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What Does Lucy's Body Symbolize In Dracula

1476 Words6 Pages

Do you believe in vampires? Vampires are hidden, dark, unhuman creatures. They pray on the living, and create more monsters with one bite. In the novel “Dracula” By Bram Stoker, many symbols, motifs, themes, are hidden in with the plot. Throughout the book, you get an interesting insight from each character. My paper will touch on those symbols, motifs, and themes. It will also touch on a main character, and will be looked at through a feminine lease point. Bram Stoker uses blood as a symbol in the novel “Dracula”; Stoker uses blood to represent Strength, and someone’s life force. “We Szekelys have a right to be proud, for in our veins flows blood of many brave races who fought as the lion fights for lord-ship” (Stoker 33). To further explain …show more content…

Dracula also wanted to change a pure woman. “The room was dark, so I could not see Lucy’s bed; I stole across and felt for her. The bed was empty. I lit a match and found that she was not in the room” (Stoker 101). To elaborate, Stoker is explaining the start of Lucy’s adventures in her sleep. “Is this really Lucy’s Body, or only a demon in her shape? It is her body, and yet not it. But wait a while, and you shall see her as she was, and is” (Stoker 229). This quote is all about Lucy, how she has changed from a pure young woman to a dark lost soul who kills children. According to Mitchell R. Lewis in the article “Dracula” , “the conflict over Lucy” is revealing Stokers “thematic concerns with gender, sex and sexuality”. To sum it all up, Lucy was the first character to really experience what Dracula really was, and what he was capable …show more content…

“The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth; these protruded over the lips,” (Stoker 22). In this quote from the novel, Stoker shows the teeth of the vampire as a masculine symbol because it is a pointy object. “and last a round wooden stake, some two and a half or three inches thick and about three feet long. One end of it was hardened by charring in the fire and was sharpened to a fine point. With this stake came a heavy hammer such as in households is used in the coal-cellar for breaking the lumps” (Stoker 229). In this example, Stoker shows the stake as a strong long wooden thing, or showing it as the male genitals; the stake is shown has a masculine symbol that takes the life from women, this can symbolize rape. Per Harold Bloom (Bloom on Dracula), Stoker doesn’t know how to distinguish between the female protagonist of “the feckless Lucy and the fortunate Mina”. To suggest, Stoker does not know how to depict a female power in “Dracula”. In conclusion, Women are seen as inferior in this novel, and more masculine symbols show

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