Category: Dracula

Introduction to Sexuality in “Dracula”

In Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” a prominent theme is sexuality. I believe that this theme is buried throughout the whole novel with it being symbolised in many different quotes and actions of different characters. In my Dracula essay, I will demonstrate how this theme is intricately threaded into the narrative. The novel represents the sexual desire of a man in an extremely prejudice society, as the novel was written during the Victorian era of the nineteenth century, therefore it follows a Victorian culture in regards to the gender roles that men and women should socially follow. Due to this the different characters in the text are different representations of these roles, for example Mina, is what we would see as the “ideal woman.” as she is clever and a good partner who pushes boundaries, but always understands her place in society. Therefore she is not overly promiscuous in regards to her best friend Lucy. Lucy we see as a complete juxtaposition to Mina with them being best friends however holding completely different personalities, meaning Lucy openly talks about her sexual desires with many different possible partners throughout the text. Men however were put on a pedestal for the free nature and authority. This is recognised by the women of the novel when Lucy asks Mina “My dear Mina, why are men so noble when we women are so little worthy of them?” (Stoker. Bram. 96) we see this as a way of Lucy questioning a society and recognising the faults of a society where women were extremely sexually repressed as a woman could only be seen as being worthy of being a wife as long as she repressed her desires. In result of Lucy’s free will when it came to being a promiscuous victorian woman it’s almost as if she is later punished for this. When she is bitten and receives a blood transfusion. There are extreme sexual implications when it comes to this part of the novel as Lucy is infused with the blood of the three possible suitors that she peaked interest in during the novel when she questions “why can’t they let a girl marry three men or as many as want her and save this trouble.” (Stoker. Bram. 96). I believe that this quote in particular shows that she does not have any real feelings for these three suitors and therefore her feelings towards them take the stance of being more of a sexual attraction. Not only this, but the transfusion implicates Lucy’s possible desire for a marriage with different men. There is no denying the fact that it is questionable that the three men were white and privileged so this was an act of the men almost purifying her blood as in my opinion they see Lucy as a threat to their society due to her sexual freedom and beauty this may lead to her having certain powers over men, meaning that if they are physically ruined then no men will want them in the future so they were essentially be socially outcasted. There is a quote from Van hesling in the novel where he implies that in result of Lucy’s transition into a vampire that this allows her to engage in some type of intercourse with the three men in result of the transfusion. “But there was a difficulty, friend John. If so, then what about the others? Ho, ho! Then this so sweet maid is a polyandrist, and me, with my poor wife dead to me, but alive by church’s law, though no wits, all gone-even I, who am faithful husband to this now-no-wife, am bigamist.” (Stoker. Bram. 176)

Mina’s Role as the Ideal Victorian Woman

Mina is a character who Stoker uses as a juxtaposition to her best friend Lucy. She is seen as an ideal Victorian woman from the quote from her husband Jonathan Harker saying “One of God’s women, fashioned by his own hand to show us men and other women that there is a heaven we can enter, and that its light can be here on earth. So true, so sweet, so noble.” (Stoker. Bram 306) upon the discussions between |Mina and Lucy whilst Lucy clearly states her opinion and how sexually driven she is in reality, we never get a take on Mina’s opinion, I believe that is is left untold as Mina knew her place in society therefore never felt the need to comment. As rather than using her feminine power to portray a sexual need, she would use to actually educate herself and better the men that were around her in her life. For example in the novel she learns and perfects shorthand so she can help her husband. This portrays Mina almost as a crutch for her husband and it’s clear that he heavily relies and admires her for this.

It is portrayed that men almost like to exploit innocent and pure women as when mina is attacked during the novel it is seen as almost a test of her own place in society and how submissive she is.

Homosexuality in “A Picture of Dorian Gray”

Like Dracula, Oscar Wildes “A Picture of Dorian Gray” was also written during the Victorian era in the nineteenth century therefore holds the same audience outlook of the time, that women had their place in society as did men. Women in this novel are almost useful objects for the main protagonist a young and beautiful Dorian Gray who’s looks do not change with age. Therefore he is almost seen by women as an ideal sexual partner. This novel was seen as extremely taboo during the times of the Victorian era due to its sexual implications and promiscuous text. Lord Henry spends much of his time mentoring Dorian Gray even though he has a wife whom its clear he doesn’t spend as much time with, along with other female characters throughout the novel that are related or friends of the main male characters, we never actually see from them. When we do hear about these characters however, most of the implications are completely downgrading and negative, almost as if it is an extremely sexist novel. this represents how the society is extremely masculine in the fact that men have the utmost authority and women essentially have to wait for their attention. In comparison to Dracula I believe that it is quite shocking how absent women are during this novel with it almost being completely from a males perspective and the only female character holding much significance would be Dorians love interest Sibyl Vane. Lord Henry makes a remark about Lady Brandon, stating that “She is a peacock in everything except beauty.”(Wilde. Oscar. 11) there is a hugely demeaning quote in the novel which descries perfectly the role in which women hold during this society which comes from Henry when he says “My dear boy, no woman is a genius, women are a decroative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women reprisent triumph of matter over mind, just as men reprisent triumph of mind over morals.” (Wilde. Oscar. 67) This is reference to how women are basically seen as completely inferior to men. Dorian has a very brief and short romance with Sybil until he esentially tells her that she is no longer worthy of him. Unlike the character of Lucy in Dracula. It seems that the strict dender roles of the victorian era are maintained by the characters of this novel.

I believe that Basil in this novel is a character who is a complete personification of the author Oscar Wilde. Basil has somewhat of a distorted love for Dorian Gray even thbough he is familiar with the sins that he has committed. Although there is no direct mention of homosexualty in the novel there are huge implications and references that caused a stir for Oscar Wilde during the Victorian era as homosexualtiy was a hugely taboo subject, in regards to this, there is an extremely suggestive quote that Dorian is sleeping with different men in perhaps public toilets when Wilde writes “creeping at dawn out of dreadful houses and slinking in disguise into the foulest dens in London.” (Wilde. Oscar. 162) Even though there are very strong suggestions that the protagonist of this novel is indeed homosexual, he is still as sexist and degrading to women as is Lord Henry. Oscar Wilde was openly homosexual which in the victorian era was seen as a great offence therefore, stoker who was a friend of Wilde kept quiet about his own sexual preferences however wrote Dracula in response.This is why the novel became such a contriversial masterpiece, this was due to the contriversial trial which surrounded oscar Wilde. Many people who read the novel branded it as indecent exploiting its hidden sexual themes and erotic homosexual natrure, however, Wilde defended his novel believeing there was no sexual intent behind it and that it was simply men relating to other men with no sexual intent or hidden desires. During the beginning of the novel it is clear that Basil Hallward to is esentially the creator of the Dorian gray painting, is in fact in love with his creation. Dorian discovers that he can commit many sins and not ever be questioned or caught due to his outragously good looks. Therefore, he carries out many crimes for example murder and the corruption of young men. This is key to the real life trials of Oscar Wilde, as due to this part of the novel Wilde went to prison in result of showing a love for young men and Dorian gray was a reprisentation of this love.

Dracula’s Sensual Attacks and Hidden Desires

Homosexuality is prominent throughout Dracula in a way that the novel almost delves into the most outrages sexual fascinations that are completely taboo for the era. This is because it is easy to corrolate sex and horror so closely with the erotic feel of monstors. In particular count dracula himself. It is almost as if every time Dracula does bite someone it is in a very erotic and sensual way. But Stoker leaves these idea’s rto the reader without directly adressing them himself within the text. I believe that Dracula’s homosexual desires are supressed by his sexual desires towards women as they are seen as montrous.

In regards to previously talking about the blood transfusion part of the novel with the character of Lucy there are almost sexual implications between the three men with their blood all being mixed together, this gives almost a personal erotic feel to the scene as if the men are all sharing one woman between them. Dracula’s attack on all the women of the novel is a huge im plication of the vampires sexual dominance over all the women that he encounters. His bites can be seen as a form of a sexual attack due to how erotic they are and how they are performed with all the women hugely struggling and desperate to be free from his grasp.

