Lucy Westerna's Role In Dracula

Van Helsing says Lucy will “like not” a crucifix (181) and uses communion wafers to deter her. While religion does not seem inherently romantic, it is tied to romance within the context of the novel. Mina and Jonathan are married at a convent, forging an overt connection between religion and romance. Additionally, Mina even manages to tie Dracula together with religion and romance. She takes Jonathan’s diary and wraps it, using her wedding ring as a seal, calling it her “wedding present” (100). The diary contains vital information that eventually leads to the defeat of Dracula, and so the wedding present, a gift of both religion and romance, is the knowledge of how to kill Dracula. Van Helsing even strengthens this connection by calling Mina “one of God’s women” (168) in praise, as he is happy that she gave him Jonathan’s diary. The method of fighting a vampire is thus religious and romantic, which explains aversion to something like a

In the novel, Dracula, by Bram Stoker, we are introduced to two specific ladies that are essential to the essence of this gothic, horror novel. These two women are Mina Harker and Lucy Westenra. The purpose for these two women was for Stoke to clearly depict the two types of women: the innocent and the contaminated. In the beginning, the women were both examples of the stereotypical flawless women of this time period. However, as the novel seems to progress, major differences are bound to arise. Although both women, Lucy and Mina, share the same innocent characteristics, it’s more ascertain that with naïve and inability of self control, Lucy creates a boundary that shows the difference between these two ladies and ultimately causes her

Though it appears on the surface to be an engaging horror story about a blood-sucking Transylvanian man, upon diving deeper into Bram Stoker's novel Dracula, one can find issues of female sexuality, homoeroticism, and gender roles. Many read Dracula as an entertaining story full of scary castles, seductive vampires, and mysterious forces, yet at the same time, they are being bombarded with descriptions of sex, images of rape, and homosexual relationships. In Francis Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula, Stoker's presentation of homoeroticism is taken, reworked, and presented in a different, stronger light. Coppola does much in the area of emphasizing a homoerotic relationship between Mina Harker and Lucy Westerna: a relationship Bram Stoker

Throughout the nineteenth century, women were often supposed to be seen rather than heard. The new emerging woman who was outspoken, overly sexual and educated was often looked down upon and seen as a lower class of society. Stoker uses Dracula’s three sisters to associate lust and sex with the vile and evil of the new woman.

Women are regarded as being second to man in the society, and this is significantly challenged by the modern woman. She believes in enjoying equal rights as those of men, and they demand inclusion in every matter whether political, scientific or military. In the novel Dracula by Stoker, the cultural difference between men and women is drawn by the characters used in the Victorian era. Bram Stoker wrote the novel Dracula in the 19th century, and it was composed in the style of letters, newspaper articles, journal entries and telegrams to convey a realistic story to the reader. The major theme found in the novel is gender roles in the 19th century, primarily referred to as the Victorian Era. During this period, women struggled to attain gender equality through challenging traditional roles that defined them. These women, as perceived in the novel, do not want to be domestic and act as caretakers of their children, nor obey the demands of their husbands but to remain impassive (Kunz 34). The women strived to become a modern woman, who is liberated, intelligent and who can openly express her ideas without fear of intimidation. Throughout the novel, Stoker portrays females as being inferior to men, as seen from the characteristics of Dracula’s victims; showing that gender roles in patriarchal societies are strict and restrict both women and men with the ladies being viewed as the distressed gender while the male is expected to be heroes who should be dependent upon.

In Dracula, Stoker portrays the typical women: The new woman, the femme fatale and the damsel in distress, all common concepts in gothic literature. There are three predominant female roles within Dracula: Mina Murray, Lucy Westenra and the three vampire brides, all of which possess different attributes and play different roles within the novel. It is apparent that the feminine portrayal within this novel, especially the sexual nature, is an un-doubtable strong, reoccurring theme.

