Supposedly based loosely on an erotic dream of Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ (1897) embodies one of the most fascinating and symbolically sexualised characters in English literature. Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ addresses Victorian anxieties regarding its women’s feminist awakening and breaking of patriarchal chains during the time and highlighted this fear in his novel. By focusing on these topics in his novel, Stoker, who was a staunch conservative Anglican and advocate of patriarchy, emphasises how women’s interests were leading to a dangerous change in the Victorian morality, and with the advent of the New Woman could hyperbolically eventuate in the complete destruction of English civilization.
Throughout the Victorian period, men were becoming worried about women’s interests and what role they should play in society. At the time, …show more content…
It was the idea that a woman could be their own person: intelligent, able to freely express themselves and not at the mercy of men. In Dracula, Stoker introduces Lucy, a flirtatious and a seemingly more sexually open woman, who corresponded more with the traits of the New Woman rather than the ideal woman at the time, as she states, "Why can't they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble? But this is heresy, and I must not say it". It is not surprising to the audience that the flirtatious and sexually empowered Lucy is the first to fall to the sexual corruption of Dracula. Stoker’s blatant disagreement with the concept of the ‘New Woman’ is present when Mina writes in her journal,
Some of the 'New Woman' writers will someday start an idea that men and women should be allowed to see each other asleep before proposing or accepting. But I suppose the New Woman won't condescend in future to accept; she will do the proposing
Throughout the Victorian period, men were becoming worried about women’s interests and what role they should play in society. At the time, …show more content…
It was the idea that a woman could be their own person: intelligent, able to freely express themselves and not at the mercy of men. In Dracula, Stoker introduces Lucy, a flirtatious and a seemingly more sexually open woman, who corresponded more with the traits of the New Woman rather than the ideal woman at the time, as she states, "Why can't they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble? But this is heresy, and I must not say it". It is not surprising to the audience that the flirtatious and sexually empowered Lucy is the first to fall to the sexual corruption of Dracula. Stoker’s blatant disagreement with the concept of the ‘New Woman’ is present when Mina writes in her journal,
Some of the 'New Woman' writers will someday start an idea that men and women should be allowed to see each other asleep before proposing or accepting. But I suppose the New Woman won't condescend in future to accept; she will do the proposing