« Dracula and Fear of Female Sexuality Bram Stoker's Dracula is undoubtedly one the most consciously sentient and hyperbolic literary incarnations of the ...» Document abstract
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Language : english
literature
school essay
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23/10/2007
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SummaryBram Stoker’s Dracula is undoubtedly one the most consciously sentient and hyperbolic literary incarnations of the excessive fear of women’s sexuality that still survives with a vast legitimacy for its content today. Much like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein the novel is satiated with the fear of the modern technology and scientific advances of the industrial era to superannuate the need for morality. Unlike Frankenstein, however, what Dracula is most suffused with is the fear of the progressiveness of an era to challenge the patriarchal power structure that so defined Victorian society. 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. This fear of women still exists today but takes on new, more dangerous pervasive and politic forms.
Table of Contents- Within the novel Stoker's female characters are mere embodiments of the two rigid and eternally contending forces of chastity and impurity.
- Before Lucy is transformed into an alleged vessel of wanton desire she is very much like Mina and it is her purity and virtue that draws three suitors to her.
- Soon after the men are consumed with the fear that their beloved Mina who so hyperbolically embodies the tenets of Victorian womanhood will also be drawn by Dracula into a world of voluptuous, open desire.
- At the end of the novel the rigid homeostasis of Victorian gender roles and the symbols of Christian mythology are firmly locked into place.
- Bram Stoker's Dracula is of severe importance to today's society as it shows us in a lavish and ridiculous dance between the literal and metaphorical many of the stifling sexist beliefs that are still upheld today.
« a stereotypical, character archetype of the female in various He understands the fear in his heart at Luckily for him, Dracula intervenes at the proper time ...» Document abstract
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Language : english
literature
school essay
date published
22/10/2007
review : not yet assessed
level : General public
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SummaryHorror stories are known to be misogynistic in their portrayal of women; Bram Stoker’s Dracula is no exception. The novel offers a stereotypical, character archetype of the female in various forms: Mina Harker, Lucy Westenra, and the Succubi. The women are used to embody ideas and values of the woman living in the Victorian Age. Women had a strictly defined role within the era; there was no thought of equality; no thought that women could liberate themselves sexually. Dracula is sopping wet with overtones alluding to women’s sexuality and sexuality in general. Stoker uses these characters as a critique against women’s liberation; to stress that sexual liberation, for him, meant damnation. Mina Harker is the embodiment of Victorian virtue in which she is loyal, earnest and, above all, solely has an identity dependent upon her husband; Lucy Westenra, Mina’s good friend, embodies the desire of women who want to liberate themselves. As the novel shows, desires of such leads to death; the Succubi, Dracula’s servants, embody the abysmal end to which the road of sexual liberation leads. Mina Harker is beloved in Stoker’s eyes, but from a modern point of view, sets the forward drive of women’s liberation into a sudden and screeching halt.
Table of Contents- Mina is the Victorian Ideal for women.
- The quote emphasizes Mina's preoccupation. From the line, 'and if he is thinking of me!?
- In the Victorian marriage, the man is the head and the woman is the heart.
- Lucy is far more modern in thought than her friend Mina.
- Stoker expresses similar feelings toward the Succubi, or the trio of Un-Dead vampire sisters.
- The Succubi represent the end of the road for the liberated woman in Stoker's terms.
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