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Women In Dracula Essay

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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. In the novel, women’s looks and behaviors are different of what was going on in the Victorian era. In the novel, Mina was the ideal Victorian woman. Mina was the wife and mother type of person, said to be marrying Jonathan. After all she had to deal with concerning Jonathan; she remained loyal and never gave up on him. While he was captured by …show more content…

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. As she is sick, Arthur gives her a blood transfusion to try to help her become better but when it does not work, she is stabbed in the heart to go back to her original beauty and die. Lucy in the book shows how the ideal Victorian woman can so suddenly turn into the bad, evil, sexual woman that was unacceptable. Throughout the novel, Bram Stoker showed in detail what was considered to be the ideal Victorian woman through the character Mina. He also showed how women were sexualized, misbehaved, and evil through the behaviors of Dracula’s three daughters. The ideal woman can easily be turned to the dark side and become a threat to society which Stoker showed with the character Lucy Westenra, as she went from being idolized to a sexualized, evil,

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