A predominant concern of the Victorian era was the role of women and their place within a patriarchal society that divided into two spheres, the public masculine sphere that existed outside the home and the private sphere of feminine domesticity. Women were considered either pure or unchaste, those who were pure were the ideal embodiment of femininity, whereas as those who were unchaste were considered evil, sexual beings who had power over men; they were a threat to their superiority and the stability of the home. Wives came under the hegemony of their husbands; they could be either a wife or lover but not both and this bifurcation into Madonna or whore consolidated the division of the sexes. Toward the end of the era, changes for women within …show more content…
Yet some of her behaviours are non-conformist and reveal a desire to escape these marriage constraints. Victorian expectations of women were strict and Lucy’s desire for escape carries with it elements of the New Woman who “was more frank and open than her predecessors . . . felt free to initiate sexual relationships [and] explore alternatives to marriage and motherhood” (Senf 35). Lucy receives three proposals from men who are attracted to her because of her beauty, her “noblest heart” (56) and sweet nature. She calls herself a flirt and jokingly wonders “why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble” (54). That she quickly recognises this as heresy shows an acceptance of the feminine confines, a restriction that is also acknowledged in her doubt that she shall ever speak slang as she does “not know if Arthur likes it” (53). Stoker’s confines his depiction of sexual relationships to those characters who have a perceived negative attraction and it is only after Dracula has bitten her that he describes Lucy in more sensual terms. Dracula’s metaphorical penetration enacted in his bite turns her sweetness to “adamantine, heartless cruelty, and the purity to voluptuous wantonness” (191). In this state, Lucy takes on the same characteristics as the women Jonathan Harker encountered in the castle. These women are like the New Woman in their sexual prowess and role reversal, in an act that carries all the implications of fellatio these vampirettes have a “deliberate voluptuousness that [is] both thrilling and repulsive” (34). Their dominance over Harker shows in his feminised response, he waits “languorous ecstasy” (35) and swoons into unconsciousness. The
...have a strong desire to maintain control within and outside of marriage, they also have the support of a male dominated society. Stoker displays this struggle in the main characters of Dracula. Lucy Westerna is the obtuse, innocent, fragile, yet sultry siren of male desire; her aggressive sexual power is threatening to the Victorian man, making her not quite pure enough of mind or strong enough of will to be saved. On the other hand, Mina Murray Harker is a clever, unadulterated, strong, yet motherly woman, the kind of woman all women should strive to be. Therefore she is deemed superlative and worthy of salvage.
“Dracula, in one aspect, is a novel about the types of Victorian women and the representation of them in Victorian English society” (Humphrey). Through Mina, Lucy and the daughters of Dracula, Stoker symbolizes three different types of woman: the pure, the tempted and the impure. “Although Mina and Lucy possess similar qualities there is striking difference between the two” (Humphrey). Mina is the ideal 19th century Victorian woman; she is chaste, loyal and intelligent. On the other hand, Lucy’s ideal Victorian characteristics began to fade as she transformed from human to vampire and eventually those characteristics disappeared altogether. Lucy no longer embodied the Victorian woman and instead, “the swe...
The passage depicts the unnatural occurrence of the female’s sexual advances, and establishes the link between vampirism and sex that is seen throughout the novel: unlike Mina and Lucy, who are idyllically virtuous and pure, these un-dead women are insatiable and dominant. Stoker takes the fantastic image of the sexual woman to its most extreme manifestation, and suggests that Harker would not only lose his reputation by indulging in these sexual acts, but also his life. The three vampires that Harker encounters in Dracula’s castle are embodiments of the ‘beautiful nightmare’ of the male Victorians; they are representations of everything that the Victorian society states that women should not be – they are sexually aggressive, ‘voluptuous’, and seductive. This sexual proficiency, though appealing, is rebuked and seen to undermine the male dominancy within the patriarchal society, and therefore must be destroyed. The notion that a woman can be both attractive and repulsive is also presented by Angela Carter in The Lady of the House of Love. The character of the countess is presented as both the predator and the prey – the victim and the vixen. Just as the female vampire in Dracula is described as “thrilling and repulsive”, the countess is described as “beautiful and ghastly”. Despite her beauty and “fragility”, the countess
Victorian society dictated harsh restraints on sexuality, especially female sexuality. Members of Victorian society believed that sexual repression was a sign of good breeding. This was the time of the “cult of true womanhood,” the “code of chivalry,” and the Social Purity Movement.
...ny other novels of the time, Stoker’s Dracula purposely highlights the superiority of men, while simultaneously belittling women. After only a few pages of this novel, the reader should understand just how helpless the females become. No matter what the issue or controversy, they are unable to find any sort of solution, successful or not, without the help of the male characters. Stoker even goes as far as almost teasing Mina, by allowing her to aid in the hunt for Dracula, yet giving her trivial duties. Lucy on the other hand creates the novel’s most blatant case for male superiority. She is forced to constantly depend on four men for her survival. All blood transfusions she received were from men and even that could not save her life. Stoker manages to make a bold statement by pinpointing the inferiority of the two female main characters in the novel.
