Bram Stoker’s book Dracula begins with a journal entry by Jonathan Harker. Harker is an English lawyer traveling to Transylvania, an Eastern European country, to meet with Count Dracula for business purposes. In his first journal entry, Jonathan records his trip to Dracula’s castle. Along the way local peasants warn him not proceed on to his destination especially so late at night. The worried peasants keep repeating the word “vampire” and give him crucifixes to ward off evil. Harker does get a bit scared but he still decides to continue on to the castle. When Jonathan arrives to his final destination, the friendly and gently Count greets him. During his stay at the castle, Harker feels more and more uncomfortable as certain events take place.…
Stoker’s Dracula, by contrast, is refined and enthralling. He has transmutated from a monster of sorts to a mysterious seducer, from a coldhearted “beast” of incontestable evil to a complex human arousing a strange sympathy and blurring the lines between good and evil. Count Dracula is now an attractive, sophisticated aristocrat who moves about easily in polite society. Dracula’s motivation throughout the film is the pursuit of his lost love, reincarnated in Mina Harker.…
In an analysis of Bram Stoker’s Dracula and one of many film adaptions, Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula, it is very evident that the female characters within the movie and the book are remarkably different. Not only is the love interest between Mina (Ryder) Harker and Dracula (Oldman) an addition to the movie, but the extreme sexualization of all the female characters within the film adaption portray the women in a new light. Through the distinction in character portrayal between the movie and the book, the underlying contrast between the “New Woman” and the Victorian Woman become very identifiable.…
Bram Stoker’s Dracula was written just before the turn of the 19th century; the beginning of this new era threatened a conservative, unchanging culture, and had people of all classes and religions in England on edge. Social fears such as the fall of the British Empire, the beginning of a new movement that would become what we now know as feminism, and changes in gender roles, gripped the nation. It is interesting the note that this not too dissimilar to the fear that gripped the world of the ‘millennium bug’ in 1999. Written and published in 1897, Dracula contains many of the fears that were in the minds of the Victorian public in this dawning age of social change. The British Empire was threatened by unrest and calls for independence in its…
One of the first examples of Stoker’s subverting of traditional social mores and norms in his novel is Dracula’s Wives. Our first encounter with the “weird sisters” comes when they approach Jonathan Harker at the Count’s mansion. Christopher Craft described the scene in his reflection as so “Immobilized by the competing imperatives of ‘wicked desire’ and ‘deadly fear,’ Harker awaits an erotic fulfillment that entails both the dissolution of the boundaries of the self and the thorough subversion of conventional Victorian gender codes,” (Stoker, Auerbach, and Skal 444). Craft is correct that this is a clear subversion of conventional Victorian gender norms. Both Jonathan and the Dracula’s Wives represent a total reversal of what would have been considered normal or appropriate in the 19th Century. Dracula’s Wives are the aggressors in this sexual scene while Jonathan is the passive or cautious sexual partner. His anticipation of the bite from one of the weird sisters is similar to that of a virgin woman waiting for her partner to penetrate her for the first time. The weird sisters represent the total opposite of what a proper Victorian woman is supposed to resemble. They are sexually aggressive and assertive instead of passive and prude. Another female character that occasionally reveals what would be…
Bram Stokers, Dracula, from the late-Victorian era, is one of the best stories of vampire folklore. Dracula was tall, dark, handsome, and mysterious with immense sexual character. His snow white teeth which outlined his rosy red lips made us fantasize of him and ultimately become obsessed. The overwhelming fascination of Stoker’s novel has created individuals to overlook the true metaphoric mechanism behind the story. “Technologies of Monstrosity: Bram Stoker’s “Dracula””, Judith Halberstam points out the metaphor in which Dracula was created. Halberstam argues how Dracula was created as a metaphor for anti-Semitic representations and stereotypical sanctions of the Jew. Halberstam validates her hypothesis by comparing Dracula to physical characteristics of the Jew. Furthermore, she expresses the relation of blood and gold, race and sex, sexuality and ethnicity that consequently relate to the Jew. On the other hand, Kathleen Spencer, “In Purity and Danger: Dracula, The Urban Gothic, and the Late Victorian Degeneracy Crisis”, tries to relate the unconscious and conscious sexuality of Stoker and cultural identities. Spencer focuses on the ‘fantastic’, the urban gothic, romantic revival, and Mary Douglass’s purity and danger to justify her hypothesis. Both these texts provide great examples for the metaphors and symbolism which is hidden in the text of Stoker’s novel.…
Bram Stoker 's Dracula, presents an interesting perspective on death and illness in the Victorian period. This can be viewed as a creativity on Stoker 's part, or as a form of religious or social commentary on his changing era. There are several flaws presented throughout the novel as the plot unfolds, which are: characters in the novel dismiss the old traditional belief of the supernatural, the constant power struggle between the sexes and the Victorian views on sexuality. The supernatural or metaphysical aspects presented in Dracula reflect the tragic flaws of the patriarchal society during the Victorian Era.…
And through them you and others shall yet be mine . . .” (Stoker 339) which ties back into the cultural belief of a man dominating another man by violating a woman who he has a close connection to. Women are not seen as an individual but rather an auxiliary to a male figure. Furthermore, there is the a threat that miscegenation will cause contamination amongst a strong nation. Before Dracula can accomplish his plan, he is defeated by three men who heavily represent England, and two…
