individuality and freedom. Victorian society in its time period took on an extremely conservative behavior. Sex and womanly freedoms were strongly controversial topics. The society encouraged an overall chaste and modest lifestyle. Since Stoker wrote Dracula in the late 19th century, it left the expectations and standards for women immeasurably limiting. From this, stemmed gender roles and other inequalities between the sexes which meant
Bram Stoker wrote the infamous novel, Dracula. This novel was composed in the style of letters, journal entries, newspaper articles and telegrams in order to convey to the reader a realistic story. The story of Dracula is about an ancient vampire who moves to London from his native country of Transylvania. In London, Dracula seduces and bites a young woman by the name of Lucy Westenra. When Lucy falls sick, no one knows how to help her because while Dracula has bitten her many times she has always
undeniably bifurcated the biological differences between men and women socially and spatially. Any woman who did not fit within a patriarchal concept of what constituted the proper woman became a female pariah, ostracised from society. In the novels Dracula, by Bram Stoker, and The Blood of the Vampire, by Florence Marryat, the characterisations of the female vampires seem to either support unfavourable criticism
The way by which Dracula feeds, for instance, echo the mechanics of sexual intercourse: he waits to be beckoned into his victim’s bedroom, then he pierces her body in a way that makes her bleed. In the mind of men, this act has the same effect as a real sexual encounter—it
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. Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu wrote Carmilla. It was first published in 1872 as part of the collection of short stories titles ‘In a Glass Darkly.’ Carmilla predates the publishing of Dracula by 25 years. Laura, who is also
and Homosexuality were definitely considered very taboo topics and were never mentioned publicly. Nonetheless, Stoker still managed to incorporate a lot of sexual connotations and even explicitly targets concepts of lust. The sexual references in Dracula are expressed through the symbolism of blood, where blood transfusions or blood sucking indicates sexual intercourse. Considering the sexual symbolism of blood itself and the count exchanging blood with Mina against her will, we can see how this
The roles of women in Dracula by Bram Stoker are presented through Mina and Lucy and the Count’s three brides. They all help to reinforce the idea of the typically gothic female: with the brides appearing to Jonathan Harker as both physically attractive and repulsive, effectively linking to the idea that they present harlotry traits which echo Coleridge’s assertion of female gothic characters. According to Carol Senf, the three female vampires who menace Jonathan “are important primarily to introduce
In Bram Stroker’s Dracula, the character of Mina must overcome her fears in order to survive, which is true of those people who lived during the Victorian Era. Bram Stoker wrote his novel Dracula targeting those who were less capable of surviving in the Victorian Era. The main idea of the novel is to show that the bigger, stronger person will always go after the lesser, more defenseless person, which in most cases is women. Dracula also targets Christians and those who worship God. Stoker makes
Dracula Throughout the nineteenth century, women were often supposed to be seen rather than heard. The new emerging woman who was outspoken, overly sexual and educated was often looked down upon and seen as a lower class of society. Stoker uses Dracula’s three sisters to associate lust and sex with the vile and evil of the new woman. Stoker uses a provocative and seductive tone and diction to express the new hyper-sexual woman. His diction is very detailed in describing the sexual actions of the
Since the late 1800’s, vampire have made their appearance into literature and popular culture. They showed up in a lot of popular novels such as Camilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu in 1872, or Dracula by Bram Stoker in 1897. These novels illustrated the seduction power of the vampires and their characteristic. Despite that vampires may have some differences characteristic other novels or movies, vampires are still known as the famous creatures that have seductive and sexual characteristics. “Vampires