There is seemingly some sort of sexual desire between Jonathon Harker and Dracula from the quote “There lay the count, but looking as if his youth had been half renewed, for the white hair and moustache were changed to dark iron grey; the cheeks were fuller, and the white skin had seemed ruby red underneath; the mouth was redder than ever…” (Stoker. Bram. 2) in despite of his relationship with Mina this description of the Dracula by Harker almost implies that he has a deep desire for him as he describes him so vividly, almost the way you describe someone that you love.

Conclusion: The Suppression and Symbolism of Homosexuality in Dracula

I believe that there is a significant detail in the fact that Dracula is imprisoned in his castle walls, therefore cannot go out into direct sunlight. Also he would perform his attacks at night before going back to his coffin. This could have significant corrolations to the society of ninteenth century and men who were homosexual not being able to come out and show who they really are as they would be hit with the harsh consequences.

The novel, Dracula, by Bram Stoker is an important piece of gothic literature written to reflect on society’s views on female sexuality in the Victorian Era. Published in 1897, Stoker highlights the role of women in society as purely virgin and devoted to one man in their lives. The introduction of Dracula offsets the innocent side of women bringing forth seductive personalities which was deemed as taboo in the Victorian Era. However, female sexuality is deemed as dangerous in the eyes of males because females weren’t supposed to be in control of their sexuality. By including strong female figures with seductive desires in the book, Stoker challenges society’s views of subservient women. Each female character presented has a unique role throughout the story that further explores Stoker’s purpose.

In Dracula, Bram uses multiple first person point of views and a compilation of first person letters and statements to tell the perspective of each individual. The book opens with Jonathan Harker who is sent to Transylvania to conduct business with Count Dracula who wants to purchase an estate in England. Jonathan begins to discover that Dracula is a vampire with the intention of going after more people in England. Furthermore, a strange ship arrives at the port of Whitby, England where Lucy and her best friend Mina reside. The captain of the ship was found dead and tied to the wheel holding a crucifix. When they discovered his log, the captain had written about a strange man who stabbed the crew aboard the ship. Later, Mina finds Lucy at the churchyard where she normally sleepwalks with a figure crouched over her body who Mina originally believed was her imagination. Mina sees marks on Lucy’s neck which haven’t healed and notices her health slowly decreasing. Dr. Van Helsing monitored her health but grows suspicious that she has become a vampire which was later proven when she was found out of her coffin. The men began to hunt down Dracula but while they were out Dracula had come back to drink Mina’s blood while forcing her to drink his blood to create a connection between them. Jonathan and the other men use Mina to locate Dracula and arrive at his home before him. While at the house, Van Helsing puts the Communion Wafer in Dracula’s tomb to banish him from his home. The men then see the carriage holding Dracula in his wooden coffin and rush over, destroying him before sunset and releasing Mina from the curse.

The book revolves around the two seemingly vulnerable female in the book Lucy and her friend Mina. Mina Murray stands to represent the definition of the perfect Victorian woman and all the aspects Dracula wants to destroy while Lucy being the submissive but independent woman that transformed into a monster. In my opinion, the author achieved his intended goal of challenging Victorian ideals of how women were expected to act. Much like the ideals of the Victorian Era, in Dracula, sexual women are frowned upon while pure and chaste woman are deemed respectful and strong. Mina is a perfect example of the ideal women because throughout the story she remains faithful to Jonathan and hopes for his safe return. Mina’s character is not sexualized by the author because she is the depiction of the values during the Victorian Era. However, on the contrary, Stoker represents Dracula’s daughters as impure sexual females linked directly to evil. We see that the females are seen as evil predominantly because their hypersexual power tempted the men into evil. The power of women over men was heavily disfavored under the Victorian Era ideals. The power can be explored in the encounter Jonathan had with the three daughters in which he recounted the strong “burning desire” he had that they would kiss him. The women with these impure tendencies were outcasts of society because they threatened the perfect Victorian family which is perhaps why they were deemed evil. Through the portrayal of strong female characteres, Stoker shows the sharp contrast of the pure and impure females to comment on women of the Victorian Era.

According to the book, How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Thomas C. Foster comments that in Victorian and Modern interpretations of vampires there is always an “older figure representing corrupt, outworn values; a young, preferably virginal female; a stripping away of her youth, energy, virtue…”(pg.27). This idea can be seen in Dracula when Dracula bites into Mina’s neck and forces her to drink his blood. The blood itself has an underlying sexual symbol and her sucking his blood represents him strippin her innocence. The book was very well-written and thoroughly reflected the females in Victorian society while challenging the expectations of women. I enjoyed this book mainly because it explored the various perspectives and point of views throughout the novel which made the narration of the novel interesting. The idea Challenged by Stoker that women could not have any sexual desires and should tend to the needs of men because they can not control their “natural” instincts, helped me deeply understand the role of women in society during the Victorian Era.

In the book, Dracula, Bram Stoker challenges the traditional views of women by developing the female characters and depicting their distinct personalities to represent each of the type of women in the society. In a time where female sexuality was not explored in the fear they might overpower men, Bram stoker provides social commentary for women in the Victorian Era and the expected role women played in society. You must read this book to gain a deeper understanding of how Dracula has become the basis of Gothic Literature and how it directly reflected the Victorian Era and its strong beliefs.

Works Cited

1. Byron, Glennis, and Bram Stoker. Dracula: Bram Stoker. Macmillan, 1897.
2. Foster, Thomas C. How to Read Literature like a Professor: a Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading between the Lines. Harper, an Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2017.

The traditional women were willing to play the roles that the society gave them. They did not live for themselves. At the end of the 19th century, women who lived in the Victoria Era(1837-1901) gradually realized the unequal status of men and women. They started to involve in activities including “ bicycle riding, bloomers, badminton” (Senf 34). They wanted to have education and treated in the society equally to men, for which they fought actively. Under the motivation of his mom, who was heavily involved in “New Women” movement, Bram Stoker discusses the different roles in different genders in the gothic novel Dracula (1897) in both male and female’s perspective, shows the fear of a man toward the New Women, reflects the social mainstream point of view to the Victorian era tradition, and expresses the standpoint of the New Woman. However, he also expresses his ambivalence toward “ New Woman” with two female characters – Mina Harker and Lucy Westenra. The former is a very conventional woman who always listens to male, and thinks that men have the ability to take care of women, while the latter has challenged the views and had advocated equal rights for woman. By comparing both male’s perspective and female’s perspective, Stocker successfully argues the “role of women and the place they occupied in society” (Humphrey), the prominent concern in the Victorian Era.

In the traditional perspective, men are always dominant than women. In the gothic novel Dracula, Van Helsing is the perfect men to defend the traditional perspective as others describe him as a “arbitrary man”, and “ he knows what he is talking about better than anyone else”(Stocker 97). He learns a lot of knowledge and can use it better than others. He describes man as women’s life-saver: “ A brave man’s blood is the best thing on this earth when a woman is in trouble. You’re a man and no mistake…but God sends us men when we want them” (Stoker 128). Van Helsing holds the traditional view that a man is dominant for a reason. They are brave enough to appear to help women to find solutions for all the difficulties they face. Van Helsing believed that women are born to be protected, so men were made better from God for a reason. Women were considered physically weaker, so while husbands were working publicly everyday, women stay home and handle everything in the family in addition to support their husbands. By showing the perspective from Van Helsing, Stoker shows men’s dominance in the traditional society is inflexible and ineradicable.

Harker compares Mina with the brides of Dracula with the intention of comparing the conventional woman and the New Woman in his journal. He thinks that Mina is a women that fits in the traditional view of female but these brides are “awful women” and there is “nought in common”, they are “devils of the Pit”(Stoker 45). In Harker’s journal, he illustrates his fear of Dracula’s brides. The characteristics shown in the brides show the power and dangerousness in woman and this is what the females are fighting for in Victorian Era. From calling them as awful woman, Stocker compares them with Mina, which he thinks is an example of a female traditionally. Mina is a woman who sticks to the tradition, relies to and be loyal to the male. Harker thinks that when facing difficulties, women always recede and ask male for solutions. Mina has the perspective that men can tolerate women’s weaknesses and that is why they are dominant, and she thinks that the New Women cannot handle everything by appropriately. When Mina and Lucy take a long walk, they are so hungry that their appetites will shock the New Woman. But Mina insists with the belief men can tolerate that. She thinks that with men, women have nothing worry about. The traditional view of women was challenged as never before. The “New Women”, who is “free-spirited and independent, educated and uninterested in marriage and children”(Buzwell), also drinks alcohol and smokes cigarettes openly, poses a major threat to male dominance. Stoked compares the awful women with Mina who holds a traditional perspective on women’s role to show male’s fear and ignorance and the demand in changing the conventional view on women’s role in the society.

