The female sexuality plays the very important role in both DRACULA and MAXIMUM GAGA. They both talk about the virginity and dissoluteness in female sexuality, but have different views about it. In DRACULA, only virginity is accepted; dissoluteness is completely intolerable. Stoker thinks virginity is very precious, and he want the readers know that women will be punished for being lascivious, so each female character has different ending in terms of their virginity. In MAXIMUM GAGA, Lara didn’t give an exact attitude about the virginity and dissoluteness in female sexuality; she thinks they can exist at the same time.
In DRACULA, the general content is about the fighting between Dracula and humans, since Dracula tries to transform all the female characters into vampires. The language of the book is not very sexual, but the word “Voluptuousness” did shows up a lot in the book. The female characters, Mina, Lucy and the three sisters, they have different personalities, different attitude to love, and different virginity. When Dracula tried to transform them into vampires, they experience different processes and have different endings.
Mina, Jonathan Harker’s wife, is the purest one. She doesn’t have a strong desire of sexuality. She really loves his husband, and it seems all she cares in her life is him. During the time Jonathan was in Transylvania, Mina was so anxious about him. She shows her care of her love in the journals and the letters to Lucy that “I am very sad. There was no letter for me. I hope there cannot be anything the matter with Jonathan (Stoker, 77).” There is no description about Mina being sexual. She is purest woman in the book, and gives a very good impression to others. Van Helsing states that “She (Mina) i...
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...racters get different endings, based on their different sexuality behaviors. The pure one got a happy life, but the dissipated one dead tragically. In MAXIMUM GAGA, Lara think virginity and dissoluteness are not contradictory, women can have both of them. In my own view, I’d agree with Stoker that virginity is precious, but it doesn’t mean Lara’s view is wrong. The dissoluteness and virginity can exist together, but not in my case. As what I said above, the female sexuality is a controversial topic. There is no exact answer for it. It always depends on individuals.
Works Cited
Bram Stoker, DRACULA, Published by Qualitas Publishing 195 Vardiff Drive N.W. Calgary,
Alberta, Canada, First Published, 1897, First Published as a Qualitas Classic,
2010
Lara Glenum, MAXIMUM GAGA, Action Books, Department of English, Notre Dame, IN 46556, 2008
Soyokaze. "Thread: Female Sexuality in Bram Stoker's Dracula." Urch Forums RSS. N.p., 8 Mar. 2008. Web. 6 May 2014. .
Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a classic piece of literature that has survived through the ages. Dracula has become a famous villain in countless movies and has been the inspiration for many others. What many people may miss about this book first written in 1897 is the purpose and symbolism behind this famous vampire. To begin to understand the symbolism and theme in the text, first you must understand a little background of the Victorian era in which Stoker lived. Named after Queen Victoria from 1837-190, this era was a time of “…sexual moralism, domestic propriety, and imperialist ambition” (“Dracula & the Fears of Victorian England”). Through these ideals and a declining economy, tensions were on the rise in the working class. Things such as sexual deviance or being improper was seen as a threat to proper Victorian society. Dracula and his mini...
In Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, Stoker’s use of inverted gender roles allows readers to grasp the sense of obscureness throughout, eventually leading to the reader’s realization that these characters are rather similar to the “monster” which they call Dracula. Despite being in the Victorian era, Stoker’s use of sexuality in the novel contributes to the reasoning of obscureness going against the Victorian morals and values. Throughout the novel the stereotypical roles of the Victorian man and woman are inverted to draw attention to the similarities between Dracula and the characters. Vague to a majority of readers, Bram Stoker uses Dracula as a negative connotation on society being that the values of the Victorian culture are inverted amongst the sexes of characters, thus pointing out the similarities of the characters and the so called “monster” which they call 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 Vampyre” showed society’s fear of sexuality in terms of the seductive man who could “ruin” a young girl.These texts are representative of vampire stories in the Victorian Era, and will be the focus here.
...ue Woman,” by being the only woman who survives at the end of the novel. Although the other women have the strong power of seduction, Mina is still able to last until the end of the novel. Furthermore, through the actions as well as journal entries of the characters, the novel Dracula proposes that the change to “New Woman” directly influences one’s reputation negatively exaggerated by the deaths of the other more “New Woman” characterized women. This direct relationship between social status and the role of women is represented through the several woman characters. It is also seen that the one with the highest reputation is the one that remains the longest. This relationship is still present in modern society in the gender income gap. As the amount of money one has increases, his social status increases too but for women, their level of income is at times limited.
