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Stoker writing of women in dracula
Stoker writing of women in dracula
The role of woman in Bram Stoker's 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.
She is a strong, independent, intelligent woman who breaks gender and societal barriers. Stoker’s writing begs the question, how does Mina break societal barriers, but at the same time possess many traditional abilities and behaviors? Based in the late 1800’s in Victorian England, women were not likely to be educated and independent, but rather submissive to their husbands. Stoker creates Mina’s “New Woman” persona to develop the novel into more than the audience of the time would expect. Mina occupies inspirational qualities such as loyalty and strength, as well as finding a balance between her independence and not overstepping societal boundaries.
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).
Mina is intellectually equal to the opposite sex, but physically and emotionally submissive. Mina is devoted to her husband Jonathan, she is the ideal woman Victorian woman. Once Mina has been bitten, her transformation slowly spreads, the thoughts that have been repressed for so long have surfaced. Dracula is represented as having an unquenchable thirst for blood and even power. Using his male dominance and superiority over women to fulfill his every desire, having little regard for the well-being of others.
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.
Later, the men reluctantly allow her to be more involved with the pursuit of the Count because of her telepathic connection to him, but are reluctant to do so because they fear for her health. Because this novel was written during the Victorian era, there was a dramatic gender inequality between men and women, so for Mina to partake at all in their killing of the Count was unusual. Mina is capable and willing to help the men, but is only able to do so as an assistant by typing their diary entries. The gender roles of this time period play a role in who ultimately defeats Dracula, the group of men with Mina only as an onlooker. Although the male characters praise Mina for her help, she is not portrayed as a hero
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
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
Gothic horror novel Dracula, the title character makes only several relatively short appearances, some of which are while in disguise. Throughout the novel, Stoker keeps Count Dracula in the shadows, both literally and figuratively. This essay will describe these appearances and analyze Stoker’s use of them to determine what effect they might have on the impression of the character and the novel overall. It will be claimed that by keeping his title character hidden for much of the novel, Stoker’s Dracula is made much more frightening to the reader. Human beings tend to fear the unknown, and by leaving Dracula to the imagination,
Dracula is about vampires in general, the myth, the mystery and the horror. Even though Dracula wasn’t the first vampire story, it was the first really popular one. Throughout the novel, the author, Bram Stoker, portrays many different aspects of women's roles in the 19th century. With the use of imagery and symbolism, the theme of sexuality and gender roles has an enormous presence in the novel. Social gender roles of women and men during the Victorian Era were very strict and looked upon differently than any other time period.
The presentation of women in Frankenstein Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein”, first published in 1818, was written in a time period where society’s general opinion was that a woman’s role was predominately to be a loving, caring mother and a faithful, docile companion to her husband. This attitude is reflected in Shelley’s portrays of women in her novel as passive, self- sacrificing, loyal, and completely dependent on men. They are a means by which emotions are invoked within male characters and serve only as companions and beautiful possessions. Caroline Beaufort, mother of the protagonist Victor Frankenstein, is an example of the embodiment of this ideal. She is the wife of Alphonse Frankenstein and within the novel plays the role of a perfect daughter, wife, and mother.
Ariel Dorfman’s “Death and the Maiden” is a work of drama that aims to provide a social commentary on the social after effects of a post dictatorial regime. Dealing with gender roles, the ambiguity of the truth, and the role of justice - Dorfman provides an outlet for victims of war crimes to question their own experiences, as well as forcing an entire society to ponder questions that seem unanswerable. Through the use of the motif of light, contrasting scene choice and an important final dialogue, Dorfman creates a moving work that leads the spectator to wonder: viewing Paulina as a victim of a patriarchal society, do her strifes and emotional conviction make us more or less sure of the authenticity of her accusations? A pivotal part of
During the Victorian period in which Dracula was written, morals and ethics were often strictly enforced. Some of the morals that were upheld had to do with personal duty, hard work, honesty, as well as sexual proprietary. It was very important during this period that one was proper in their sexual behaviors and conventional in whom they had sexual relations with. However, during this period, many authors sought to challenge the ‘norm’ with ideas of reform and change and Bram Stoker was no exception to this. In his novel, Dracula, Stoker provides a critique of this rigidity in his portrayal of Dracula and Dracula’s relationship with Jonathan Harker.
“Travelling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” – Ibn Battuta. My passion is learning about life through travelling and exploring new things. It excites me when I visit new places, learn about different cultures, and see other people live a life that is different from mine. I just love to travel because it makes me realize that the world is so beautiful and there is so much to admire and treasure.