While historians and scholars use a variety of lenses to analyze American history, the examination of the role that gender has played in society provides a view of history broader than the typical patriarchal tunnel vision taught in most history classes today. Men’s roles in society have been molded and crafted by the changes occurring throughout these societies, but women’s roles both in the home and in the workforce have arguably undergone many more radical transformations since the inception of the United States. Specifically, the transformation of womanhood in the first half of the nineteenth century, beginning with the market revolution, permanently changed how women are viewed in society, by both men and other women, and how women relate
Lucy is the Medusa archetype. She is physically attractive, and wins the heart of any man who comes near her (e.g. Arthur, Quincey, Jack, and Van Helsing). Her chief quality is sensual beauty, but her sexual desire is repressed and not allowed to communicate. And yet both the spiritual side and the sexual side are in her, and when the long repressed sexuality finds a vent, it explodes and takes over completely. In other words, she is transformed into the completely voluptuous female vampire precisely because her sexual side of personality had been completely buried by her Victorian education. Her repressed self needs such expression that when Dracula came along, she went out to greet him, and then invited him into the house (by opening her window to the bat). He is her vent for sexual expression.
The Victorian England setting and culture of “Dracula” by: Bram Stoker attributes to many stylistic components and character behaviours in the novel. One of which is the behaviour and actions characters express that are a result of sexual repression. In Dracula, sexual repression is best expressed by the character’s desire to create. This desire is exemplified by the way Dracula creates other vampires, Lucy’s sexual desires, and the men’s expression of aggression. The creation of other Vampires is evident through events including Dracula’s aggressive encounters with Lucy and Mina, and the fact the Dracula is building up a Vampire army. Lucy’s sexual desires are exemplified through her longing to have sex with multiple men and how she compares
During the Victorian Era, society had idealized expectations that all members of their culture were supposedly striving to accomplish. These conditions were partially a result of the development of middle class practices during the “industrial revolution… [which moved] men outside the home… [into] the harsh business and industrial world, [while] women were left in the relatively unvarying and sheltered environments of their homes” (Brannon 161). This division of genders created the ‘Doctrine of Two Spheres’ where men were active in the public Sphere of Influence, and women were limited to the domestic private Sphere of Influence. Both genders endured considerable pressure to conform to the idealized status of becoming either a masculine ‘English Gentleman’ or a feminine ‘True Woman’. The characteristics required women to be “passive, dependent, pure, refined, and delicate; [while] men were active, independent, coarse …strong [and intelligent]” (Brannon 162). Many children's novels utilized these gendere...
When Van Helsing figured out what was happening to Lucy he told Dr. Seward and after Lucy passed away the men went to where she was buried and it had been weeks and her body. The sight they saw was “more radiant and beautiful than ever; and I could not believe that she was dead. The lips were red maybe redder than before” (Stoker 171). This line should that Lucy turned into a vampire because Dracula had been sucking her blood. Jonathan Harker was also a victim of Dracula’s games but he fought through his mental trauma with the help of his Wife, Mina. The rein of Dracula’s evil ways came to an end and although Lucy lost her future, all of her friends were finally safe from
Despite popular culture today with shows like The Vampire Diaries where vampires are often continuing their daily lives as if they are human and being the heroes to their friends and/or family, Dracula is a depiction of how vampires have, for centuries, been exposed as bloodthirsty, supernatural beings with sexual appeal. The way women are portrayed in Bram Stoker’s, Dracula, is a result of the Victorian ideals. Once Dracula begins to feed on the women, they become bloodthirsty temptresses which are exactly what society fears and try to prevent. In Dracula, Stoker makes sexuality directly linked to the vampirism in the novel. This is seen through the change of Lucy’s somewhat modest behavior into a temptress, the blood-sharing between characters in the novel, and the description of the way Lucy was killed.
Bram Stoker's novel Dracula, published in 1897, explores various sexual erotic possibilities in the vampire's embrace, as discussed by Leonard Wolf. The novel confronts Victorian fears of homosexuality; that were current at the time due to the trial of playwright Oscar Wilde. The vampire's embrace could also be interpreted as an illustration of Victorian fears of the changing role of women. Therefore it is important to consider: the historical context of the novel; the Victorian notion of the `New Woman' specifically the character of Lucy Westenra; the inversion of gender roles; notions of sexuality; and the emasculation of men, by lessening their power over women; in the novel Dracula. In doing this I will be able to explore the effects of the vampire's embrace in depth, and achieve a wider understanding of the variety of erotic undercurrents Stoker incorporated into the novel.
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...
Lucy poses a threat to the Victorian ideology by exposing herself as a danger to sexual propriety. She remarks about wanting to have more than one husband, which displays promiscuity, “Why can’t they let a girl marry three men or as many as want her?” this statement works as a threat which comes to fruition after Lucy is bitten. Once infected by Dracula, Lucy becomes sexually overt and aggressive; and is portrayed as a monster and a social outcast. She transforms into a fiend and feeds on children making her the maternal antithesis as well as a child molester.
Women roles have changed drastically in the last 50 to 80 years, women no longer have to completely conform to society’s gender roles and now enjoy the idea of being individuals. Along with the evolution of women roles in society, women presence and acceptance have drastically grown in modern literature. In early literature it was common to see women roles as simply caretakers, wives or as background; women roles and ideas were nearly non-existent and was rather seen than heard. The belief that women were more involved in the raising of children and taking care of the household was a great theme in many early literatures; women did not get much credit for being apart of the frontier and expansion of many of the nations success until much later.