Different Perception of Women: Dracula by 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

From what is demonstrated in Dracula, Stoker clearly also believes that sexuality in a woman would additionally lead to the downfall of men along with its immorality. Scenes such as when Jonathan is with the female vampires in Dracula’s castle represent a very literal incarnation of this belief. Jonathan is awake when he hears the women vampires talk of taking him and taking his “kisses”. This causes Jonathan to be very aroused and he anticipated what the vampires were going to do to him. Jonathan does nothing to get out of the situation he was in despite the danger of it. He simply “closed [his] eyes in ecstacy and waited” (Stoker, 43) If Dracula had not interrupted, the women would have taken advantage of Jonathan and he would have either died or become a vampire. This alternate possible ending to the scene would have mirrored Stoker’s contraction of syphilis, which would have happened around the time of his writing Dracula. At this time, Stoker had not had sexual interactions with his wife for at least twenty, therefore, if one can assume his heterosexuality, he would have contracted syphilis from some other woman who was “sexually free” and had seduced him into bed with her. This clear parallel was Stoker’s way of warning men against the evil of a sexually free woman. Stoker would not have wanted to advocate a cause which would allow more evil women to

While this idea when taken literally can be terrifying enough on its own, Dracula has a much darker and deeper messages written in between its lines. Stoker’s novel was written and published in the Victorian period, an age dominated by societal constraints and restrictions of expressing individual and sexual desires. Dracula affirms the lustful acts and sexuality that was oppressed for most Victorians by the norms of the time; the fear of feminine sexuality, the Victorian’s stereotypical attitudes toward sexuality, becomes a prominent theme within the novel. Stoker created the figure of the vampire as a being capable of releasing characters’ repression of sexual desires. Dracula, the main protagonist, is a being who is able to reveal the sexual desires and lusty actions that lie dormant within the characters.

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.

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.

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.

In Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, Stoker’s use of inverted gender roles allows readers to grasp the sense of obscureness throughout, eventually leading to the reader’s realization that these characters are rather similar to the “monster” which they call Dracula. Despite being in the Victorian era, Stoker’s use of sexuality in the novel contributes to the reasoning of obscureness going against the Victorian morals and values. Throughout the novel the stereotypical roles of the Victorian man and woman are inverted to draw attention to the similarities between Dracula and the characters. Vague to a majority of readers, Bram Stoker uses Dracula as a negative connotation on society being that the values of

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).

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

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

Before the final transition, she “whispered softly, ‘Arthur! Oh, my love, I am so glad you have come!’” (Stoker 229) in a final display of the good wife and lover she was before Dracula’s corruption. Once Lucy’s eyes closed there was a “strange change which [Seward] had noticed in the night” (Stoker 230). When Lucy’s eyes opened to be “dull and hard” (Stoker 230), the audience is alerted to an evil nature. Yet nothing is more forewarning of corruptness than when she uses a “soft, voluptuous voice” in an attempt to seduce her husband with the same line but distinguished by a dangerously flirtatious “Kiss me!” (Stoker 230). This is highly uncharacteristic of the pure Victorian woman that had been associated with Lucy by the audience. Sensing a new danger, Van Helsing motions Holmwood away from this action. A possible mirror of Stoker warning the audience that Lucy’s final act of seduction was unnatural, unnerving, and simply an evil that must be kept away from Victorian

Bram Stoker's novel Dracula, published in 1897, explores various sexual erotic possibilities in the vampire's embrace, as discussed by Leonard Wolf. The novel confronts Victorian fears of homosexuality; that were current at the time due to the trial of playwright Oscar Wilde. The vampire's embrace could also be interpreted as an illustration of Victorian fears of the changing role of women. Therefore it is important to consider: the historical context of the novel; the Victorian notion of the `New Woman' specifically the character of Lucy Westenra; the inversion of gender roles; notions of sexuality; and the emasculation of men, by lessening their power over women; in the novel Dracula. In doing this I will be able to explore the effects

Bram Stoker's Dracula is a highly controversial novel written in the Victorian Era. The Victorian era was a time when gender played a very restrictive role in society. Men and women were expected to follow certain behavior and to stay within the conventions of the time. In Dracula, the reader encounters "the new woman", a woman who does not stay within the bounds of Victorian gender tradition. The reader also gains insight into the dominate role that men play in the novel and how the patriarchy impacts society. There are two opinions among critics, one being that the men primarily dictate the events and characterization in the novel, or the second argument being that women actually fulfill this role

In the novel, Dracula, by Bram Stoker, we are introduced to two specific ladies that are essential to the essence of this gothic, horror novel. These two women are Mina Harker and Lucy Westenra. The purpose for these two women was for Stoke to clearly depict the two types of women: the innocent and the contaminated. In the beginning, the women were both examples of the stereotypical flawless women of this time period. However, as the novel seems to progress, major differences are bound to arise. Although both women, Lucy and Mina, share the same innocent characteristics, it’s more ascertain that with naïve and inability of self control, Lucy creates a boundary that shows the difference between these two ladies and ultimately causes her

Arguably, Dracula’s wives are guilty of another of Bertens’ proposed stereotypes, that of utter dependence on man. They rely on Count Dracula to bring them their food, and therefore without him they would presumably die. This seems to reflect the well-established idea of public and private “spheres” that pervaded so much of Victorian domestic life. In this system, the woman was effectively condemned to the role of homemaker, while the man became the breadwinner. The inability of Dracula’s wives to resist feeding on Jonathan when he falls asleep in the study could also reflect on the – once again, Victorian idea – that women were too hysterical and so inept at keeping control of themselves that they were unfit for a vast range of careers. However, while Stoker does indubitably include these stereotypes in his work, it does not necessarily mean that he agrees with them.