The Fallen Woman In Bram Stoker's Dracula

Dracula starts off in Johnathon Harker’s diary. Johnathon heads to Transylvania on a business trip to sell Dracula, a wealthy count in Transylvania, some real estate in London. After several incidents of Count Dracula attempting to suck Johnathon’s blood, and imprison him, Johnathon escapes and the novel switches to Mina Murray, Johnathon’s fiancé, and her friend, Lucy Westenra’s, points of view through their letters. Its mostly just gossip, but there are several references to Johnathon. Next, it shifts to Dr. John Seward’s, sometimes referred to as Jack, dairy with a description of Renfield who is a patient at Jack’s asylum. After this, it alternates points of view, with the occasional newspaper clipping thrown in. Lucy becomes Dracula’s victim

Everybody knows the classic tale of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It is most famous for its introduction of the character of Count Dracula into both deep-rooted and contemporary literature and media. One critic claimed,” Bram Stoker set the ground rules for what a vampire should be.” It follows the story of Jonathan Harker, an English solicitor who visits Count Dracula in his castle in Transylvania – soon realising that he is being kept as a prisoner. Dracula forms a liking to the character of Lucy which ultimately leads to her death. Dracula learns that the group are plotting against him and feeds Mina his own blood to control her. In the final fight, humanity wins over the creature as they can kill him and Mina’s mind from his “spell.” The premise

In Bram Stoker’s gothic novel, Dracula, the overall and fundamental theme of the book is given away the further you read, expressing Stoker’s view of religion. The novel is an account of the paths taken by many different characters such as Count Dracula, Van Helsing, Jonathan Harker, Mina Murray and Lucy Westenra. Since this poem was written with ideas focused primarily on the concepts of evil, as it was viewed during an appearingly-conservative nineteenth and twentieth century society, the book can be seen as a parallel to Eliot’s and others’ own religious quests. While Bram Stoker attempts to acquaint the reader with a frightening tale on the accounts of a dreadful vampire named Count Dracula, he also expresses the goal of strengthening

Victorian Britain moved from an agrarian into an industrial society and the industrialization brought new devices and technology that improved the Victorian lifestyle. Stoker’s Dracula is an example of the clash between the modernity and tradition. Stoker puts an emphasis on the newest technology of Britain and combines them with traditional and folkloric traits. He described through Doctor Seward and Doctor Van Helsing two main attitudes towards science. Doctor Seward stands for modern science and reasoning and Doctor Van Helsing represents the superstitious beliefs.

During the Victorian period in which Dracula was written, morals and ethics were often strictly enforced. Some of the morals that were upheld had to do with personal duty, hard work, honesty, as well as sexual proprietary. It was very important during this period that one was proper in their sexual behaviors and conventional in whom they had sexual relations with. However, during this period, many authors sought to challenge the ‘norm’ with ideas of reform and change and Bram Stoker was no exception to this. In his novel, Dracula, Stoker provides a critique of this rigidity in his portrayal of Dracula and Dracula’s relationship with Jonathan Harker. Though he could not be explicit in his representation of homosexuality or queerness, in the

Lucy Westenra is the best friend of Mina Harker and thus the second female main character of the novel. Stoker describes with Lucy a representative of the New Women movement, as the time was seen by the British population. She is single and lives with her mother, who is suffering from heart disease. Her family, that was once very prosperous, consist only of herself and her aging mother. She is Dracula’s first victim /vampire child in England. Lucy stands in many ways in contrast to Mina’s character as their moral views and ways of life are distant. She has no occupation and is in no way seeking any form of education. Due to this fact she resembles at first initially in no case the modern New Women, as these sought for independence and education. Her personality can be described as girly, lovely and ‘sweetly innocent’, a seeming sample of Victorian perfection. Lucy is highly beheld for her beauty as her appearance is that of a luminous beauty with fair hair, that is described as “sunny ripples” , and pure bright eyes. Slowly through the chapters Lucy’s tempting sexuality is more lightly brought up. In one of her may letters to Mina, Lucy tells her about the three proposal she got that day and asks her why they cannot:” […] let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble.” Through her liberal dealing with sexuality, Lucy is crossing mentally boundaries set up by the social convention of society as it was immoral and forbidden for women in

At first glance, the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker appears to be a typical gothic horror novel set in the late 1890s that gives readers an exciting look into the fight between good and evil. Upon closer inspection, it becomes apparent that Dracula is a statement piece about gender roles and expectations for men and women during the Victorian age. Looking at the personalities, actions, and character development of each of the characters in Dracula bring to light startling revelations about Victorian society and how Stoker viewed the roles of men and women during this time period.

