Analysis Of Interview With The Vampire And Bram Stokers Dracula

With several illicit subjects listed throughout Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the book becomes a playground for psychoanalysts. Whether it be to see a subjects as simple as the conscious take over a character, or a character’s surroundings corrupting its victims, Dracula intrigues in more ways than just its vampiristic features. The following is a psychoanalytic study with a focus on vampirism imitating sexual practice and drug usage today while shining a light on the complex psychology of characters, and how even the author can influence the course of its story.

The characteristic that successfully saves her was her ability to continue to be strong and continue to control herself. Lucy, on the other hand, usually was weak and she didn’t even try to fight off Dracula. She often tries to not recollect the events that occurred between the two. In the end, Mina was able to actually go back to her old habits and be back into a pure state, while Lucy, sadly, was not able to. Lucy turned into a vampire, and as a vampire her terrible characteristics were more apparent than those of when she was pure. While Lucy was a vampire, he eyes were “unclean and full of hell-fire, instead of the pure, gentle orbs we knew” (222-223). Lucy was not only an active threat to children but her desires for the men of the land also posed an active threat. At one point, Dr. Seward recorded, “at that moment, the remnant of my love passed into hate and loathing; had she then been killed…” (223). Both Lucy and Mina get to a common phase of purity but since Lucy has a lack of self control and she has unexpected childish qualities, she eventually had to get back her qualities of innocence in her death.

Though it appears on the surface to be an engaging horror story about a blood-sucking Transylvanian man, upon diving deeper into Bram Stoker's novel Dracula, one can find issues of female sexuality, homoeroticism, and gender roles. Many read Dracula as an entertaining story full of scary castles, seductive vampires, and mysterious forces, yet at the same time, they are being bombarded with descriptions of sex, images of rape, and homosexual relationships. In Francis Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula, Stoker's presentation of homoeroticism is taken, reworked, and presented in a different, stronger light. Coppola does much in the area of emphasizing a homoerotic relationship between Mina Harker and Lucy Westerna: a relationship Bram Stoker

Stoker’s novel Dracula, presents the fear of female promiscuity, for which vampirism is a metaphor. Such fear can be related to the time in which Dracula was written, where strict Victorian gender norms and sexual mores stipulated

This passage characterizes Mina’s obedience to her spouse Johnathan, and introduces her as the modest woman. Lucy Westenra represents the sexual woman. In her second letter to Mina, she tells of the three marriage proposals that have come to her in one day, and the results of each. She has turned down two men, and accepted the last, but feels badly about having to turn down two of her suitors. She proclaims, “Why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble?” (61). From this passage, it can be assumed that Lucy desires sexual relationship with all three men, as that is the result of marriage. Here lies the main difference between the two women. In the end Mina benefits from her domesticity and life of service to men. Lucy, on the other hand, is deviate from social norms, and in turn suffers the consequences for her own sexual aptitude. Dracula’s deadly bite does not harm Mina due to her morals dictating that she continues to live as a human. Dracula soon disappears from the scene, and Mina enjoys her marriage and bears a child. However, Lucy is not as lucky. She is described as a sexual monster after her death. It is believed her sexuality that sealed her fate. It is clear that this is a statement about not only the roles of women in society, but also about the fears of society. The good Victorian woman, represses her sexual desires and will lead a respectable life.

In Dracula, Stoker portrays the typical women: The new woman, the femme fatale and the damsel in distress, all common concepts in gothic literature. There are three predominant female roles within Dracula: Mina Murray, Lucy Westenra and the three vampire brides, all of which possess different attributes and play different roles within the novel. It is apparent that the feminine portrayal within this novel, especially the sexual nature, is an un-doubtable strong, reoccurring theme.

Of course, throughout the novel we see that vampirism most equates with sexuality.  Without overdoing a Freudian analysis of the story, there are enough sexual references to satisfy the least Victorian in nature among us.  However, the Victorian repression theme plays a role in the sexuality of the novel because though good women and men were able to control their sexual appetites in Victorian society, we see them unable to resist giving into their desires in Dracula.  As Carrol Fry writes "Mina says:  'Strangely enough, I did not want to hinder him'.  But perhaps the most suggestive passage in the novel occurs when Jonathan Harker describes his experienced while in a trance induced by Dracula's wives.  As the fair bride approaches him, he finds in her a 'deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive,' and he feels 'a wicked, burning desire that they would kiss me with those red lips'" (Carter  38).

