In the 19th century Bram Stoker wrote the infamous novel, Dracula. This novel was composed in the style of letters, journal entries, newspaper articles and telegrams in order to convey to the reader a realistic story. The story of Dracula is about an ancient vampire who moves to London from his native country of Transylvania. In London, Dracula seduces and bites a young woman by the name of Lucy Westenra. When Lucy falls sick, no one knows how to help her because while Dracula has bitten her many times she has always been in a trance. Lucy?s friends decide to join together to combat what ever is ailing Lucy. In hopes of some help, Lucy?s friend Dr. Seward asks an old mentor of his by the name of Dr. Van Helsing to come to London and solve this puzzling illness. When Dr. Van Helsing arrives in London and sees Lucy he is the only one that knows almost immediately what has happened and what they are up against. The character of Dracula rarely appears in the story because this creates suspense and magnifies the fear of the unknown. The theme of good versus evil is developed throughout the book in many ways. One of the most important examples is Dracula and Mina. Dracula is the ultimate evil and Mina is full of goodness and purity. The Victorian view of women was not helpful to the characters in Dracula. For example, every time the male characters in the story decide not to tell Mina some particular type of information, things end up going terribly wrong. Even though Mina ends up being the key to destroying Dracula she is still a women and the Victorian view gets in the way.
Throughout most of the novel, Bram Stoker keeps Dracula?s character in the shadows because it creates apprehension and uncertainly for t...
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...carried the same views of women from the 19th century, but by giving Mina such an important role he also saw that maybe the ?New Women? would not be such a threat to a male-dominated society. I really did enjoy reading this novel. I was surprised to find out how many words and meanings I did not understand until clarified, that Victorian?s understood. For example, giving someone your blood through a transfusion was considered so intimate that you were then seen as married. I would like to have spent more time learning about science during this particular era and how patients like Renfield were treated. My favorite character in the book is Mina. I think that I relate to her the best and her character is very admirable. Forgiveness is such a hard thing to do and she forgave so unselfishly while all the time maintaining her Victorian purity and dignity.
Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” came to print in 1897, at the height of Nineteenth century Victorian life in Europe, a progressively modern era that saw much medical and technological advancement. This era brought with it the contentious idea of an empowered woman, the “New Woman,” a woman who aspires to be educated as well as sexually and economically independent. Stoker gives a contrasting view of this notion in “Dracula.” While the main characters, Lucy and Mina, are clearly opposite in personality, they are both portrayed as unequal, defenseless objects that are to be protected and desired. However, one woman’s fate is determined by her weakness, while the other is determined by her strength.
In Bram Stoker's "Dracula", Dracula is portrayed as a monster made evident by his gruesome actions. An analysis of Dracula shows that: shows his evil nature in his planning, brutally killing Lucy Westrenstra causing a violent response from Dr. Seward and others, and how his evil ways lead to his downfall. To characterize Dracula in one way, he is a ruthless, cunning monster who uses tricks, torture, and wits to manipulate people to his will. However when he trifled with some courageous people, he had no knowledge that it would be his undoing.
Dracula is a mythical creature designed to wreak havoc on the lives of mortals through the terror and intimidation of death by bite. Vampires are undead beings that kill humans for their blood to survive. Human blood is the vampire’s sustenance, and only way of staying alive. Throughout time, humans have come up with ways to repel vampires, such as lighting jack-o-lanterns on All Hallows Eve, placing garlic around the neck, a stake through the heart, sunlight, etc. Both beings have a survival instinct, whether it be hunger or safety, both are strong emotions. In the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker, the characters Lucy, John, and Van Helsing strive for survival, therefore killing Dracula.
Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, is a highly controversial work of fiction that is still being read for the first time today. Dracula touches many different categories including; sci-fi horror to 1800’s English romance literature. This is the main reason why the novel Dracula can be analyzed in many different ways using many different literary theories. The theory which stuck out most to me while reading this novel was the Feminist Theory. The Feminist Theory cannot be used to analyze Dracula as a whole novel, but it can be used in order to analyze the different female characters throughout the book. Therefore, Bram Stoker’s Dracula can be analyzed through the feminist theory by focusing on the characters Mina Harker, Lucy Westenra, and the three brides of Dracula.
