Gender Roles In Dracula

Bram Stoker’s Dracula illustrated fears about sexual women in contrast to the woman who respected and abided by society’s sexual norms. Joseph Sheridan LeFanu’s “Carmilla” represented not only the fear of feminine sexuality, but also the fear of sexuality between women. John William Polidori’s “The

The notion of separate spheres serves to set up the roles of men and women in Victorian society. Women fulfill the domestic sphere and are seen as submissive and emotionally sensitive individuals. Conversely, men are intelligent, stable, and fulfill all of the work outside of the home. In Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula, the Count seems to actually embody the fear of the breakdown of such separate spheres. However, Stoker breaks down these separate spheres and the fear associated with their breakdown through the theme of the “New Woman” intertwined with the actions and behaviors of the characters in the novel.

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.

Women’s inferior nature within Dracula in reminiscent of Foster’s chapter, “It’s All Political”, which highlights the depth provided by inserting political aspects into novels, such as gender customs. Mina breaks the socially accepted version of a woman, whom is uneducated and stays in the background, by contributing intellectual ideas to Professor Van Helsing’s discussion; Van Helsing praises, “Ah, that wonderful Madam Mina! She has a man’s brain—a brain that a man should have were he much gifted—and a woman’s heart” (Stoker 236). The men are awestruck at the concept that a woman is able to bring forth opinions worthy of a “man’s brain”. This boasts the putative wisdom of men over their unrefined female

Through three female vampires, Stoker draws out on the dangers of “New Women” by portraying them as perverted image of a mother. Instead of showing these women as traditional mother who are protective and nourishing to their

The roles of women in Dracula by Bram Stoker are presented through Mina and Lucy and the Count’s three brides. They all help to reinforce the idea of the typically gothic female: with the brides appearing to Jonathan Harker as both physically attractive and repulsive, effectively linking to the idea that they present harlotry traits which echo Coleridge’s assertion of female gothic characters. According to Carol Senf, the three female vampires who menace Jonathan “are important primarily to introduce values and beliefs that Dracula will explore more fully in Lucy and Mina, as English women are also affected by the vampire taint”. They are described initially as “ladies by their dress and manner”, but their descriptions turn to vivid juxtapositions.

​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 is terrifyingly to the average and as a distorted mirror image of human behavior and ideals. On one hand, the vampire inspires a bigoted response because his needs violate the normal limits of matrimony. He is physiologically dependent on women who are foreign to him. With that being said, the novel undermines the simple idea of the foreign, by suggesting that the most unique aspects of a vampire 's sex life are strangely familiar because they parody or literalize human sexuality. This argument wrap around the idea that there is a culture shift in Victorian women which becomes to be defined as the “New Women” of this society. Most can point to the evolution through Stoker’s female characters. The change in women and their exploration of sexuality also accompanied by the rebellion agsisnt the Victorian beliefs expresses extreme desire for the breakout of gender roles. Bram Stoker’s Dracula will exhibit powerful female charaterisitics and sexuality that challenges the Vicotiran

In the two classic gothic vampire tales, Carmilla and Dracula, both novels have similarities through their displays of sexuality. Sexuallity isn’t just displaying sexual intentions towards other people. The two novels explore how vampirism represents female sexuality as a disease through different means. In Carmilla, the character of Carmilla’s vampirism is linked with disease because she has bitten Laura, one of her many victims, and fed off of her. Through Carmilla’s action of biting Laura and displaying deep affection for her, Carmilla’s female sexuality was linked to a disease. In Dracula Mina and Lucy are two females who are both victims of vampirism and showcase how vampirism is a disease. The novel explores how they deal with the effects of vampirism and how the men in the novel treat vampirism. This essay explores, compares and contrasts Carmilla and Dracula through their use of vampirism to represent female sexuality as an illness that affects the women in the novels.

First of all, women's transformation into a vampire represents the change of men's perspectives towards women. During the transformation women gain the ability to hold power over men via sexuality. Obviously the novel is set in the Victorian society, which clearly is in a masculine-dominated and anti-feminist period. In addition, the typical woman is very traditional, meaning she does her main roles as a beholder and caretaker to her family. However, Bram Stoker attempts to represent, by transforming women to vampires, the role of women who do not fit to the time.

Bram Stoker’s most successful novel Dracula, is a fiction novel where he addressed controversial themes and subjects in the Victorian Era by describing what society was like at that time. When Stoker published Dracula in 1897, it’s was the most popular vampire story in the Victorian Era till in this century. Dracula was one of his greatest achievements and success in his writing career. Stoker reveals varies controversial themes such as feminism by describing and presenting multiple female characters. The author uses the characteristics and actions of the female characters in the story such as Lucy Westenra, Mina Harker and the three brides of Dracula to emphases and develops the theme of feminism throughout the novel.

A common concern throughout the Victorian era was the role women maintained and their position in society. It was expected that both males and females conformed to these roles and followed the gender expectations of their society. Bram Stoker 's Dracula describes a post dated European setting in which most women are subject to explicit gender roles and stereotypes. The norm in this society is for women to be modest, prim and proper. However, the novel narrates the possibilities of a situation in which women don 't conform and thus are scrutinized. Bram Stoker 's purpose in Dracula is to express the threat faced by men when encountering women who are in control of their sexuality and the power that is accompanied with that control. This is

[(essay date autumn 1982) In the following essay, Senf contends that, contrary to popular belief, Bram Stoker 's treatment of women in his novel stems not from his animosity toward women in general, but rather from his negative reaction to some attributes of the New Woman.]

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 to be sexually assertive in any way, and such an idea would likely have been a very disturbing and frightening concept to a conservative society. Needless to say, women often had to suppress their sexual desires during this period in order to keep

In this time period, men believed they were superior to women because women did not have jobs. For example, in Dracula, when Jonathan Harker sleeps in a room that Dracula did not assign him, he is trapped with three women in the parlor, and he believes he is going to die. “At least God’s mercy is better than that of these monsters…. At its foot a man may sleep—as a man” (Stoker 57). Perhaps, Jonathan believes that if the three women victimize him, it would make him less of a man that he is. Another example is the mention of the “New Women” when Lucy and Mina were going a walk: “I believe we should have shocked the “New Woman” with our appetites” (96). Without worrying bout being prim and proper, they were hungry enough, they did not care about the rules in the Victorian times. This started the rebellion of the “New Woman”. Stoker was familiar with feminist movement, growing up around strong women. Though Stoker was hostile towards women and the idea of the “New Women”, people confused him to be feminist because of the two contrasting women in the story: the Victorian example [Mina], and the “angel” that turned into a vampire. “ In the end, the women mentioned in the novel were either vampires, turned into a vampire, or end up dead. Even if he did not like women in general, he creates a “New Woman”, Mina Harker. In Carol A Senf’s essay, “Dracula: Stoker’s response to the

The Victorian Era, a time period spanning from the early nineteen hundreds to the beginning of the twentieth century, was marked by a set of cultural ideals that greatly differed from today’s standards of living and social interaction. These standards usually concentrated on how one should act in public to uphold their honor and decency. Furthermore, the Victorians considered it inappropriate to mention sex in any shape and form. This tendency is reflected in the literature of the time. Novelists were encouraged to hide anything sexual and books were removed from print if they were not considered proper. Thus, authors wrote subliminal sexual messages into their novels and used them to to reinforce the importance of purity and proper behavior. Bram Stoker's Dracula expounds on this aspect of Victorian culture through his use of female autonomy in the novel.