Lucy is an interesting character that who shows her dissatisfaction with the traditional role given to her by the society as a woman. In the poem ‘The Angel in The House'(1854), Patmore describes the traditional view on sex as ‘a general rule a modest woman seldom desires any sexual gratification for herself. She submits to her husband, but only to please him and, but for the desire of maternity, would far rather be relieved from his attention'(Buzwell). Traditionally, a female is not allowed to openly accept sex. It is only allowed in the desire of pleasing their husbands or maternity. Lucy, in contrast, has shows her greedy on sex openly.

In Lucy’s first letter to Mina, it shows her tenderly love from this Victorian upper-class girl, to Arthur Holmwood. In subsequent letters, Lucy repeatedly stresses why are men so noble? Why are woman so worthless in front of men?(Stoker 50).At that time, she was still championing male superiority. Meanwhile, she also criticizes what the conventional women think: “I suppose that are women are such cowards that we think a man will save us from tears” (Stoker 49). But Lucy’s words revealed her rebellion in the heart. She thinks that if men can marry three woman, then “ Why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as they want?” (Stoker 50). Lucy questions polygamy for male and indicates that woman should have to same ability. Stocker is making the implication that Lucy is comfortable with three men sexually. Lucy is still torn in the conventional role of woman, but clearly, she advocates the view of New Women. By showing the change in mind in Lucy, Stocker gives support to the New Woman while heavily criticizing the conventional role of woman given by the society. Stoker narrates that men are most vulnerable about how New Women are abandoning the tradition and daring to express their sexuality openly.

Through sharing the different perspective from male and female and the difference perspective between a New Woman and a traditional one, Stoker shows his conflicted mind toward this new movement.Traditionally, men are superior to women, and women are attached to men. It is also a great honor for a woman to gain the respect of a man as Mina did. Women should faithfully play the traditional female role to ensure that men exercise absolute control over them. To be a New Woman, such roles need to be eliminated. Women should fight for their rights, which threatened the dominance of men. Stoker’s novel details men’s fear of women’s publicly opened to sexuality. Lucy accepted sex to multiple male openly is the proof of change and the fear of men because of the challenge of their dominance.

Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula, continues in the same way as Carmilla – a novel shows the power and the sexuality of a vampire. Vampires were created to “invoke horror and terror because of its power to allure and provoke one’s repressed desires” (Hasanat Lecture 2). Stoker creates a story that represents many of the issues of this time involving sexuality and the roles of gender. The thoughts of a person’s sexuality have always been such a controversial topic. This topic is something that can be somewhat complicated, but it always questioned. The question of sexuality of this Victoria era is found through Stoker’s novel.

The roles of Mina and Lucy are very important characters to the plot of this novel, who narrate quite a few chapters throughout. The idea of their roles was to show two different types of women during this Victorian era. During this era, the ideal woman was suppressed sexually, because they had to follow the roles that society had created and assigned for them. Women were supposed to submit to the ideas of being pure and innocent. For most women, their goal was to marry even though in marriage they lost their rights and become property of the husband. This is seen in chapter nine, in one of Mina’s letters Lucy, “I must stop, for Jonathan is waking. I must attend my husband!” (Stoker 92).

Then the other type of woman was the rebellious woman, who disregarded any of the traditional ideas of what a woman was during this era. A few times through the journals of Mina, she talks about “new woman”, and how some they are switching the roles of gender. Some of the ‘New Women’ writers will some day start an idea that men and women should be allowed to see each other asleep before proposing or accepting. But I suppose the ‘New Woman’ won’t condescend in future to accept. She will do the proposing herself. And a nice job she will make of it too!” (Stoker 77). Mina almost seems to be making fun of the idea of this “new woman”, and how propstrous the idea changing the roles of women would actually be. Through this novel though, Mina actually takes the role of both genders. While she is seen as a motherly character, but also becomes the protector of Johnathan as well. Mina continues to help the men through this journey and Van Helsing even remarks on her playing both roles, “‘Ah, that wonderful Madam Mina! She has man’s brain, a brain that a man should have were he much gifted, and a woman’s heart” (Stoker 201). Unfortunately, after making this comment, Van Helsing makes her stay behind when the men go to find and kill Dracula, almost taking away her masculinity.

Sexuality was another common theme in Dracula. Especially involving female sexuality. Much of the novel, it seemed that one of the main issues was trying to suppress these sexual tendencies that the women were dealing with. During this novel, Lucy becomes a vampire after Dracula gets a hold of her and turns her into a vampire, who in the process becomes very sexual. Her characteristics are described in chapter sixteen after she was turne, “the sweetness was turned to adamantine, heartless cruelty, and the purity to voluptuous wantonness” (Stoker 180). After she Dracula transforms her, Lucy’s has a sexual awakening, and is now free to act on her sexual desires. While dealing with Lucy’s new sexuality, the men do their best at keeping a close eye on Mina, so that she does not fall under the same temptation by Dracula that Lucy did. This really shows the how men really perceived women. Even though Dracula was the main cause of this “awakening”, it was Lucy who was blamed for the faults of Dracula.

Not only does the sexual contreversories involve just women, but men as well. Early in the novel, we can see some sexual undertones between Jonathan Harker and Dracula, “And to refuse would be to excite his suspicion and to arouse his anger” (Stoker 34). Later on, at the end of chapter three, Harker was caught being seduced by the women vampires, Dracula comes in to rescue him and scolds the women and yells “This man belongs to me!” (Stoker 33). It seems that in this novel, Dracula is in a competition with these three women as to whom can have Harker, both in blood lust and sexual desires.

The ideas of Bram Stoker in his novel, Dracula, was to show the good vs evil and to look at sin and redemption. Along with these themes, Stoker explores the ideas of gender and sexuality in the Victorian era. He creates quite the contreversy with pushing these ideas of homosexuality and the ideas of women owning their sexuality. By the end of the book, any of these characteristics are demolished: the gender roles of Mina have been subdued, Lucy’s death ends her sexual desires her buried with her, and the wickedness of Dracula are eliminated.

The difference between “good” and “evil” is shown with the difference between the women in the novel as they all have different roles.

In Dracula it is shown clearly with the two characters of Mina and Lucy. The former fit the ideals of the Victorian woman while Lucy represents the New Woman. Mina is idealized throughout the novel, as she is an educated woman, whose intelligence is very helpful during the fight against Dracula. She is also loyal to Jonathan as seen in her letters: quote. On the other hand Lucy is seen as more free, especially when it comes to her sexuality. In one of her first letter she laments: “Why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble? But this is heresy and I must not say it” (p.67), showing how she differs from the social norm of her time as it is not acceptable to have ideals like these. As her sexuality is seen to be evil, she is to be punished for going against the standards of that era. She is later killed by the man who would have become her husband. While in this novel the two women characters seems to be vastly different from each other it is worth noting that it is Lucy, representing the New Woman, who suffer a more fatal fate. According to Carol A. Senf, the approach to women in Dracula “does not stem from his hatred of women in general” but is in fact the characterization of “his ambivalent reaction to a topical phenomenon – the New Woman”(,p.2)

On the contrary, the figure of the woman is absent from Frankenstein. Elizabeth, in Frankenstein, on the other hand is not really present and we only see her from the view of the monster or Victor Frankenstein. She is still shown to represent the pure woman like Mina, however she is not educated like Mina and appears weak. In the end Elizabeth, who embodies a lot of Victorian ideals, still falls victim to the monster and ends up dying, which goes to show that being good will not always save you. But what caused Elizabeth’s death was her link to Frankenstein and she is the one paying for his sins. This show that women can end up becoming evil if they stray from the path of the idealized Victorian Woman.

Women become helpless in front of the evil and their love or lover end up leading to their demise. This is shown in Frankenstein, during the feverish dream of Victor after creating the monster, in which he sees Elizabeth and then his mother. In his dream, Frankenstein “embraced her, but as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips, they became livid with the hue of death”(p.88). Frankenstein ends up killing Elizabeth by kissing her but this is also similar to the “death” of the two women of Dracula, Mina and Lucy.