Similar to almost every piece of literature ever created, Dracula by Bram Stoker has been interpreted many different ways, being torn at from every angle possible. Just as one might find interest in interpreting novels differently, he or she might also find interest in the plot, prose, or theme, all of which ultimately lead to the novels overall tone. Throughout the novel, it becomes blatant that the novel contains an underlying theme of female incompetence and inferiority. Through a true feminist’s eyes, this analysis can clearly be understood by highlighting the actions of Mina and Lucy, the obvious inferior females in the book. Through Stoker’s complete and utter manipulation of Mina and Lucy, he practically forces the reader to analyze the co-existence of dominant males and inferior females in society and to simultaneously accept the fact that the actual text of Dracula is reinforcing the typical female stereotypes that have developed throughout the ages.
she was to be a wife and produce an heir. If she was neither these,
In reading Bram Stoker's Dracula, I find the treatment of the two main female characters-- Lucy Westenra and Mina Harker-- especially intriguing. These two women are two opposite archetypes created by a society of threatened men trying to protect themselves.
Mina is the main female character in the novel Dracula. She is the typical Victorian woman--caring, compassionate and completely devoted toward their loved ones (To The Life of the Victorian Women). She is Jonathan Harker's fiancée and later wife, and is faithful to him throughout the entire novel. When Jonathan first meets Dracula, he becomes very ill. Mina quickly runs to his aid. She becomes completely consumed in figuring out why her husband is so terribly sick. She is intensely devoted to him and does not give up until Jonathan is nursed back to good health.
This scene sets the basic structure of gender roles in Victorian society. In this scene, Stroker shows Mina as weak and under the influence of men. She is unable to free herself until men come to her rescue. Dracula controls the men by turning their women into vampires. Stoker reflects the idea that women are mere possessions of men. Dracula and other men are fighting to gain control over her. By controlling Mina, Dracula has challenged their masculinity, because they are unable to protect her from Dracula. The fact
In Dracula by Bram Stoker, there are two main female characters, Mina Harker and Lucy Westenra. Stoker used these two characters to represent the two different roles of women during this time. Lucy, as the innocence and sexual. Mina represents as the perfect Victorian woman. As she dutifully studies and helps her husband, Jonathan Harker. On the other hand, Lucy is represented as the way woman if they lust too much in society in the late 19th century. In this essay I will discuss the roles that Mina Harker and Lucy Westenra have in Dracula, how similar and different they are and why was Lucy Westenra the first to fall under Dracula’s spell?
Victorian England, as depicted in Bram Stoker’s Dracula was a much different time then the world that we live in today, this much should be obvious. The biggest difference, perhaps, is the one that is seen through the gender roles expressed in the novel. In Victorian England women were expected to maintain their chastity, at least until marriage or they would be shunned from society, or looked down upon. Once married they had “womanly duties” that were expected of them, duties that depended on them taking care of the home sphere of Victorian life. As could be imagined, men were expected to be chivalrous, “knights in shining armor,” who provided and protected for their families. But I feel as if in Dracula, the main characters experience a
During the Victorian era, a predominant problem was the place women held in society. Two of the characters, Mina Murray and Lucy Westenra display not only the gender roles in a Victorian society as well as sex and death. In Dracula, Stoker portrays women as sexualized Victorian women and different women as pure. To be in a Victorian society women that were pure were held to a high standard. Women that were impure were looked down upon and didn't take part in social events. Considered in Dracula the sexual and impure women as evil; the pure women are strong. The ideal embodiment of a Victorian women is Mina Murray. We see Mina as an intelligent woman and strong in the novel.Traditionally Mina is the Victorians perfect wife. . Mina however in chapter six writes, "No news from Jonathan. I am getting quite uneasy about him…" (72). Jonathan being away from her, Mina remains faithful to Jonathan and does all she can to get Jonathan
In Dracula, Bram Stoker explores the fantastic image of a sexually dominant woman within a patriarchal society. The battle between good and evil within the novel very much hinges upon feminine sexuality: Lucy and Nina are embodiments of the Victorian virtues, which Dracula threatens to corrupt,
“Dracula, in one aspect, is a novel about the types of Victorian women and the representation of them in Victorian English society” (Humphrey). Through Mina, Lucy and the daughters of Dracula, Stoker symbolizes three different types of woman: the pure, the tempted and the impure. “Although Mina and Lucy possess similar qualities there is striking difference between the two” (Humphrey). Mina is the ideal 19th century Victorian woman; she is chaste, loyal and intelligent. On the other hand, Lucy’s ideal Victorian characteristics began to fade as she transformed from human to vampire and eventually those characteristics disappeared altogether. Lucy no longer embodied the Victorian woman and instead, “the swe...
In the late nineteenth century, while Victorian England was the facing the threat of the "Outsider," Dracula actualized this battle between good versus evil, angels versus demons. The Victorian values of piety, purity, and propriety were attacked by Count Dracula in Bram Stoker's novel. The evil of the outside manifests in Dracula, while the protectors of Victorian values become the crew of light. When Dracula preys upon Mrs. Mina Harker, he is defiling the valued Victorian morals, and is manifesting the threat of the outsider.