Gendered Behavior And Sexual Roles In Bram Stoker's Dracula

Fiction of each era reflects the insecurities, concerns, and ideals of its generation, and through this genre, authors are able to construct entire universes of their own fantasy. These universes might contain characters that push boundaries for what is socially acceptable, but the authors need not be held accountable for their actions. The same holds true for works of the 19th century, where authors question traditional Victorian notions of the boundaries of acceptable gendered behavior and sexual roles. Specifically, Bram Stoker’s Dracula pushes social conceptions of customary gendered conduct through the vampires’ and Dracula’s actions and characterization as mutable. Qualities, such as intelligence, sexuality, and parenthood as portrayed

Their initial characterizations play on the stereotypes of the ideal “mother” and “wife,” respectively, yet once Lucy dies, all that remains is Mina’s chaste model of the perfect mother. She mothers the men in the group, going as far as embracing Arthur Holmwood as he weeps for his diseased fiancée, Lucy. Lucy also offers to comfort Quincey P. Morris, another of Lucy’s suitors. Moreover, the men in the group praise Mina for her intellect; Van Helsing goes so far as to state “She has man 's brain, a brain that a man should have were he much gifted, and a woman 's heart” (Chapter 18, 30 September, Dr. Seward’s Journal). Lucy can type, follows her husband’s study of the law, and keeps an account of the entire adventure, but the men on her side insist that she is too weak to fight. Even at the beginning of the novel, Lucy states, “when we are married, I shall want to be useful to Jonathan, and if I can stenograph well enough I can take down what he wants to say in this way and write it out for him on the typewriter” (Stoker 43). This implies that the purpose of a wife is to be an accessory to her husband’s skills, and to be dependent on him for original ideas. Mina must operate under these terms and conditions in order to represent a facet of what women ought to be, and this standard and internalized mentality concerning the role of women in relation to men suggests that part of what it means to be

Sex and sexuality are not even mentioned in the Lucy’s and Mina’s characterizations before their encounters with Dracula. Mina remains sexually passive throughout the novel, only to give birth to her son Quincy, and even then, Stoker did not mention any sexual encounters between Mina and Jonathan preceding Quincy’s birth. However, once succumbed to Dracula’s influence, Lucy has sexual outbursts wherein