The kiss of death that Victor Frankenstein ends up giving to Elizabeth in his dream parallels the kiss of Dracula that turned Lucy and Mina into vampires, leading the former to her death.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula was written during the Victorian era, and the novel acts as a time capsule to societal beliefs and standards of the time. The encapsulation of these values can be seen in the way the novel engages with the gender roles that society presented to men and women. Women were isolated and suppressed in all aspects of their society. Men, however, were able to flaunt the authority and freedom that society had gifted them with. Dracula explores the taboo theme of female sexuality by treating it as a far-off fantasy, since at the time these concepts could not be a reality. With Dracula as his means, Stoker presents Mina and Lucy as two forms of the Victorian Woman. Mina is the model woman who upholds Victorian society, and Lucy is a fallen woman that presents a threat to the institution and is therefore ruined.

Mina depicts what the ideal version of a Victorian woman is like. Mina is impressively loyal to her husband, Jonathan, and exemplifies through her actions throughout the novel. Not only is she intelligent and educated, Mina also works to obtain skills to help make Jonathan’s life easier. This can be seen from one of her journal entries in the novel, “I have been working very hard lately, because I want to keep up with Jonathan’s studies, and I have been practicing shorthand very assiduously. When we are married I shall be able to be useful to Jonathan…” (Stoker 59). Mina balances her hefty workload as an assistant schoolmistress with studying the skills needed to “be useful” to Jonathan and his own work. Despite her own intellect and abilities, Mina still manages to make herself a subservient wife to Jonathan, and thinks more highly of men than women. These ideals easily correlate to the standards of a Victorian society. Mina’s ability to fit in the role of the New Woman in Victorian society is also well-articulated in this quote by Dr. Seward: “Ah, that wonderful Madam Mina! She has a man’s brain—a brain that a man should have were he much gifted—and woman’s heart.” (Stoker 238). The men in the novel love that Mina is educated, but they also like that they are still able to hold dominance over her. She does not pose a threat to their masculinity, yet she can engage in sophisticated conversations with the men.

In addition to her intelligence and will to appease her husband, Mina also demonstrates sexual restraint, something that was deemed extremely important in Victorian society. Her sexual desires remain unknown throughout the novel. But, this could be interpreted as a subliminal message by Stoker to say that women shouldn’t be concerned with sex, unless it entails succumbing to a man’s sexual needs or desires. Instead of engaging in sexual behaviors, Mina instead uses this energy towards a maternal instinct. She uses her natural instinct to help the men around her, which is best seen when she lets Arthur and Quincey cry in her embrace, so that they could feel a mother’s comfort: “He stood up and then sat down again, and the tears rained down his cheeks. I felt an infinite pity for him, and opened my arms unthinkingly. With a sob, he laid his head on my shoulder, and cried like a wearied child, whilst he shook with emotion. We women have something of the mother in us that makes us rise above smaller matters when the mother-spirit is invoked; I felt this big, sorrowing man’s head resting on me, as though it were that of the baby that some day may lie on my bosom, and I stroked his hair as though he were my own child.” (Stoker 233)

Mina is the one to let Arthur finally grieve the loss of Lucy, and he felt as though he could do this because of Mina’s motherly nature. She focuses her maternal instincts on those around her who need it, rather than engaging in sexually needy practices.

Lucy, however, is the opposite of what the ideal Victorian woman is. More so, Lucy represents represents the characteristics of a “fallen woman” or a woman who was promiscuous. Lucy was not physically or emotionally committed to Arthur until later in the novel,and she had significant trouble choosing from one of her three suitors. This can be seen in her complaints to Mina: “Why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble?” (Stoker 64). Lucy admits that this would be heresy later in the passage, but even the notion of having this thought shows that she is willing to cross societal boundaries and conventions to appease her needs. Thoughts like Lucy’s were promiscuous and forbidden in Victorian culture, but Lucy does not appear to be overly concerned with the forbidden nature of her desires. Lucy does not appear to agree with typical sexual conventions of a Victorian woman. She does not want to just appease a man’s desires, she also wants her own preferences to be fulfilled. To satisfy her own sexual hungers, Lucy unconsciously expresses her desires and longings privately by sleepwalking. The consequence of privately expressing these thoughts is that she is bitten by Dracula as she sleepwalks. She continues to sleepwalk after being bitten, and Lucy continues to progress into a permanent vampire state. Because of this, Lucy unashamedly expresses her suppressed sexual impulses, which defiles any semblance of purity she had left. Lucy’s vampire existence depicts all of her long-standing, restrained sexual impulses and passions that she had. This sexual hunger becomes even more heightened throughout her life and death as a vampire. Additionally, Lucy does not have the maternal instinct that Mina has. She does not show interest in maternal qualities, and even mistreats young children in the novel. This can be seen in her vampire persona, since she actively pursued and harmed young children to satisfy her own cravings. Lucy found her own needs to be more important than a child’s needs. Her impure desires and lack of maternal qualities make Lucy the opposite of what a Victorian woman should be.

Mina and Lucy are both attacked by the Count, however, they are attacked with for different reasons. Mina, once again, appeases the societal requirements of a dutiful wife. When the Count threatens Jonathan, Mina steps in to protect Jonathan and put his safety above her own. Interestingly, through the Count’s attack on Mina, Stoker shows the male desire to exploit women for their innocence and submissiveness. While Mina initially succumbs to what Dracula wants her to do, she then realizes the consequences of these actions, and how they have made her impure. While she remains defiled, she still actively helps the other men in the novel who are pursuing Dracula. Whereas Lucy is attacked and ultimately killed for a different reason. Lucy is the model for a sexually aggressive woman that uses sexuality and beauty as a way to gain dominance over men. By killing Lucy, Stoker wanted to show readers that this sexual openness would not work as a way to dominate men, and that it would not last in the strict conventions of Victorian culture. By having her husband, Arthur, stake and kill Lucy, this restores her to the strict definitions of Victorian purity. This can be seen in this passage: “There, in the coffin lay no longer the foul Thing that we had so dreaded and grown to hate that the work of her destruction was yielded as a privilege to the one best entitled to it, but Lucy as we had seen her in her life, with her face of unequalled sweetness and purity.” (Stoker 220).

By killing the vampire Lucy, the men were able to bring purity back to Lucy’s corpse. The demon-like or vampire qualities, also known as her sexual desires, were finally rid from her body. The men in the novel are also able to reassert their social dominance over Lucy once more, she was no longer superior and suppressed by them once again. Because of this, Lucy could be fully dead as a socially acceptable Victorian woman.

Lucy and Mina’s different outcomes from the Count also result in an interesting question. Why was Mina spared when Lucy was not? The reason Lucy was not spared was due to impure social and sexual behaviors. However, Mina was spared because of the reasons Lucy was not. Over the course of the novel, Mina demonstrated nothing but pure and correct social behavior. Mina uses her intelligence and resourcefulness as her means to help and service the men in their pursuit of Count Dracula. Mina had a “man’s brain” and put the men’s safety above her own, even if it meant sacrificing herself. For her devout loyalty and skills, Mina was spared, unlike Lucy.

While Stoker’s beliefs aren’t outright throughout the novel, the nature of his depictions of Mina and Lucy clearly convey the sexist and concrete gender roles of Victorian society. The Victorian culture only saw the values of women being their submissiveness and their ability to possess natural maternal instinct, making them inferior to men in everything except for the bearing and raising of children. Stoker has Mina exhibit the ideal aspects of a Victorian woman’s identity. This is seen as the favorable lifestyle, as Mina survives her encounter with Dracula. And, Lucy’s character, is almost a warning to readers. While real women may not be physically ruined like Lucy was, but those who took part in her behavior would be outcast and demeaned by society. With the female characters of Mina and Lucy, Stoker shows that the New Woman was permitted within society, so long as these women didn’t threaten the dominance of men.

