “ruby [red]” lips, which conveys that they are also among the evil in Dracula (Stoker
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).
Lucy Westenra is the best friend of Mina Harker and thus the second female main character of the novel. Stoker describes with Lucy a representative of the New Women movement, as the time was seen by the British population. She is single and lives with her mother, who is suffering from heart disease. Her family, that was once very prosperous, consist only of herself and her aging mother. She is Dracula’s first victim /vampire child in England.
In Victorian society, women had the choice between two roles: the pure woman or the fallen woman. Bram Stoker plays with these anxieties revolving around female sexuality – he follows the gothic tradition of innocent damsel in distress against looming evil. The narrative structure Stoker imploys to the text through intertextuality reveals multiple point of view distinguishing a duality in Lucy - her true self and 'thing'. In order to cope with Lucy’s worsening condition, the male authoritative figures of the text assign a duality present in Lucy to make sense of her shifting from “pure woman” to “fallen woman”. Stoker exhibits in the structure of the multi-faceted narrative how certain characters are unable to cope with the duality present
Lucy showed the ideal Victorian woman and the frowned upon one too. At some points, Lucy is a lot like Mina in the way that she loves one man. She has multiple men wanting to be with her and although she doesn’t mind being with all of them, she turns them down for the man she loves the most, Arthur Holmwood. Lucy’s best friend is Mina, which tells us where she gets the ideal traits from. Stoker also characterizes Lucy as sexual when Dracula turns her into a sexual vampire and she goes to the dark side.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula, is a classic that has been enjoyed by readers for many years. It is one that involves fantasy, gore and even has the potential of scaring readers. It is a story that has been enjoyed and feared by readers for centuries. With that said, even though it is commonly known as a classic horror novel, it can also be seen as an erotica. Throughout the novel, Stoker incorporates sexual scenes, and scenes of desire that may or may not capture readers’ attention due to the presence of horror.
The fact that there were some role reversals in the novel, especially among the female characters, made most characters all the more dynamic. All the same, the novel was very obviously influenced by gender roles and when Stoker was writing Dracula there was an obvious dividing line between male and female characters that he would not cross. Stoker’s preoccupation with female sexuality in Dracula “is attested to by the fact that [gender roles] actually come to dominate the story, with the vampire hunters mainly concerned not with Dracula himself but with his effect on their beloved companions” (Dixon) While Mina, who represented the ideal Victorian woman, acted as a support system and assistant to the heroic group of men. While things have changed significantly for men and women alike in the modern age, Dracula will likely remain in place as one of the most famous and telling critiques of Victorian gender
Word Count: 1188 5. Describe the appearances Dracula makes throughout the novel. What does Stoker achieve by keeping his title character in the shadows for so much of the novel? In Bram Stoker’s 1897
As Lucy becomes a vampire, she becomes increasingly sexualized. Like the vampire ladies of Castle Dracula, her repressed sexuality comes to the surface, and she becomes the sexual aggressor, women in 1897 weren 't supposed to be the ones to ask for kisses. They were supposed to be
This sheds a light on Dracula as a figure who truly does feel homosexual affection towards Harker. When Harker disobeys Dracula he finds himself in a room where Dracula’s three wives are. Harker journal entry recalling this event describes it in very close details. He describes the women in a very erotic way, saying “I could feel the hot breath on my neck. Then the skin of my throat began to tingle” (Stoker, 48), and the “soft shivering touch of lips.