According to the Victorian Web, a new and budding author named Bram Stoker entered the world in the year 1847, on the eighth of November. From a young age, Stoker loved to read about folklore, and later on in life he aspired to be an author. Although Stoker published several stories, only in the year 1897 did he publish his most well-known novel, Dracula. After this success, Stoker went on to write several other novels, and eventually died in the year 1912. (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. Thankfully, the group eventually discovers a way to eventually vanquish Dracula once and for all, and by the end of the book they destroy him, preventing him from terrorizing the people of Europe once and for all. Stoker explores several significant themes in this book, including the theme of deception. In Dracula, Stoker uses the theme of deception with the characterization of Dracula,

Bram Stoker’s Dracula, is a classic that has been enjoyed by readers for many years. It is one that involves fantasy, gore and even has the potential of scaring readers. It is a story that has been enjoyed and feared by readers for centuries. With that said, even though it is commonly known as a classic horror novel, it can also be seen as an erotica. Throughout the novel, Stoker incorporates sexual scenes, and scenes of desire that may or may not capture readers’ attention due to the presence of horror. The horror genre of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, combined with mild eroticism is able to draw in readers due to the fact that Stoker is able to intricately weave suspenseful sexual scenes/scenes of desire throughout the novel—making it clear that

In Bram Stoker’s 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula, the title character makes only several relatively short appearances, some of which are while in disguise. Throughout the novel, Stoker keeps Count Dracula in the shadows, both literally and figuratively. This essay will describe these appearances and analyze Stoker’s use of them to determine what effect they might have on the impression of the character and the novel overall. It will be claimed that by keeping his title character hidden for much of the novel, Stoker’s Dracula is made much more frightening to the reader. Human beings tend to fear the unknown, and by leaving Dracula to the imagination,

Dracula is about vampires in general, the myth, the mystery and the horror. Even though Dracula wasn’t the first vampire story, it was the first really popular one. Throughout the novel, the author, Bram Stoker, portrays many different aspects of women's roles in the 19th century. With the use of imagery and symbolism, the theme of sexuality and gender roles has an enormous presence in the novel. Social gender roles of women and men during the Victorian Era were very strict and looked upon differently than any other time period. One of the many characteristic features of the Victorian culture was its patriarchal ideas about women. This culture looked upon sexual activity as a negative matter amongst women. The theme of sexuality is very significant

In the novel Dracula, Bram Stoker highlights the theme of sexuality that challenge ideas of sex to both the female and male characters. The author objectifies the female characters in the novel to be over sexualized and portrays sex to empower women. Stoker may present the theme of female sexuality; however, he demonstrates gender inequality triumphs at the end leaving women in the shadows again.

Podonsky said, “Bram Stoker’s now-legendary novel, Dracula, is not just any piece of cult-spawning fiction, but rather a time capsule containing the popular thoughts, ideas, and beliefs of the Victorian era that paints an elaborate picture of what society was like for Bram Stoker’s generation” (Podonsky, 2010). The conservative views of the late 19th, early 20th century are reflected in Dracula through lust, sex, and evil. Controversial topics of the time included homosexuality and sex, people were cautious when discussing these matters and were keen on keeping up a modest lifestyle. This does not mean there were not temptations because that is the premise of this book. Stoker glorifies the temptation of female sexuality, this was not acceptable and actually seen as animalistic for women to seduce a man. Connecting back to religion, this novel is about the temptation of the forbidden fruit (Podonsky,

The notion of separate spheres seen throughout the Victorian period was set up to distinguish the roles of men and women in society. Women fulfilled the domestic sphere and were generally seen as emotionally sensitive and submissive individuals. Conversely, men were held to be intelligent, stable, and fulfill all of the work outside of the home. In Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula, the Count seems to actually embody the fear of the breakdown of such separate spheres. However, Bram Stoker breaks down these separate spheres and the fear associated with their breakdown through the theme of the “New Woman” intertwined with the actions and behaviors of the characters in the novel.

The earlier gothic works as well as Dracula covered something that is outside the social norm. Female sexuality, something that was unacceptable and under the surface of society, it is exposed in these writings. The earlier readings such as Carmilla, as well as the poem of Christabel question the boundaries. The texts from these literature pieces contain passages of female sexuality and the passages contain phrases that hint towards the social taboos. In the era when women were thought of mere objects these pieces decide to give them a personality or at least a voice that can express desire, a voice that states women have a purpose apart from pleasing men. The literature pieces help explore the subject of female sexuality, as time progress the amount of female sexuality increases. Women can desire, they can have aspirations, even though shown as vampires the text still suggests that they are women. The gothic writing of Victorian era such as Dracula, Carmilla, and Christabel help