Works Cited

1. Stoker, Bram, and Andrew Elfenbein. Dracula. Longman, 2011.

The word misogyny means a strong dislike of women by men. This word describes the common phenomena of sexism in the Victorian society, and even, today. The book Dracula written by Bram Stoker in 1897 is a gothic horror novel. It introduces the character Count Dracula and describe the story happened relate to him. The story began with Jonathan Harker visit Dracula in Transylvania and was imprisoned, during this time he slowly discover Dracula’s secret, that Dracula is actually a vampire. Later on, Jonathan is released and Dracula come to England and infects Jonathan’s wife—Mina’s best friend, Lucy Westernra. Although her fiancé Arthur, Dr. seward, Mr. Morris and Dr. Van Helsing try very hard to save her, Lucy still died and transformed into a vampire and Van Helsing, Dr. Seward, Mr. Morris and Jonathan had to kill her. After finding out Lucy is killed, Dracula is furious and infects Mina trying to turn her into a vampire. To save Mina, Jonathan, Van Helsing, Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris travel to Transylvania to kill him. The novel is about vampire but it also covers the topic of xenophobia, homophobia and misogyny or sexism. Dracula’s misogyny traits and how Bram Stoker challenge these stereotypes still have a significant impact on today’s misogyny behavior and the practice of get over it to achieve equality. Dracula’s misogyny traits and how Bram Stoker challenge these stereotypes still have a significant impact on today’s misogyny behavior and the practice of get over it to achieve equality.

In Victorian age men loathe women for being sexual and mentally superior. In Dracula, Stoker describes men’s change of attitude when seeing Lucy transformed into a vampire. Stoker let Dr.Seward says “Lucy’s eyes in form and color; but Lucy’s eyes unclean and full of hell-fire, instead of pure, gentle orbs we knew. At that moment, the remnant of my love passed into hate and loathing; had she then to be killed, I could have done it with savage delight” (stoker 188). It’s obviously a clear demonization of women, more specifically, the sexual women. Lucy transformed into a vampire because she is infected by Dracula and three men gave her their blood to save her. Having other men’s blood in her vain is a sexual innuendo, indicating that Lucy is no longer a virgin, thus is the “impure” sexual women. Stoker describes Lucy’s eyes as hell-like is discrimination towards her, he also reveals men’s loathing towards a sexual woman. In Victorian age, sex is something to be avoided at all cost and people in that time is emotionally frigid about sexual matters, a sexual woman is considered impure and evil. This sexist insult also shows the attitude of the Victorian society towards a sexual woman. But the Victorian men is not the only reason why sexual women is abominated, Stoker describe Mina after she is inflected “unclean, unclean! I must touch him or kiss him no more. Oh, that it should be that it is I who am now his worst enemy, and whom he may have most cause to fear.” (stoker 249). From Mina’s statement, it’s not hard to see that Mina despite herself because she is no longer “clean”. In the Bible, it is said that “And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, unclean, unclean” (Leviticus 13,45). The sexual women are feared and discriminated in the society. even other women despite a sexual woman and won’t recognize her. Although the Victorian woman’s intolerant attitude towards sex is definitely another reason why sexual women is abominated. Women in Victorian age is ought to be submissive and pure, loyal to their husband and be the “angel in the house”, play the role of a good wife and mother. Anything beyond that is obviously “too much” for a woman to be. This is clearly oppression towards women, using “virginity” at a standard to judge women and force them to men’s helper instead of men’s equal. Like Kathryn Hughes explains in her article: “Being ‘forward’ in the company of men suggested a worrying sexual appetite. Women were assumed to desire marriage because it allowed them to become mothers rather than to pursue sexual or emotional satisfaction” (Hughes). Through this explanation, it’s obvious that women were not supposed to have sexual desire in Victorian age, which is very hypocritical. The Victorians use “virginity” to oppress women and conceal their natural desire so that they don’t need to mention “sex” in their daily life. Girls in Victorian age can’t even focus too obviously on finding a husband, not to mention losing her virginity and disloyal to her husband. Victorian age’s misogyny also reflected in considering women mentally below men. In Dracula, Stoker let Dr. Van Helsing stated “when most we want all her great brain which is trained like man’s brain, but is of sweet women and have a special power which the count gives her, and which he may not take away altogether—though he thinks not so” (stoker 295). Van Helsing made it very clear that man’s brain is clearly superior in this situation. Although Mina is logical and clever, Van Helsing still describe her as a child’s brain and think she is venerable and suspect her being affected by Dracula and doesn’t trust her. This is a classic sexual stereotype that men is more logical than women thus their brain is superior. All in all, Stoker vividly depicts typical misogyny behavior in Victorian age, leaving readers deep impression.

Stoker challenges the stereotype of women and misogyny in Dracula. Stoker challenge that women are mentally below men, he describes Mina’s power play “He opened it, and for an instant his face fell. Then he stood up and bowed. ‘Oh, you so clever woman!’ he said. ‘I long knew that Mr. Jonathan was a man of much thankfulness; but see, his wife have all the good things. And will you not so honour me and so help me as to read it for me? Alas! I know not the shorthand.’” (stoker 164). This is Mina’s power play, intended to show off her ability of shorthand to Van Helsing and try to earn his respect and tell him what she can do. This challenge the stereotype that women can’t be smarter than men and can only be the “angle in the house”. Mina show her proficiency and earn others respect. Stoker also challenge the stereotype that women must depend on men. In this situation Mina is independent and confident and overpowering Van Helsing for the first time. Stoker also challenge the traditional role of man and women, when men are rational and dominate and women are emotional and submissive. He makes Jonathan feminine by let him cried out after his wife is infected “‘In god’s name what does this mean?’ Harker cried out, ‘Dr Seward, Dr Van Helsing, what is it? What has happened? What is wrong? Mina, dear what is it? What does that blood mean? My god, my god! Has it come to this!’ and raising him to his knees, he beat his hands wildly together. ‘good god help us! Help her! Oh, help her!’” (stoker 248). In this scene, Jonathan is very feminine and Mina is more rational. This challenge the stereotype that man is always logical and women is emotional. Mina is tough, rational and calm while Jonathan is desperate and emotional. Stoker also challenge the traditional stereotype by making Mina the hero in the novel. In the novel. Stoker let Mina argues “I know that you must fight –that you must destroy even as you destroy the false Lucy so that the true Lucy might live hereafter; but it is not a work of hate, that poor soul who has wrought all this misery is the saddest case of all, just think what will be his joy when he too is destroyed in his worser part that his better part may have spiritual immortality. You must be pitiful to him too, though it may not hold your hands from his destruction” (stoker 269). It’s obviously that Mina is more considerate and logical in this situation. Mina is tougher than the man and more sympathetic and is becoming the main hero of the novel. When the men all got carried away by anger, Mina is still rational and figured out reasonable solutions. This challenge the stereotype when women only appear as men’s helper and only take a small portion of the story. Also, in the story, Mina is a working women and knows shorthand, she is the representative new women. Just like Senf explains: “Mina Harker not only escapes the fate of the other women: she is also largely responsible for the capture and ultimate destruction of Dracula” (Senf). This greatly challenge the fact that women can only save by men, and always appear mere as appendix to the men. In the second half of the story, Mina is giving out useful suggestions, comforting the men and getting involved in the men’s world. Mina is brave and independent and has always be practicing shorthand waiting for the opportunity to use the skill, she changes her fate with her own hand. To sum up, Stoker challenge the sexism stereotype in Victorian age and inspire women in Victorian age to fight for equality.

Misogyny happened because women were too dependent on men. Just like Ortberg explains: “The popular Victorian image of the ideal wife/woman came to be ‘the Angel in the House’; she was expected to be devoted and submissive to her husband. The Angel was passive and powerless, meek, charming, graceful, sympathetic, self-sacrificing, pious, and above all–pure” (Ortberg). This clearly indicate the reason why men look down upon women, women in Victorian age is always submissive and devoted. They can’t live without the support of their husband and men is always the breadwinner in the family. Victorian women’s fate is controlled by men thus they are at a unequal status. The Powerless, meek, pure women is favored by men, but not respected by them. In conclusion, the stereotype of “angel in the house” makes women too dependent on men, which is why misogyny take place.