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Dracula accentuates the lust for sexuality through the main characters by contrasting it with the fears of the feminine sexuality during the Victorian period. In Victorian society, according to Dr.William Acton, a doctor during the Victorian period argued that a woman was either labelled as innocent and pure, or a wife and mother. If a woman was unable to fit in these precincts, consequently as a result she would be disdained and unfit for society and be classified as a whore (Acton, 180). The categorizing of woman is projected through the “uses the characters of Lucy and Mina as examples of the Victorian ideal of a proper woman, and the “weird sisters” as an example of women who are as bold as to ignore cultural boundaries of sexuality and societal constraints” according to Andrew Crockett from the UC Santa Barbara department of English (Andrew Cro...
This essay will attempt to discuss the two gothic tales ‘Carmilla’ and ‘Dracula’ in relation to cultural contexts in which they exist as being presented to the reader through the gender behaviour and sexuality that is portrayed through the texts. Vampire stories always seem to involve some aspect of sexuality and power.
...ughout the book, the reader can see a story of a new type of woman emerging in the 19th century. At the end of the story Van Helsing speaks of Mina and Jonathan’s newborn son and how he is going to be the new age man that will accept the new age woman and understand a woman who not only is motherly and loving, but also proud, strong, and independent. Mina now represents the new age woman just as much as she did the traditional woman in the beginning, and in the end the men fought to save her life. Stoker wrote Dracula to prove a point that the new age woman will eventually emerge as the leading type of woman and the traditional woman will be no more. Although Mina isn’t the drastic new woman that Lucy was, she shares many similar characteristics and is as strong and powerful as the new age woman, with the intelligence and motherly love that the traditional woman had.
The idea of Victorian womanhood is extremely sacred, especially to a woman like Mina, who primarily wishes to be of use to her husband. Dracula’s penetrating the West and his actions are threats to female purity, and so they are threats to Victorian culture and order of England (Western world). Dracula is penetrating the entire nature of Vi...
“thrilling and repulsive”(126) was how Dracula’s brides were described by Harker. This tone of disgust and fear towards them by Harker as well as the author himself indicates how the desire and hatred towards the women are perceived, all due to them being exceedingly sexual. The tone that is utilized emulates the allure and loathing dictated in the text to the point that it is intended for the reader to feel it as well. The fact that the reader can sense it too, causes them to feel hatred towards the brides, similar to the hatred all of the characters feel towards them. When sweet Lucy was turned she was transformed in a manipulative sexual being with “languorous, voluptuous grace”(747). Her interactions appear innocent and pure, but in actuality she is attempting to convince one of her husbands(she had four due to sharing blood with them), to become a vampire; an evil being. This almost harmless tone portrayed by Lucy’s manipulative actions, juxtaposes with the true nature of her actions, those of evil. The given contrast shows how any woman out of the gender role; being sexual, telling your husband what to do, or even having multiple husbands in the eyes of God(that one just pertained to women there, as Van Helsing has a wife in the eyes of the church, yet
Firstly I will look at sexuality and sexual deviancy in vampire literature; vampires are often representative of the manifestation of ‘evil’ in society, they are ‘the other’ and are used to portray undesirable moral characteristics. It is not a surprise, then, that vampires are often written as being sexually deviant- especially female vampires. Women living in Britain in the Victorian era were forced to comply with the ideals of society at the time for their gender, they were supposed to be submissive to their husbands, meek and domesticated, this was known as ‘the angel in the house’, a popular term coined to describe the ‘ideal’ Victorian woman. In gothic literature, women are usually portrayed in one of two ways, as ‘the angel in the house’ or a ‘femme fatale’. Female sexuality was seen as being very deviant and scandalous at the time, women were supposed to be virtuous and virginal, it is obvious, then, that female vampires should be sexual. Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) was written at a very important time, both in the midst of the Victorian era and also at a time of an emergence of a new role for women, the ‘new woman’. The ‘new woman’ was educated, more openly sexual, and sought autonomy from her male counterparts
As the saying goes, “Women can do everything Men can do.” In the Gothic Novel Dracula by Bram Stoker, there is a constant theme of sexuality, from both male and females in society. In the Victorian era, the roles of male and females have caused a lot of tension. After reading Dracula, some would argue the roles men and women hold in society. As mentioned in Dr. Seward’s Dairy from Val Halsing., “Ah, that wonderful Madam Mina! She has man’s brain—a brain that a man should have were he much gifted—and a woman’s heart. The good God fashioned her for a purpose, believe me, when He made that so good combination” (Stoker and Hindle, 2003 250). A women’s mind is not the always the first thing on a males mind. Some would overlook what a woman really has to offer.
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