Dracula is a novel written by Bram Stoker during the late 1800’s. The book starts out with Jonathan Harker, who is a smart young business man, who wants to travel to Count Dracula for a business ordeal. Many locals from the European area warned Jonathan about Count Dracula, and would offer him crosses and other trinkets to help fend against him. Mina, who is at the time Jonathans soon to be wife, visits to catch up with an old friend named Lucy Westenra. Lucy gives Mina an update on her love life telling her how she’s been proposed to by three different men. The men are introduced as Dr. Seward, Arthur Holmwood, and Quincey Morris. Unfortunately for her she will need to reject two of the men, and Lucy ends up choosing to marry Holmwood. Later on after Mina visits Lucy, Lucy starts to sleep walk, becomes sick, and then finds out she has bite marks on her throat. Due to this incident, another new character is introduced who happens to be Van Helsing. As the novel progresses, lady vampires are introduced and Lucy is eventually turned into one of the lady vampires as well. With the introduction of female vampires, the novel Dracula turns into a sexual and sensational novel by Bram Stoker. The female characters in the book are overly sexualized to where we can compare it to how women are viewed from back then in history to today’s world.

Lucy is the center of attention between the men in this group, “Why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her” (Stoker 69), and because of this she is Dracula’s first target. She opens up more possibilities to Dracula.

In the 1993 version, Van Helsing refers to Lucy as "a willing recruit, a whore of darkness, a bitch of the devil."(Bram Stoker's Dracula). Also, Mina chooses whether to be with Dracula or with Jonathan. We wonder at the end whether she will choose to remain with Jonathan after Dracula's death.

The first relationship explored in the novel, that of Dracula and Jonathan, defies the constraints of heteronormative sexuality. Dracula’s interest in seducing, penetrating and draining another male are desires that are acted out in the novel, however not solely by the Count himself, but instead by his three vampiric paramours. The homoerotic desire between Dracula and Jonathan is offered a feminine form for the masculine penetration that is being detailed (Craft,

In the late 19th century, when Dracula by Bram Stoker is written, women were only perceived as conservative housewives, only tending to their family’s needs and being solely dependent of their husbands to provide for them. This novel portrays that completely in accordance to Mina Harker, but Lucy Westenra is the complete opposite. Lucy parades around in just her demeanor as a promiscuous and sexual person. While Mina only cares about learning new things in order to assist her soon-to-be husband Jonathan Harker. Lucy and Mina both become victims of vampirism in the novel. Mina is fortunate but Lucy is not. Overall, the assumption of women as the weaker specimen is greatly immense in the late 19th century. There are also many underlying

Although in modern times people are exposed to sexuality from a young age through advertisements, media, and pop culture, during the Victorian era in England, the only acceptable exploration of repressed sexual desire was through a book that upholds the Christian belief of sexuality’s corruptive effects on society. In Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a gothic, horror novel, Dracula, a vampire from Transylvania, preys on Mina Harker, a devoted Christian and intelligent woman, and Lucy Westenra, an innocent, young woman pursued by three suitors, by luring them and sucking their blood; the women and their suitors form a gang of vampire fighters who track and eventually kill Dracula defeating his devilry with the forces of

In a particular addition of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, Maurice Hindle had suggested that “sex was the monster Stoker feared most.” This essay will examine the examples of this statement in the Dracula text, focusing on female sexuality. The essay will also briefly look at an article Stoker had written after Dracula which also displays Stoker’s fear.

Lucy is not seen to be the ideal Victorian wife, “why can’t they let a girl marry three men or as many that want her”, due to her low morals and her naivety towards the way a women was expected to act it allowed Dracula to exploit her. Stoker presents Lucy in a way that would be shocking and unacceptable for a Victorian reader. Stoker insinuates that Lucy is fatherless because Stoker only refers to her father once in the book and it is in the past tense, “Lucy’s father, had the same habit he would get up in the night and dress himself”, even if Lucy’s father is alive it is clear that he has had minimal involvement and impact on Lucy’s life. Stoker could be suggesting that Lucy’s lack of a patriarch has meant that she has a desire and craving for one leading her to finding one where ever she could find it. When Dracula is removing blood from Lucy she is described as “half-reclining” Stokers use of this word suggests that Dracula is not forcing her or even restraining her, it implies that she is accepting what is taking place. Stoker goes as far as to imply that Lucy is enjoy the experience, “Her lips were parted… heavy gasps”, this is very sexually suggestive of a post climatic moment. It could be argued that at this moment she is conforming to the hierarchy of society by being submissive due to her possible positive “father complex” (created by Sigmund Feud and Carl Jung), so is therefore acting how a Victorian should by