Now, they encounter a supreme ordeal, a life or death situation, a moment of suspense and tension for the audience. The group finds Renfield in the insane asylum, covered in blood and dying. He imparts that Dracula had been “taking the life out of Mina” (ch.21). Rushing upstairs to the Harker’s room, the company witnesses Dracula, “in his left hand he held both of Mrs. Harker’s hands; his right hand gripped her by the back of the neck, forcing her face down on his bosom. Her white nightdress was smeared with blood, and a thin stream trickled down the man’s bare breast which was shown by his torn open dress” (ch.21). Mina took the first, irreversible step towards becoming one of the undead. Van Helsing later discloses to Mina that, “[Dracula] can live for centuries, and you are but a mortal woman. Time is now to be dreaded—since once he put that mark upon your throat.” (ch.23). Mina and her camaraderie must now follow Dracula back to Transylvania in order to destroy the power that threatens to obliterate Mina’s

Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” is a story about a Vampire named Count Dracula and his journey to satisfy his lust for blood. The story is told through a series of individuals’ journal entries and a letters sent back and forth between characters. Bram Stoker shows the roll in which a certain gender plays in the Victorian era through the works of Dracula. This discussion not only consists of the roll a certain gender takes, but will be discussing how a certain gender fits into the culture of that time period as well as how males and females interact among each other. The Victorian era was extremely conservative when it came to the female, however there are signs of the changing into the New Woman inside of Dracula. Essentially the woman was to be assistance to a man and stay pure inside of their ways.

Mina is always on the verge of being taken over by the Count and becoming a vampire or in her eyes “unclean” , however she never takes on that form. Stokers purpose of portraying Mina as a self reliant individual is an excellent contrast for women. He uses both pathos and ethos to express the positives of how Mina is a resilient women. In victorian era if a women was to have sex without being married she was sought as a whore or not a women of Christ. Mina was on the thin line of becoming a woman who was unclean, however each time the Count had total control over her mind and she had no way of defending herself, so this still makes her a women of Christ and chastity with her husband Harker.

Some may argue that Dracula actually degrades the modern women due to all of the suppression of her empowerment in the novel. Although it is true that women are made to seem weak in the novel, this is an essential characterization. In order to shown the necessity for females to break away from society and to challenge the norm, Stoker had to show the struggle in this fight. One remarkably clear example of this can be found when Van Helsing describes Mina to the other men, “[Mina] has a man's brain—a brain that a man should have were he much gifted—and a woman's heart” (324). To clarify, Van Helsing explicitly states that because Mina is intelligent and astute, she must have the brain of a man. By stating this it causes the readers to question, why can she not have the brain of a female? It is

In the late 19th century, when Dracula by Bram Stoker is written, women were only perceived as conservative housewives, only tending to their family’s needs and being solely dependent of their husbands to provide for them. This novel portrays that completely in accordance to Mina Harker, but Lucy Westenra is the complete opposite. Lucy parades around in just her demeanor as a promiscuous and sexual person. While Mina only cares about learning new things in order to assist her soon-to-be husband Jonathan Harker. Lucy and Mina both become victims of vampirism in the novel. Mina is fortunate but Lucy is not. Overall, the assumption of women as the weaker specimen is greatly immense in the late 19th century. There are also many underlying

In a time period where females had narrow gender roles, Bram Stoker wrote his novel, Dracula. The Victorian culture often suppressed women and their value. Traditional Victorian women were thought of to be pure and virginal. Bram Stoker revealed another side of women that was not often seen. These qualities were like that of the emerging new feministic culture called the “New Woman”. The concept of gender roles in the 1890’s was very conflicted; Dracula challenged traditional gender roles.

He says, “I am alone in the castle with those awful women. Faugh! Mina is a woman, and there is nought in common. They are devils of the Pit!” (Stoker 36).

Dracula is a novel that indulges its male reader’s imagination, predominantly on the topic of female sexuality. When Dracula was first published, Victorian women’s sexual behaviour was extremely restricted by social expectations. To be classed as respectable, a women was either a virgin or a wife. If she was not either, she was considered a whore. We begin to understand once Dracula arrives in Whitby, that the novel has an underlying battle between good and evil, which will hinge on female sexuality. Both Lucy Westenra and Wilhelmina “Mina” Murray embody two-dimensional virtues that have been associated with female. They are both virgins, whom are innocent from the evils of the world and that are devoted to their men. Dracula’s arrival threatens those virtues, threatening to turn Lucy and Mina into the opposites, noted for their voluptuousness, which could lead to an open sexual desire.

Throughout the Victorian period in which Dracula was written, there was great concern over the roles of women, and the place they held in society. The two central female characters in Dracula are Mina Murray, later Mina Harker, and Lucy Westenra, though arguably Dracula’s three daughters also hold a strong place in terms of female characters in the novel also.