“There is reason that all things are as they are...” (Stoker 17). Outlasting countless other tales of its time, Bram Stoker’s lore of “Dracula” began as and still continues to be a classic, frightening novel and despite how some would classify it on only a single one end of the spectrum, it holds true elements of both literary and commercial fiction. He uses various techniques of writing, such as the epistolary plot structure and dramatic irony, and elements, including suspense, to present an unexpected, fear-inducing concept based on the xenophobic idea of the Victorian era.…
In Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula, Stoker portrays many different aspects of women’s roles in the nineteenth century. Women had a strictly defined role within the era; there was no thought of equality, no thought that women could liberate themselves sexually. Stoker uses women in this novel to critique against women’s liberation. Stoker’s portrayal of women makes the novel seem like a fantasy. Women are primarily objects of delicate beauty who occasionally need to be rescued from danger. In the novel Mina Murray is the embodiment of Victorian virtue in which she is loyal, earnest, innocent, and dependent of her husband. Stoker creates another character, Lucy Westenra who is completely opposite of Mina. Lucy is embodies the desire of women who want to liberate themselves. Only Mina shows any considerable strength or resourcefulness. Lucy is primarily two-dimensional victim, picture of perfection who is easy for Dracula to prey upon.…
The Victorian ideology of women is centered on the oppression of females and the idea that a woman’s sole purpose and duty in life is to be obedient and compliant to her husband. It was believed that “New Women” who stepped out of the ideal Victorian role were whores, unfit mothers and brides, and would ultimately cause chaos. In Bram Stoker’s, Dracula, Lucy and the three seductive vampires serve as women who step out of their Victorian role and are in turn punished for their actions.…
In Bram Stoker 's Dracula, the most blatant and powerful symbol is blood. He takes the blood that means so much to the believers of this legend and has it represent more than even they could imagine. Blood is the main object associated with vampires and vampirism. From a mythical standpoint, it is the basis of life for the vampires as they feed off of the blood of young, vibrant souls. From a more scientific standpoint blood is what would drip out of the corpse 's mouth when family members would dig up their dead kin to check for the dreaded disease. Stoker takes the significance of this symbol and puts his own unique twist to the meaning of blood. He combines the traditional folklore of vampirism and the immense sexual undertones of the Victorian era to create a simply horrific tale which completely confuses the emotions of his readers. Stoker knew bloods importance in vampire history and used the overwhelming symbolism to convey his own personal lust and sexual obsessions. The scenes where Lucy is receiving transfusions; first from Holmwood, then from Seward, and the unforgettable vampire baptism between Dracula and Mina all have these very erotic, sexual feelings associated with them. What makes these so powerful is the combination of violence and sex. As a reader, you know that what Dracula is doing are horrific and wrong, but because they are so sexually described and associated you think you should enjoy them, but you can 't. This is the confusion which stoker implements into his readers minds, especially ones of the Victorian era. This is why stoker used blood as the most important symbol in the novel; to create an intense horror that was not just in the words of the book, but in the minds of the reader.…
While Count Dracula is prominently reckoned as an opposition within a methodical society, he can somehow exemplify a potential alteration for oppressed women against the Victorian’s standardized expectations. In the primary introduction of Mina and Lucy’s appearance, the two female characters express a vast ideology of obedient and pure Victorian women. Both of them desire to wholly love and marry whomever they want without feeling oppressed by the expectations that society imposes on them. After Count Dracula corrupts Lucy to become a vampire of her own, her sexual desire commences to expand, and she deviates herself from the norms within the Victorian society. In chapter 15, Dr. Seward anxiously states, “She still advanced, however, and with…
Bram Stoker used his characters in Dracula to help portray the death of the Victorian Woman and the birth of the New Woman. During this time, women didn’t have the equal rights that men did. During the 19th century, women weren’t able to vote and usually stayed home to be housewives. This shows that women were accustomed to the conventional Victorian lifestyle, which meant that they rarely did anything outside of the house. Victorian woman didn’t play a big role in society, and were known as the less superior gender. However, the death of the Victorian Woman created a “New Woman:” a woman to show that this is now a time to change people's opinions and prove that women could be just as intelligent as men.…
Throughout Stoker’s Dracula, a central theme is evident, Competition. The term competition refers to a test of skill or ability. Most of the competitions in Dracula are those between Dracula and the “good” men. Stoker’s novel can be seen as a similar version of the “Primal Horde” theory in which Freud created. A primal horde is a group of people arranged around a single dominant male, who has total authority over the group and holds claim over the females. Though this theory is also connected with incest, I would like to re think the sexual competition that takes place in this novel in terms of interracial competition. Though Dracula has his own women, he is interested in the women who belong to someone else. Dracula strives to be the single dominant male, by hoarding women around him and claiming them as his own. In this sense, Dracula can be seen as “the ultimate adulterer, whose purpose is nothing if it is not to turn good Englishwomen like Lucy and Mina away from their own kind and customs.” (Stevenson) Stoker does an amazing job of illustrating vampire sexuality as a “doubled phenomenon”. (Stevenson) In this essay I will look at the dual interpretations between “feeding” and “sex” and how they intertwine.…