Today, Misogyny is still a major issue affecting the equality of society. As Marcotte introduced: “One of the more peculiar results of the modern digital age is the rise of the “men’s rights activists” (MRAs). Previously known simply as misogynists, these men—and not a few women—have rebranded themselves as the defenders of men against feminism, which they view as a hegemonic force that isn’t about equality but female dominance” (Marcotte). Nowadays, there are still shadows of the patriarchal society. These men use “men’s right” to cover for their oppression towards women. They discriminate women so they can feel “masculine”. These people can’t free themselves from the gender stereotype thus they are always angry and always judging others. Not only misogyny happened as a social event, it is also affecting the equality in everyday life. Just like Girous and Vredenburg argued in their paper: “when a women is emotional, she is ‘hysterical’ and she’s penalized for it. When a man does the same, he’s ‘outspoken’ and there are no repercussions” (Girous, Vredenburg). This is a classic gender stereotype and an indication of misogyny. Men is always considered logical and superior than women, and women is always considered emotional and vexatious. So, when women is emotional, nobody takes her seriously and will make fun of her agony. To make this problem worse, people don’t take this kinds of misogyny seriously. People who argue with this kind of behavior will often be considered as overreact and hypocritical. To sum up, misogyny today is sometimes hard to detected but it is a serious inequality and discrimination that affects people’s daily life.

In conclusion, Dracula describes and challenge the misogyny in Victorian age reflecting the patriarchal society’s discrimination towards women. Bram Stoker’s work reminds people the importance of equality and still reflects to today’s social issues, giving out useful advice on how to achieve equality.

Among many cultural, racial, geographic and literary aspects of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, religion is probably the most important one to be analysed. As the novel itself explains, Christianity is the predominant religion that is chosen to confront with the darkness in order to purify the earth. The followers of this religious movement are found in a situation where they need to save their land, empire and the established socio-cultural system from invasion of the un-dead. The danger comes from the outside and has no logical explanation. This novel is all about the battle between the divine forces against the old and archaic superstitions.

In this gothic novel, Count Dracula is presented as the evil, an anti-Christ. His name literally means “son of the Dragon” which inevitably gives him diabolic features. In all the myths all over the world Dragon always carries bad connotations. He is the one causing troubles to the civilian population and constantly keeping them in fear. His primary diet consists of young and beautiful women that he kidnaps and the only way to stop this terror from happening is the appearance of a knight, a hero. This hero is a saviour, the one who brings the light and ends up with the troublemaker. He is destined to destroy the evil and his mission is to bring peace. There is, of course, no better representative of a saviour than the Son of God, Jesus Christ. His ideological, moral and ethical principles are the basis of the Catholic Church, a religion whose influence is undoubtedly predominant throughout the history since the birth of the Christ.

Christianity was chosen by Stoker as analogy of the knight destined to defeat the beast. Now, all the Christian-men are the embodiment of this ideology which is to fight in order too save the established system so as to ensure the bright future of the succeeding generations. This very idea is strongly affirmed by Abraham Van Helsing in his speech:

“Thus are we ministers of God’s own wish. That the world, and men for whom His Son die, will not be given over to monsters, whose very existence would defame Him. He has allowed us to redeem one soul already, and we go out as the old knights of the Cross to redeem more. Like them we shall travel towards the sunrise. And like them, if we fall, we fall in good cause.” (Stoker, 1897: 531, chapter XXIV).

The choice of the weapons and tools used in order to fight with the un-dead has fallen on the holy water, fragments from Bible, prays, crucifixes and communion wafers. All these are symbols representing the physical and spiritual aspects of the Christ. These measures were ought to be taken since Dracula is not a human but something mysterious and unexplainable. His powers surpass human’s physical abilities. He even has the ability to change the weather, something only Christ could do. Thus the only way to fight with the unknown is to use something that has no logical explanation either. This one is the religious belief of the holy and divine force of the Christ as the only weapon capable of defeating the evil. This also means that only those who believe have the right to be saved. The ones who do not will inevitably fall into Dracula’s temptations.

This way readers can draw a clear parallel between Dracula and Christ. Many factors indicate their symbolic relationship. In his article Keeping the Faith: Catholicism in Dracula and its Adaptations D. Bruno Starrs states: “The novel’s religious analogy is obvious: in the most basic of his many perversions of Catholic lore, Count Dracula is the figurative anti-Christ who promises eternal life through the ingestion not of sacramental wine representing the blood of Christ, but of actual human blood.” (2004:1). It is well known that during the Holy Communion Catholics drink the holy wine representing the blood of Christ in order to purify their soul and gain eternal life in heaven. Dracula, on the other hand, drinks human blood to continue living on earth.

He also contradicts to the common Christian belief of the sacred meaning of marriage. Dracula practices multiple marriage since has three vampire wives and even tries to make more through Mina and Lucy. However, in Christian Church marriage is considered to be for life and only once.

Another aspect of Dracula’s personality that distorts Christianity is his bisexual behaviour. As Jamili Wetzels states: “In combination with the use of his penetrating teeth, Dracula’s response to both Jonathan and Mina Harker’s blood is almost a sexual one, thus giving Dracula’s behaviour a bisexual connotation.” (2012:11). Furthermore, David Rogers adds: “his luscious mouth with his sharp protruding (and penetrating) teeth combining the symbolic shape of the feminine with a signifier of masculine phallic power to provide (…) only the most conspicuous of many signs of his figurative bisexuality” (2000: XI).

In this horror novel, Dracula is presented as a threat to the Holy Land of England. His journey towards new continents were all in order to spread his beliefs which can be compared with the religious Crusades. These were intended to spread Christianity all over the world. This way the un-dead invades the peaceful city of London and brings his terror to all its citizens. He converts others into himself by biting them, thus making more followers of his diabolic belief. He contaminates their blood so they are left without humanity and finally become monsters. The only way to purify their souls and to bring them salvation is by destroying the diabolic inside them. So as to let the soul to go to heaven and reunite with the God the un-dead has to be killed in an almost religious way.

As the novel itself tells there are multiple ways in which Count Dracula corrupts and distorts Christianity. He is the embodiment of the anti-Christ that comes in order to contaminate the earth with the evil. He makes people become blood-sucking monster by falling into his temptations. He is a powerful antagonist with his own principles and ideology that contradict to many Christian customs. All these aspects of his identity perfectly reflect the difficult socio-cultural situation of England of that time.

References

1. Starrs, D. Bruno Keeping the faith: Catholicism in ‘Dracula’ and its adaptations (2004). Journal of Dracula Studies.
2. Bram Stoker, Dracula, Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York.
3. Jamili Wetzels, 3240622, Bachelor Thesis, English Language and Culture, Utrecht University, The Influence of Science and the Supernatural on the Gothic Novel,
4. Rogers, David. “Introduction.” Dracula. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth, (2000).

In this study of Bram Stoker’s literary piece Dracula (1897), I will question the use of the diverse types of narratives chosen by the author and what the different points of view provide to the readership of the novel. Moreover, I will argue to what extent this epistolary narrative heightens the dramatic and thriller-like effectiveness of the novel with a close reading of the text and the support of secondary sources.

To start off, there are two different narrative patterns that must be made distinct before getting ourselves into the main question of this essay. As Seed states in his journal article “The Narrative Method of Dracula”, this novel can be fragmented into 4 different sections that correspond with “the narrative preamble, the working out of Dracula’s intentions, their discovery, and the final pursuit” (1985: 63, 64). However, there is a different way of organizing the narrative of the text and it regards the apparition of Count Dracula whether it is directly -through Jonathan Harker’s journals- or indirectly with the several instances of Dracula’s deeds in England whose ownership the reader can suspect from what they have learnt previously thanks to Harker’s scope.

Stoker’s principle of narration is that only Dracula’s opponents are granted narrative voices and they can only record what in each case they have plausibly experienced (68). This is due to what Dracula represents in the novel; as Christine Ferguson states: Dracula is described […] as anarchic disruption to some historically specific conventions of bourgeois culture, to an order obsessed with the maintenance of order and purity. Anxiety – about the dangers of social and sexual changes, about the replacement of socials stability with chaos and mayhem -remains the dominant idiom of Dracula (2004: 230).

Hence, the male narrators all carry out a job characteristic of the new bourgeoise (professor, doctor, lawyer, etc.) and, in the plot, they are the “heroes” that defeat Count Dracula and symbolically save the English society.

Having said that, the first introduction to anything related to Vampirism comes from Harker’s diary, it details his travelling experience to the utmost detail to keep track and find rational solutions to everything that seems odd and supernatural: “I began to fear as I wrote in this book that I was getting too diffuse; but now I am glad that I went into detail from the first, for there is something so strange about this place and all in it that I cannot but feel uneasy” (Stoker 2013: 28). From him, the reader is able to physically recognize Count Dracula and his modus operandis. This first description serves as a long-distance “memory” (1985: 65) from what the reader is to find in the bits and pieces of information that we encounter in the second part of the narrative.

