Comparing Sexuality In Dracula And Blacula, By Bram Stoker

Literature is representative of the time in which it is produced. Literature can reflect societal views, attitudes, and fears.Vampire literature, in particular, often represents the fears of a society.In the Victorian Era, a time of intense sexual repression, it was common for vampire stories to reflect the fear of sexuality that was rampant in society.

Vampires have been around for centuries, they represent the fear of many things such as sexuality, race, gender, etc. and above all, they stand for the fear of diseases. Vampires have once been the symbol of horror due to their terrific depictions and were described as a threat to the humanity. Throughout time, the image of vampire has changed dramatically from a monstrous, inhumanely creature that doesn’t belong to human society to such an attractive and adaptive figure that expresses more of the human side than the evil. They developed human feelings, senses, and live within our society. Modern vampire movies are often more romantic and “sympathetic” comparing to the past. Vampires have abandoned their horror and evolved to a more

Are there still connections between Bram Stokers famous novel Dracula and modern day society? In Dracula, Stoker expands on many themes that indeed exist today. Not only does he touch on the most obvious theme, sex. He expands on gender division and good versus evil. Some say since times have changed the themes I introduced have changed as well, leaving connections between then and now irrelevant. However, I feel that although times have changed they still have roots from the time of the novel to now. In this essay I will expand on the themes of this novel while connecting them to modern day society, the critical texts I have chosen and will mention later on in the essay are a good representation of the commonalities between the chill, dark Victorian days in which the era that Dracula was written in and modern day.

Bram Stoker's Dracula is highly acclaimed and has received many different interpretations which deal with complex symbolisms and metaphors. These interpretations often require a great deal of knowledge in psychology, political science, anthropology, and other non-literary disciplines. These interpretations may be valid, as they are related to the disciplines on which their arguments are based, but the true power of the novel is due to a very simple theme that lies beneath the other, more convoluted interpretations. This theme is the universal concept of identity: us versus them. This criticism sets aside outside disciplines and focuses on the literary motif of identity. John

Bram Stoker’s Dracula is not only a classic story of men and monsters, but a dramatic reactionary work to the perceived threats to Victorian society in nineteenth century England. In modern times there have been many film adaptations of the novel, each developing a unique analysis or criticism of the literary text within the framework of the society and time period in which it was created. The 1972 film Blacula is one of the most culturally specific variations on the story of Dracula, and highlights many of the themes and messages found in Stoker’s original text. Among the primary similarities between the novel and the film is the portrayal of race, sexuality, nationality, and culture, and the characterization in each work speaks to the

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

During the Victorian Era, women struggled to attain gender equality by challenging the traditional roles that defined them. These women no longer wanted to remain passive and obey the demands of their husbands nor be domestic and the caretakers of their children. They strived to attain the role of a 'New Woman', an intelligent, liberated individual who was able to openly express her ideas (Eltis 452). Whereas some women were successful in attaining this new role, others were still dominated by their male counterparts. The men felt threatened by the rising power of women and repressed them by not allowing them to work, giving them unnecessary medications, and diagnosing them with hysteria (Gilman

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.

Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” is a story about a Vampire named Count Dracula and his journey to satisfy his lust for blood. The story is told through a series of individuals’ journal entries and a letters sent back and forth between characters. Bram Stoker shows the roll in which a certain gender plays in the Victorian era through the works of Dracula. This discussion not only consists of the roll a certain gender takes, but will be discussing how a certain gender fits into the culture of that time period as well as how males and females interact among each other. The Victorian era was extremely conservative when it came to the female, however there are signs of the changing into the New Woman inside of Dracula. Essentially the woman was to be assistance to a man and stay pure inside of their ways.

    Perhaps no work of literature has ever been composed without being a product of its era, mainly because the human being responsible for writing it develops their worldview within a particular era.  Thus, with Bram Stoker's Dracula, though we have a vampire myth novel filled with terror, horror, and evil, the story is a thinly veiled disguise of the repressed sexual mores of the Victorian era.  If we look to critical interpretation and commentary to win support for such a thesis, we find it aplenty "For erotic Dracula certainly is.  'Quasi-pornography' one critic labels it.  Another describes it as a 'kind of incestuous, necrophilious, oral-anal-sadistic all-in-wrestling matching'.  A

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.

Dracula expresses his homosexual tendencies through the women he controls, his brides are drawn toward Jonathon looking for sexual encounters. With these women being his brides they can be seen as a sexual extension of his feelings. Pointing towards the fact that Dracula is the one who wants to advance on Jonathon but cannot as during Victorian times the woman seduces the man. For instance with the Bloofer Lady taunting at Arthur, “Come to me

In his Literary Theory: The Basics, H. Bertens classifies stereotypes of women in literature into a number of categories; dangerous seductress, self-sacrificing angel, dissatisfied shrew, and defenseless lamb, completely incapable of self-sufficiency, or self-control, and dependent on male intervention. Bertens concludes that the primary objective of these women – or “constructions” – is to serve a “not-so-hidden purpose: the continued cultural and social domination of males”. One such novel that came under feminist scrutiny for these particular reasons was Bram Stoker’s Dracula, although this perlustration didn’t occur until 70 years after Stoker originally penned his masterpiece. However, during the mid-1960s, the rise of the feminist

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