Female sexuality in dracula. Dracula and Fear of Female Sexuality 2022-12-21
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Female sexuality is a significant theme in Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula." Throughout the novel, the female characters' sexual desires and behaviors are depicted in a way that reflects the Victorian era's attitudes towards women and their sexuality.
One of the central themes of "Dracula" is the concept of chastity and the importance of preserving a woman's sexual purity. This is evident in the character of Mina Murray, who is portrayed as a chaste and virtuous woman. Mina is a strong and intelligent character, but her sexuality is depicted as being controlled and subdued. Mina's husband, Jonathan Harker, is depicted as the protector of her chastity and is portrayed as being deeply concerned about her sexual purity.
In contrast, the character of Lucy Westenra is portrayed as a sexually liberated woman. Lucy is depicted as being promiscuous and sexually aggressive, and she is seen as a threat to the social order because of her sexual behavior. Lucy's sexual behavior is depicted as being dangerous and destructive, and she is eventually punished for her promiscuity by being turned into a vampire.
The character of Count Dracula is also significant in the novel's portrayal of female sexuality. Dracula is depicted as a sexually predatory figure who seeks to seduce and control the female characters in the novel. He uses his sexual power and charisma to lure the women in the novel into his grasp, and he is seen as a symbol of male sexual dominance.
Overall, "Dracula" portrays female sexuality in a way that reflects the Victorian era's attitudes towards women and their sexual desires. The female characters in the novel are depicted as being either chaste and virtuous or sexually promiscuous, and their sexual behavior is depicted as being either acceptable or dangerous. The novel's portrayal of female sexuality highlights the social and cultural expectations placed on women during the Victorian era, and it reflects the fear and anxiety that many people had about female sexuality.
The Concept Of Female Sexuality In Dracula By Bram Stoker
The blurring of boundaries between the genders is also obvious when Dracula puts his guest in a feminine position himself. Lucy, besieged by suitors, including Dr. While she escapes Lucy's fate, she is nevertheless shut out of the men's work, goes to sleep when she's told, and cries for no apparent reason. Kline even claims that "the New Woman was experienced as a vampire from the start" cf Kline 87. This is best represented by the infamous vampire bite. Scarborough His novel, Dracula, tells the tale of five people who encounter and have to deal with the evil undead vampire Count Dracula, who terrorizes them and even causes two out of the five to become undead like himself.
Then looking towards the staking of Lucy, this passage connotates a deep sexual meaning. The social construct of the time involved women being inferior to men in all areas of life, with the exception of child bearing and child upbringing. Lucy even as a human an unstable woman who is attracted to three different men between whom she cannot decide. They are selfish in that they must repress and prevent this liberating movement so that they will not be associated with the socially outcast. While Mina is a perfect woman, Lucy is the aberrant one. In Victorian society, women were constricted to very narrow gender roles.
It is because of this strong number that the vampires are associated with folklore and myth. The freedom women have gained and their celebration of female sexuality is embraced. These highly sexualized female figures represent threats to Victorian ideals, targeting both the steadfast control of men as well as the purity of women. Vampire Legends in Contemporary American Culture: What Becomes a Legend Most. Conversely, Mina is shown to be content with her monogamous status in society and does not feel the need to use her feminine sensuality to prove anything. Lesson Summary Mina and Lucy represent two views on gender roles and sexuality, with Mina's masculinity being praised up to a point and Lucy's overpowering sexual drive being punished.
This blatantly erotic imagery is animalistic in nature, effectively separating the sexualized woman from her innocent, and thus more human, counterpart. This is best represented by the infamous vampire bite. He also shows through this incident his belief of how weak and vulnerable women are. The dominance and power exhibited by the character of Mina do not come from the dynamics of female sexuality but from the strength of character as a person and as a woman. The New Woman 3. Unable to change what has happened to her, she uses the incident to help the men who are in pursuit of Count Dracula. What affected the one sex also afftected the other sex, being called the "tandem theory" by Palmegiano cf Kline 79.
One must understand that before death, Lucy was already a woman of quiet sexual expression and once after death, she begins to feed on humans. Her ravenous, insatiable sexual hunger becomes increasingly more obvious all the way through to the killing of her life as a vampire. Also women now had an active part in the sexual act. Introduction For decades stories and sagas have told us to be aware of the vampire. It portrayed the features or characteristics of a woman that might reverse the all too known dominance of the male gender over the female. However there are many indications that repressed sexuality is a powerful undercurrent in the book which both repulses and attracts. Work Cited Stoker, Bram.
Gender & Sexuality Issues on Bram Stoker’s Dracula Essay Example
The fact that Harker is both aroused and disgusted by the Weird Sisters shows his super ego battling his id. Where Lucy is seen as the innocent and playful, Mina is viewed as a practical, down-to-earth, figure. But not any regular human being, but Stoker makes it painfully clear that she stalks children, discrediting her of any maternal instincts. Today, however, the subliminal diglossia that teaches the hatred of women is much more surreptitious and protean. Clearly, in the analysis of Dracula, these are the hidden meanings and implications a reader is subjected to.
Firstly, it is more than apparent that there are strong themes of female sexuality and its symbolism. The three Vampiresses This scene is one of the most widely discussed, because of its supposedly extreme sexual conflicts cf Kline 101. The story starts when Jonathan set off to travel to Transylvania in order settle real estate matters to a Count Dracula. In the novel, the gender roles are blurred, and the gender stereotypes are disrupted. She is blonde, innocent and vulnerable.
Sexuality In Bram Stokers Dracula Character Analysis Essay Example
Posted on November 14, 2018 Author Categories All of the examples you give highlight the theme and warning Stoker creates about women staying in their appropriate gender roles. They want self-determination, higher education cf Spencer 206. Unlike Lucy however, Mina is not described as physically beautiful or voluptuous. Lucy is staked in a crypt in a London graveyard Jonathan - the Feminized Hero? Dracula forms a liking to the character of Lucy which ultimately leads to her death. The author emphasizes her beauty as the novel begins and slowly builds up on that until she is too highly sexualized. When Jonathan leaves Britain for Eastern Europe, he is portrayed as masculine and rational. The other female vampires appear to the reader to be even more sexual and the male characters are strongly attracted to them despite the ever-present realization that the vampires are foul beings.
There is a distinctive clash of good and evil in the book although these lines get blurred when Mina is bitten. You can configure your choices to accept cookies or not, or to oppose them when the legitimate interest is used. The fact that Quincey is the only member of the Crew of Light to die suggests that an excess of masculinity may be less desirable in the long run in the face of Jonathan's more obvious blends of both masculinity and femininity. Every possible corner of the book is exhausted with the phallocentric motifs of successive generations of men believing in their "divine" Christian autonomy over the reproductive rights of women. Sexuality in the novel There are many scenes in the novel which despite Bram Stokers denial to admit it appear to have many sexual connotations.