The second type of narrative is that of letters, phonograph records and telegrams among the different characters. From being used to Jonathan Harker’s lineal diary, in the second part the reader jumps from one perspective to another. The main purpose of this Section Two and Three of the book is the assimilation of everything that is irrational, both for the reader and the characters. “[This] is confirmed by the plausibility of the text, by our predisposition toward evidence, proof, and verification. All the non-Transylvanian characters keep records […] of the action primarily serve to supply information” (1985: 74). Although we cannot see the Dracula act directly, we know from him by several instances that are rationally put together by the voice of the professor, doctor, philosopher Van Helsing. The downfall of Dracula begins when the characters work together and share their knowledge and experience (Cribb 1999: 137). As Van Helsing tells Arthur:

I know it was hard for you to quite trust me then, for to trust such violence needs to understand; and I take it that you understand. And there may be more times when I shall want you to trust when you cannot -and may not- and must not yet understand. But the time will come when you shall understand as though the sunlight himself shone through (2013: 197).

In the same way that Van Helsing asks Arthur to believe him, Stoker is persuading the reader to do the same. From the outside, the reader has already assembled all this knowledge and has been able to build a bond of intimacy with the characters. One of the aspects that make this narrative so effective is the fact that the reader is peeping into the characters’ private affairs by reading their journals, letters, telegrams or any other mean of communication. While reading Harker’s diary the role of the reader is almost voyeuristic (1999: 134) as it was only meant for his fiancé to read. The second narrative is composed by more perspectives which gives way to the reader to fill in the temporal gaps (136) Epistolary novels are narrative tools that work with the first-person basis, as the protagonist is the only narrator, the reader may have the feeling that they are not being told the whole truth, just the perspective from the main point of view may fall short. This creates a sense of unreliability that is hard for the reader to overcome.

However, Stoker saves this gap by adding other perspectives to the plot, he also uses newspaper retails and witnesses that give plausibility to the novel, so not only the reader is akin to Jonathan’s experiences, but to other sources as well. Stoker’s narrative is a mirror to the English rationality and so it is reflected in the discourse in different ways: the generic disbelief that something natural might be happening -as Mina asserts that if she had not read Jonathan’s diary, she would not have believed her own experience either-, the medical argot used among Dr. Seward and Van Helsing correspondence and blatantly ignoring the customs -and warnings- of the Transylvanian people on Harker’s account serve as examples of how the Western civilization was constructed in the Victorian literature and also its contemporary society as well. The fact that the reader can recognize themselves in the European mentality described makes the narrative more likely. Therefore, the reader participates actively into it and that helps to heighten the dramatic effectiveness of the novel.

In conclusion, stylistically, the fact that it is arranged by the different memoirs of the characters, makes the reader more alert and it helps building an environment of suspense. As well as this, Bram Stoker’s narrative is engaging because it portrays the Western European pride, more specifically, the British one – that of imperialism, punctuality, technologic developments, everything that the Victorian society was proud of. As it is put at jeopardy -Dracula presents the “reverse colonization” of Eastern Europe-, the readers fear for themselves as this novel is narrated in a way plausible enough to believe. At last, Stoker’s Dracula is not the first epistolary novel nor the first novel about vampires, but it was innovative enough to become one of the most renowned literary compositions of nowadays.

Works cited

1. Cribb, Susan M., ‘“If I Had to Write with a Pen”: Readership and Bram Stoker’s Diary Narrative’, Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, 10/2 (1999): 133–41.
2. Ferguson, Christine. “Nonstandard Language and the Cultural Stakes of Stoker’s ‘Dracula.’” ELH, vol. 71, no. 1, 2004, pp. 229–249. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/30029928.
3. Seed, David. “The Narrative Method of Dracula.” Nineteenth-Century Fiction, vol. 40, no. 1, 1985, pp. 61–75. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3044836.
4. Stoker, Bram. Dracula (Penguin Classics). Penguin, 2013.

Form, Structure, and Plot

The novel Dracula, written by bram stoker; it was released in the 19th century, is a deftly organized structure that is written in epistolary form{an epistle is an ancient term for letters}, which is a novel based on letters, that has the narration take place in the forms of letters. The epistolary novel is an absorbing literary technique, because it authorize a writer to include numerous narrators in his story. This means the story can be told and interpreted from multiple viewpoints. Dracula is mainly narrated by numerous narrators who also serve as the novel’s main protagonists; Stoker added an extra element to the story with infrequent newspaper clippings to make a connection with the events not directly witnessed by the story’s characters. By formatting his novel in the episodic format, Stoker augmented the reading experience, helping it to be a surprise and thrill classical story become clearer and seem more believable to the reader (Epistolary – Examples and Definition of Epistolary). The book itself is four hundred in eight pages long and contains twenty-seven chapters. The novel begins with Jonathan Harker, {a young English lawyer} as he travels to Transylvania. Harker plans to meet with on of his client Count Dracula, in order to complete a property transaction. When Harker arrives in Transylvania, the locals react with horror after he reveal his destination of Castle Dracula. Though this uncertain him vaguely, he continues. The baleful howling of wolves through the air as he arrives to his destination. When Harker meets Dracula, he realize that the man is pale, haggard, and strange. He becomes further concerned when dracula lunges at his throat right after he cuts himself while shaving. Soon after, Harker is seduced by three female vampires, whom he even barely escapes from. He then figure out Dracula’s secret which is being a vampire and survives by drinking live human blood. Harker assumes that he is going to be dracula’s next victim. So he attacks the count, but it was unsuccessful. Dracula leaves Harker trapped in castle and then, along with 50 boxes of dirt, where he departs for England.(Dracula.” Encyclopædia Britannica,.)

Theme

In the novel, Dracula there is an central idea of fragment, Is him being trap with a feeling of helplessness and fear of overcoming himself after he realizes that he has become even more trap . Stoker expresses this by his expression throughout the excerpt of his novel. Stoker uses diction to set the tone of his book. One example where the stoker uses tone to show the fear of being trap is where he begins to question things like the previous incidents that had occurred, “What does it mean that he could control the wolves, as he did, by only holding up his hand in silence. How was it that all the people at Bistritz and on the coach had some terrible fear for me?..(Stoker 37)

One of the main themes of Dracula is the role of good and evil. There’re are characters that are either on two different sides – some good, others evil. The only obvious character that is ‘evil’ is Count Dracula, however if you play attention to what some of the other characters have to say, it is sometimes make you wonder whether they are either good or evil. It is not always easy to figure out whether a character has an element of goodness in them, one of the ways to tell is by what they are dressed. We all know that Dracula is on the evil side, however the way he dresses also tells you about his personality. He is described early on, when Jonathan Harker first meets him as ‘A tall old man…clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of colour about him anywhere’.(stoker )This is the colour which we associate with evil, even . The way that garlic and a crucifix can suddenly create an immense barrier between the two, means it must have a great symbolic meaning. And the way that good people wear white and are described as ‘white figures’ and evil people wear black and are described as a ‘tall black figure’ indicates that these colours show a true distinction between the two. Then there is a theme called appearances versus reality and it is of Dracula during the day (aristocrat) is his appearance, but in reality he is a vampire. His aristocracy is only a persona to lure people.

Lucy seemed to be anaemic since she was pale and she faints, however, in reality, she was transforming into a vampire. Also Feminist Mina and Lucy represents the new form of femininity. They mention the ‘New Woman’ which is a woman who does not care about the social norms in Victorian society and there is Sexual desire

Lucy and the Three Vampire Sisters represents the underlying sexual desires. During the Victorian Era, men and women could not express their sexual desire to one another, as it would be seen as a sin of lust. An example “The fair girl went on her knees and bent over me, fairly gloating. There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive, and as she arched her neck, she actually licked her lips like an animal, till I could see in the moonlight the moisture shining on the scarlet lips and on the red tongue as it lapped the white, sharp, teeth” (Stoker 50). This particular passage describes the mixed feelings men had towards forward women; temptation made the “unnatural” occurrence of female sexual advances desirable. (Reflection and Rebuke of Victorian Society) Lucy and the Three Sisters represent the sin of lust and how their sexual behaviours can affect others. For example, the Sisters try to seduce Harker, thus causing him to feel his sexual desires emerging, however, due to his religious beliefs, he continues to suppress his urges until after marriage. finally the last theme is Religion, Throughout the novel religion is the most prominent theme. Dracula can be seen as the alter-ego of God. He uses many concept of Christianity, like the Holy Communion, and perverse it to fit his needs. He also has many followers, like Renfield, the Sisters, and Lucy and has inhuman characteristic, like God.

