The Women in Dracula

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The Women of Dracula

Throughout the book Dracula, the author, Bram Stoker, portrays many different aspects of women's roles in the 19th century. Since this novel was published many films have been created based on Stoker's story line. Nosferatu, a silent film, depicts the women of the story, other than Mina, as minimal characters. The movie Dracula, filmed in the 1930's, stays very true to the novel, with only minor changes to the characters and plot. All three of the works depict the same women differently, thus changing the complete literary artistic nature of each piece.

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.

In the novel, after Dracula pursues and kills her best friend Lucy, she joins the team of men that are trying to put an end to him. Dracula starts pursuing Mina, and decides to make her his slave. When Dr. Seward saw Mina after her encounter with Dracula, he was very concerned, stating, "When Mrs. Harker came in to see me this afternoon she wasn't the same; it was like tea after the teapot had been watered" (Stoker 240). The search party decides to keep Mina out of the group, so Dracula cannot read her mind and figure out their plan. Mina, putting the search party before he...

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... of women. However, in the silent film Nosferatu, the women have more miniscule roles. The movie Dracula shows most of the same aspects that Stoker uses in his novel portray the women characters. While all three of these texts have the same main characters, they show how even the smallest detail can change the entire perception of a character.

Works Cited

Dracula. Dir. Tod Browning. Perf. Bela Lugosi, David Manners, Helen Chandler, and Dwight Frye. 1931.Videocassette. MCA Home Video, 1984.

Nosferatu. Dir F.W. Murnau. Perf. Max Schreck andAlexander Granach. 1922. Videocassette. Crown Movie Classics, n.d.

Stoker, Bram. Dracula. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 2003.

"To The Life of the Victorian Woman." Life of Women. 10 Feb. 2006

http://www.victoriaspast.com/Lifeof VictorianWoman/LifeofVictorianWoman.html.

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