Repressed Sexuality in Bram Stoker's Dracula 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
Bram Stoker, author of Dracula, not only creates the early depiction of vampire stories; but writes more to contradict the age old beliefs of women and their role in society. Dracula is more that just a vampire story. There is a deeper level to this. A level in which it can incite change in the way one percieves women. There is a noition that all women were to be the same but Dracula refutes that. Vampire sexuality, as represented in Bram Stoker 's Dracula, reveals itself as both a phenomenon that
Dracula Seen in New Eyes Dracula by Bram Stoker which is written in the style of journal entries, newspaper clippings, and other forms of personal narratives from various characters, and their viewpoints of the peculiar events surrounding them. There are many interpretations of this novel, many different viewpoints on the themes of the novel. Carol Senf, wrote an essay called Dracula: The Unseen Face in the Mirror. In this interpretation, there are many different viewpoints and ideas about Dracula
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. Dracula is a novel that indulges its male reader’s imagination, predominantly on the topic of female sexuality. When Dracula was first published, Victorian
Written and set in the Victorian era, Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula is a fundamental stepping-stone for horror literature. Unlike most novels of its time, Dracula not only showcased the ideals of its era, but it completely flipped it on its head. Firstly, there are numerous examples of female sexuality and symbolism throughout the entire novel. In Victorian society, it was believed that women had no sex drive and only partook in sex when their male partners insisted. It was unheard of for a female
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
upon my throat!” Mina Harker shouted into the night thinking someone would hear. Mina Harker is the perfect example of an innocent woman. She follows the rules and is modest through every aspect of her life. Dracula tests her innocence to try and gain more power. Bram Stoker’s story Dracula expresses the theme of giving in to temptation and losing one 's innocence through the characterization of Mina’s innocence being stripped away by Dracula’s temptations. In the 17th century, or rather the Victorian
Bram Stoker Bram Stoker unleashed his horrific creation on an unsuspecting world over one hundred years ago. One could hardly imagine that his creature of the night would delight and inhabit the nightmares of every generation between his and ours. Count Dracula has become an icon of evil, and is perhaps the most widely recognized bogeyman in all of world literature. To date, there have been over one hundred films made about Dracula or other assorted vampires, not to mention countless novels
Sigmund Freud’s essay “The Uncanny” theorizes the duality of certain themes common in gothic literature as strange and frightening yet familiar, further explaining that the “uncanny effect is produced by effacing the distinction between imagination and reality.” (Freud pg.396) Bram Stoker 's, Dracula, captures the thematic zeitgeist of gothic Europe; the repression and trappings of a rigid and formal society masking the carnal and base desires of the population at large. Freud 's analysis of the
Hargrave 7/25/2016 Eng 2305 Dracula Interpretive Essay In Bram Stoker’s Dracula, we are introduced to the monster that is Dracula. Throughout his Stoker touches on several themes of Dracula’s monstrosity. This paper will explore Bram Stoker’s Dracula under the theory of, “The Monster Dwells at the Gates of Difference” The rejection of modernity, sexual expression, and the xenophobic threat from Old World Europe are all gates of difference that Stoker touches on. Dracula dwells at the gates of difference