New York: Longman 2003. 772-773.
There’s a Hidden “Monster” in Everyone 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 use of gender inversion is first evident in the novel when Dracula’s voluptuous brides attempt to seduce Johnathan Harker.
Harold Bloom New York: Blooms Literary Criticism, 2008. 115-29. Print. Paris, Bernard. “Journey to the Inner Station.” Bloom’s Modern Critical Interpretations: Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.
In Case's article “Tasting the Original Apple,” it talks about the role that now the new woman has and how it comes into conflict with how men react towards it as stated “Dracula is often read as a largely reactionary response to the threat of autonomous female sexuality posed by the phenomenon of the "New Woman," with its anxieties about female sexuality being most clearly visible in Lucy Westenra's story. Particularly once she has been "vamped," Lucy's sexual assertiveness seems to link her with the New Woman. But Lucy's actions as a vampire, like those of the "awful women" (42) Jonathan encounters at Dracula's castle, perhaps owe less to the specific threat posed by the New Woman's insistence on sexual autonomy than to the ambivalences built into the model of Victorian womanhood from the start. Since ideal womanhood (and the ground of male desire) was characterized by a combination of total sexual purity and at least the potential for passionate devotion to a man, this model... ... middle of paper ... ...if not all some. From Lucy her own words, “Why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble?” (Stoker and Hindle, 67).
New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2002. Wagner, Heather Lehr. Machiavelli: Renaissance Political analyst and author. Chelsea House of Publications, 2005.
If they weren’t doing anything wrong Dracula would have never gotten so angry with them. Besides being looked down upon by the stereotypical men of the novel, they were also killed later on in the efforts to destroy. The perception of the brides and later actions made against them due to the outward sexual appearance and non-adherence to gender roles, it is seen what Stoker is attempting to communicate about the places of women in society; that they must stay confined in the miniature box of purity or misfortune shall befall them. As previously stated in the introduction, women were expected to fall into two categories; a wife or mother, or a young, harmless girl. Anything out of that normality was incredibly shocking and frightening.
New York: Ywayne, 1998. Print. Stoker, Bram. DRACULA. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003.
Widdicombe, Toby. Simply Shakespeare. New York: Longman, 2002.