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Lucy's Seduction By Dracula

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Lucy's seduction by Dracula parallels sexual seduction. The virgin is ruined by the aristocratic vampire, in keeping with a common Gothic theme of the aristocracy preying on women of non-aristocratic blood. His penetration of her parallels the penetration of sex, and Lucy is unable or unwilling to save herself from him. Lucy is far more vulnerable than Mina to Dracula's seduction: because of her flirtatious nature, she is an easier target for the vampire. Although she is still basically innocent and pure, Dracula will eventually corrupt her. She describes her sensations in the graveyard as blissful, and during her out of body experience the imagery she employs continues the theme of penetration: she says that during her out-of-body experience
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According to Roth, however, the true nature of the novel lies in the identification with Dracula and “a fantasy of matricide underlying the more obvious parricidal wishes” (Roth 415). To begin, Jonathan, Van Helsing, Seward and Holmwood are all incredibly attracted to the female vampires, and they want to express their sexuality as Dracula can. Clearly, the problem appears when the Count is simply a projection of their repressed desires. This should be clear, as the Van Helsing group seem to take pleasure in all their sexually fulfilling and righteous. Seward even contemplates killing Lucy with savage delight (Stoker 188).

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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.

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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.

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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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The horror genre of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, combined with mild eroticism is able to draw in readers due to the fact that Stoker is able to intricately weave suspenseful sexual scenes/scenes of desire throughout the novel—making it clear that

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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

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Lucy is illustrated as someone who is continuously driven by sexual temptations and flirtatiousness. Stoker puts emphasis on her beauty, which is what grabs the attention of men. Lucy ends up getting killed because her sexual openness was seen as a threat to Victorian society. Stoker uses a character like Lucy in his novel to portray that sexually assertive women who try and use their beauty to win over men will not make it in the Victorian culture. On the other hand, when Dracula intimidates Jonathan during his effort to attack Mina, she reacts in the correct matter of what the Victorian culture would want her to.

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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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The character Lucy is described as the most innocent character in “Dracula” which is why she is loved by both the characters in the novel as well as the reader. Lucy is thought to be a more traditional woman, in the sense that she is chaste and pure, making her more desirable. She has three different men proposing to her and has the ability to choose the one that she likes the best. Lucy’s purity is sought after because this is how a traditional Victorian woman should act in the eyes of society.

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The earlier gothic works as well as Dracula covered something that is outside the social norm. Female sexuality, something that was unacceptable and under the surface of society, it is exposed in these writings. The earlier readings such as Carmilla, as well as the poem of Christabel question the boundaries. The texts from these literature pieces contain passages of female sexuality and the passages contain phrases that hint towards the social taboos. In the era when women were thought of mere objects these pieces decide to give them a personality or at least a voice that can express desire, a voice that states women have a purpose apart from pleasing men.

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