Stampirism In Bram Stoker's Dracula

Vampires, a word everyone at some point in their lives has heard. The famous story Dracula written by Bram Stoker reveals to its readers many characteristics that we today know as vampires. The 1897 novel gained quick acceptance into our hearts, and is still considered a classic in our modern day society. Although many might believe that vampire originated within the 1897 Dracula novel, there were a few predecessors that inspired some of the characteristics within Dracula. Dracula being written in the late 1800’s has a different audience then we would have today in the 20th century. As the years pass by generations will become accustomed to numerous new ideals, then lose those and become accustomed to new ones. People of the late 1800’s were
Prior to Bram Stokers’ the Dracula novel we would very often see women being the prime victims of vampirism. For example in the story named Christabel, we have a girl named Christabel who would be taken advantage of by the vampire Geraldine solemnly because of Christabels innocents. There is a scene like previously mentioned where Geraldine lies down naked with Christabel in her arms while putting her under a spell. This is where we start to see the vampires intentions that not only is she homosexual but has plans with Christabel. Although the author never reveals to the reader what happened, or if Geraldine kills Christabel or her father-you can sort of foreshadow that Geraldine sought Christabel as more then just a meal. How this differs in Dracula is that vampires here attempt to seduce their victims for brutal blood sucking intentions. We can first see this happen when Lucy is lying down in her bed attempting to recover from her blood loss through blood transfusions done by multiple men. Specifically the part where Lucy uses Arthurs’ strong feelings for Lucy in order to receive one last kiss from him, but in reality wanted to snatch the chance of the possibility in biting Arthur by the neck. Another example in Dracula would be when the three female vampires sexually approached Jonathon with complete intentions to bite him. Jonathon’s sexual desire was described as
Although both stories begin to break societies expectations of the female figure of the 1800’s, they differ mainly on the fact that Dracula completely breaks the barriers of the female figure of that century by creating the character of Mina. While in Christabel we only just begin to break a crack into societies expectation by having two females nude in the same bed. This is important because it shows the reader that people’s thoughts are beginning to migrate toward a different direction with their thoughts vs. societies thoughts about women. Little did people know this would become an actual foreshadowment of what the future women is become and much