Summary Of Feminism In Dracula

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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.
First, readers can tell that Lucy Westenra’s position as a feminine character in this novel is there to support the masculine society. This can be seen through the text and Lucy’s thoughts and by her descriptions of the other characters who are also in the novel. While Lucy is writing letters back and forth with Mina, Lucy starts to represent her womanhood by writing to Mina, “You and I, Mina dear, who are engaged and going to settle down soon soberly into old married women, can despise vanity” (Stoker 78). The expectations of a woman during this time would be for them to settle down, start a family, and to take care of the family and their house. Next, Lucy is very willing and goes out of her way in order to please her husband, Arthur Holmwood. Lucy wrote “I do not know myself if I shall ever speak slang; I do not know if Arthur likes it; as I have never heard him use any as yet” (Stoker 78). In this quote, Lucy is saying that if her husband does not like it that she wil...

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... because Mina believes that she is to fulfill a duty to her husband, rather than living life for herself. Throughout the novel, Mina’s physical appearance is observed upon by the standards of a patriarchal system of beliefs. After Mina had lived in Dr. Seward’s asylum for a while, Mina, like Lucy, is attacked by Dracula and starts to transform into a vampire (Stoker 283). While trying to bless Mina, Van Helsing burns a mark into her forehead which caused chaos of emotion from the characters (Stoker 296). Van Helsing responds to this occurrence by saying “And oh, Madam Mina, my dear, my dear, may we who love you be there to see when that red scar, the sign of God’s knowledge of what has been, shall pass away and leave your forehead as pure as the heart we know” (Stoker 296). Similar to Lucy’s case, Mina is seen as being pure before she was changed into a vampire.

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