What Is The Signs Of Signification In The Loves Of Lady Purple

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

Society has set rules in place that are constricting of new ideas and behaviours. If history has taught us anything, it is that we as a society need to be more open minded, specifically with sexuality. It is 2015 and we are aware that woman’s sexuality is a very real thing that should be celebrated, ‘The company of Wolves’ shows us that we haven’t always embraced woman’s sexuality with open arms. Throughout history people who were homosexual were often thought of at sinners, rebellious or even possibly having a mental illness. ‘Dracula’ has undertones of homosexuality but does it ever so slightly that society didn’t know what to make of it. Dracula is a rich, established vampire who might be gay, this thought is allowing people to get used to the idea that homosexuality doesn’t make you evil. ‘The Company of Wolves’ and ‘Dracula are both stories that deal with repressing sexuality, pushing the boundaries of society’s “normality” and embracing new generations and ideas. The characters Dracula and the Wolf both represent anxieties about sexuality, i.e homosexuality and woman’s sexuality, and at one point being unheard of or unspoken about by society.

    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

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.

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

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,

The generalization for vampires has been displayed in films and literature for hundreds of years. The stereotypical versions of vampires are that they have long fangs, sleep in coffins during the day, and suck the blood out of humans. Both novels contradict those stereotypes in different ways. To understand the diversity of the vampires described in both novels, one must examine the characteristics that the vampires display and the meaning and purpose behind them. David D. Gilmore’s book “Monsters” analyzes monsters and other mythical creatures. Gilmore describes why humanity invented the idea of

The new cultural phenomenon “Twilight” has given the vampire a new image. The storyline consists of a girl named Bella who moves to a new town in Washington, and eventually meets a vampire named Edward Cullen, and they fall in love. Jennifer Esposito’s article, “Vampires, Vixens, and Feminists: An analysis of Twilight” states, rather

Such beliefs are boldly represented throughout the book and often center on the glorifying resistance of temptation while advising against the inevitable temptation to “taste the forbidden fruit” (Podansky). The vampires mentioned before are reflections of the modern vampire and the gothic vampire, and even now the vampire has evolved to be much more “human”. But this can’t be said for the past. “During the eighteenth century, the subject of vampirism was an obsession in Europe.

The Vampires in the novels explore sexual deviancy, but are always ultimately punished in doing so. The homosexual parentage of Louis and Lestat to Claudia and of Armand to Sybelle and Benji are both destroyed in their own way. Claudia and Louis’ final rejection of Lestat and Armand’s failure in being able to protect Sybelle and Benji from Marius, are both examples of homosexual families being explored and then finally being punished for going against the accepted social norm of 20th century culture. This supports Haggerty’s claim that readers want to ‘explore unauthorized desires and at the same time see them bleed’, by exploring and then destroying homosexual relationships repeatedly throughout the collection. When reading the characters as ‘homosexual’ as Haggerty suggests, this punishment dynamic makes it unavoidable to find truth in Haggerty’s claim that Rice

Angela Carter’s “The Tigers Bride” is a similar, more modernized take on Beaumont’s “Beauty and the Beast”. Both of the stories include this seemingly beautiful female as the main protagonist. In fact, she is even referred to as Beauty in Beaumont’s story. Although in Carter’s she remains unnamed, it is clear to the readers that this heroic, strong female is meant to be perceived as a beautiful young woman. The three centuries that have passed between the publications of these stories is evident when comparing the actions of these two women and the different messages they convey to their readers.

The story of Dracula is well documented and has stood the test of time since it’s Victorian age creation. More times than not, literature writings are a reflection of the era from which they are produced. In the case of Dracula, Vampire literature expresses the fears of a society. Which leads me to the topic I chose to review: sexuality. The Victorian Era was viewed as a period diluted in intense sexual repression and I believe that Dracula effectively exploited this as the fear of sexuality was commonplace in the society. In this paper I will examine Bram Stoker’s Dracula and highlight his use of sexuality. I will analysis the female sexuality that is prevalent throughout the book, the complexities are at work within the text, and the

The legend of the vampire has emerged countless times within human imagination over the past few centuries. The first available representation of the mythical creature in prose fiction can be found in John Polidori’s “The Vampyre” (1810). It was not until eight decades later that Bram Stoker popularized the existence of this figure with the publication of “Dracula” in 1897. The folklore of the vampire has come a long way since and can be found in today’s popular media more frequently than ever before. However, with due course of time, the representation of the creature has taken alternate routes and today’s vampires are noticeable different – socially and physically – from their predecessors. One effective path to trace this

The three vampires prepare to feed on Jonathan while seducing him in his trance-like state. “I could feel the soft, shivering touch of the lips on the supersensitive skin of my throat, and the hard dents of two sharp teeth, just touching and pausing there. I closed my eyes in a languorous ecstasy and waited...” (Stoker 45-46). This quote describes how the vampires explicitly lure in Jonathan until he is helpless, vulnerable, and easy to feed on. A parallel can be made between the vampires thirst for Jonathan’s blood and the victorian female’s lust, or thirst, for sex. Jeffery Andrew Weinstock, author of academic journal “Vampires, Vampires, Everywhere!” describes the sexuality of vampires. “Vampires provide representations of tabooed sexuality to establish and reinforce proper sexual roles. Vampires are, quite simply, very, very naughty. They are seldom decorously heterosexual, monogamous, and respectful partners” (Weinstock 4). Vampires’ actions are considered taboo in the twenty-first century, much less the Victorian Era. To conclude, vampires are sexual creatures that show a side of live the Victorians tried to

In Alice Walker's The Color Purple, she explores the thin grey line that stands between survival and living. Through her protagonist, Celie, she examines the dramatic shifts of empowerment; focusing on the young black girl in the 1850’s.