Rape In Bram Stoker's Dracula

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

While Arthur “placed the point (of the stake) over the heart,” Lucy’s body “shook and quivered and twisted in wild contortions” and after the plunging act Arthur is completely exhausted, all of which indicating that Lucy and her fiancé Arthur are enacting a grotesque parody of their wedding night. The description of Lucy’s response, her body contorting and screaming, almost resembles orgasmic sexual pleasure. The huge stake serves as a phallic object, the repeated penetrating alludes to sex, and the spurting blood from the pierced heart symbolises either the blood from a broken hymen or the ejaculation of a man during sex. On the one hand, penetrating Lucy with the stake and killing her restores the gender order in the novel, by making the male the penetrator yet again. It also suggests that for becoming a sexual woman, Lucy must be punished by sexual means, which leads to her destruction. Likewise, the three siren-like vampire women at Castle Dracula whose dominant sexuality confirms the male fear that their pursuit of sexual gratification surpasses that of men are killed at the end. Van Helsing sees as his obligation to destroy and finish off them, indicating that Van Helsing himself also performs a rape on the three “weird sisters.” He not only rapes one but three women, which can be interpreted as a demonstration of complete power of the Victorian male over the