In chapter 16, Mina confronts one of the men in the group and demands to be included in tracking down Count Dracula. Asserting this dominance over several men shows how she is not afraid to stand up for herself. In chapter 21, Mina offers to use herself as bait to lure Count Dracula into a trap, knowing that it is a dangerous and risky task. She knows she can use herself as an advantage over Count Dracula and is courageous enough to put herself in a situation that could end with her becoming a Dracula or becoming “un-dead”. Later, in chapter 24, Count Dracula makes several attempts to control Mina’s mind and use her against the protagonist group, but she was able to combat his influence and retain her own free will, which ultimately proves her mental strength.
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).
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.
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
When Lucy turns into a vampire, it is made a point to describe how she appears and behaves in opposition to the Lucy we were introduced to before her death. With Lucy as a vampire it gives her many virtues she didn’t possess when she was alive. In this novel she is portrayed as a predatory. The importance of being a virgin in the 19th century is perceived through Lucy’s transition into a ‘she-devil’ once Dracula takes away her purity. A person like Lucy, her sexuality is viewed as offensive, is apparent that the gender categories are challenging to gender categories more than
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