Point of view

The structure of this novel helps to identify the situation of one of more, it help you get to know each position of a person, explore each position, and examine methodically of the detail of the structure, and what they have learned. This structure helps allow one to see things from someone else’s perspective of their own view. By replaying a scene in which it occurred from the viewpoints of all the characters, one may get a clearer picture of what actually happened, how the other person sees the situation, of there motivation. For instance Mina states in her diary: “I have been working very hard lately, because I want to keep up with Jonathan’s studies, and I have been practicing shorthand very assiduously. When we are married I shall be able to be useful to Jonathan, and if I can stenograph well enough I can take down what he wants to say in this way and write it out for him on the typewriter, at which also I am practicing very hard… I may show it to Jonathan some day if there is in it anything worth sharing, but it is really an exercise book” (Stoker 67).

Character

An analysis of the main characters gives a more deep understanding of Dracula.The major characters in the story are Count Dracula, Jonathan Harker, Dr. Van Helsing,Mina (Murray) Harker, Lucy, Dr. John Seward, Arthur Holmwood, and Quincey P.Morris. Dracula is the greatest vampire, who in life had been a man of legend(“Dracula”). This is because Dracula is actually based on a real fifteenth-century family (SparkNotes Editors). He is supposed to be a descendant of the Price of Wallachia Vlad Dracula (SparkNotes Editors). Vlad was exceptionally smart and infamously violent. He Enjoyed a gory career just like Count Dracula (SparkNotes Editors). Vlad has a reputation for slaughtering beggars, forcing women to consume their babies, and piercing his enemies on long spikes (SparkNotes Editors). Dracula is similar to sin: at first sin looks pleasing, and fun; but only after committing it, does it show how destructive it actually isCount living in a castle in the Carpathian mountains, near present-day Romania (or Transylvania), Dracula is a member of an ancient family of warriors, some of whom fought against the Huns, the Turks, and other invaders in Central Europe in the Middle Ages. Dracula is also a vampire, or an Undead being that sleeps at night, turns into a bat at will, and must feed on the blood of the living to survive. At the beginning of the novel, Dracula is doing business with Jonathan Harker, an English solicitor’s assistant, in order to buy property in London; as the novel progresses, Dracula comes to London, bringing with him 50 wooden boxes filled with sacred earth, in which he sleeps to restore and preserve his powers. Eventually, Dracula is tracked down by Harker, Van Helsing, Seward, and others, as he feeds on the blood of the women Lucy and Mina; the group then destroys Dracula’s boxes and, eventually, Dracula himself, by stabbing him in the heart and a stake, and cutting off his head, freeing his soul.

Jonathan Harker is a young solicitor, who is naïve and at first does not take any heed in the warning he got while on his way to Count Dracula’s castle. Once he finds himself a prisoner, he is very inquisitive to discover the truth about Count Dracula, and figuring out a way to escape. It is only after Dracula attacks Mina, that Jonathan changes from a self-doubting, thinking man into a vicious warrior, always sharpening his knife(SparkNotes Editors). It is in this way that Jonathan is the dynamic character, for he becomes almost completely opposite of what he was in the beginning of the story.

Dr. Van Helsing is a philosopher and a metaphysician, who can be strong-willed,and is the only character that possesses an open mind enough to contemplate and address Dracula’s evil intentions. Hellsing seems to have knowledge of superstitions and folk remedies. He lives in two distinct worlds, the old and the new (SparkNotes Editors). The First is marked by fearful respect for tradition, and the second by ever-progressing innovation (SparkNotes Editors). He envisions his band as “ministers of God’s own wish,” and reassures his comrades that “we go out as the old knights of the Cross to redeem more” (SparkNotes Editors) (Stoker 283). An eminent professor from Amsterdam, and a learned ‘man of science,’ Van Helsing was Seward’s former teacher; Seward calls him to England to help with the case of Lucy. Van Helsing later leads the group, including Seward, on the hunt to ‘truly kill’ Lucy and track down and truly kill Dracula. Van Helsing speaks a kind of non-idiomatic, ‘choppy’ English

Mina is the ultimate Victorian woman, for she wants nothing more than to be a good wife to her husband and to be a good woman in the eyes of God (SparkNotes Editors) Harker’s fiancée, and then wife, Mina tends to Lucy, her friend and Arthur’s fiancée, during Lucy’s illness; it then turns out that Lucy was preyed upon by Dracula. Mina, in turn, has her blood sucked by Dracula, and through a ‘blood link’ formed between her and Dracula, Mina is able to channel his thoughts when hypnotized by Van Helsing.

(“Dracula”). In Dr. Helsing words, “She has a man’s brain – a brain that a man should have where he much gifted – and a woman’s heart. The good Old fashioned her for a purpose, believe me, when he made that so good combination” (Stoker 208). She Proves time and time again that she is equal to the men, who are on this crusade to kill Dracula.

Lucy is Mina’s best friend and is an attractive, vibrant young woman. Because She is such an attractive young woman, she has three suitors, Dr. John Seward, Arthur Holmwood, and Quincey P. Morris, from whom she must choose. Lucy chooses Arthur,but does not marry him, due to the fact that she becomes a vampire. After Lucy has turned into a vampire, it compromises her much-praised chastity, and virtue. She is the main reason that Helsing and the rest first start to believe in vampires, and declare war on vampires.

Arthur’s fiancée, Lucy is stricken by sleepwalking and then an unknown illness. As it turns out she is being stalked and her blood drunk by Dracula. Lucy is best friends with Mina, who wonders what is happening as Lucy begins to waste away and lose a great deal of blood. Lucy is treated by Seward and Van Helsing, though she later turns into a vampire, and must be killed ‘again’ in her tomb by Arthur, Van Helsing, and the rest of the group

Dr. John Seward runs the insane asylum near to Dracula’s castle. In this asylum,he conducts ambitious interviews with one of his patients, Renfield, in order to understand better the nature of life-consuming psychosis. Although he is not as smart,brave, or in love as some of the other characters, he is a good narrator for the story(“Dracula”). This is because he smart, and brave enough and informed and inquisitive enough for the plot of the story to unfold naturally through his eyes (“Dracula”).

Arthur Holmwood becomes Lord Godalming after his father dies. He inherits the title, and he also inherits large estates from Lucy’s mother. Arthur is a sensitive, sensible and strong man, and Helsing enjoys him as a colleague. Arthur is strong, because he does whatever circumstances demand. For example, he agrees to kill Lucy’s demonic form. He Is also generous, for he pays for the whole vampire hunt and lets everyone use his title to gain access to information about Dracula. Quincey Morris is an American from Texas, who proves to be a brave and good hearted man. He is an early American stereotype; he calls ladies “little girl” and he calls Seward “Jack” (“Dracula”). He only seems to be in this hunt on Dracula because of his love for Lucy, otherwise he has nothing great at stake. In the end, he sacrifices his life in order to rid the world of Dracula’s influence.fiancé, Arthur is an English nobleman (Lord Godalming) of a somewhat nervous and emotional temperament. Van Helsing convinces Arthur that Arthur must stab Lucy in the heart to ‘free her’ from her vampirism, and to achieve closure—to realize that Lucy can only be ‘safe’ when she is no longer forced to exist as an Un-Dead.

Works Cited

1. “Epistolary – Examples and Definition of Epistolary.” Literary Devices, 9 Oct. 2017, literarydevices.net/epistolary/.
2. Lohnes, Kate. “Dracula.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 24 Jan. 2019, www.britannica.com/topic/Dracula-novel.
3. Podonsky, and Amanda M. “Bram Stoker’s Dracula: A Reflection and Rebuke of Victorian Society.” Inquiries Journal, Inquiries Journal, 1 Feb. 2010, www.inquiriesjournal.com/amp/1678/bram-stokers-dracula-a-reflection-and-rebuke-of-victorian-society.
4. SparkNotes, SparkNotes, www.sparknotes.com/lit/dracula/summary/.