Similarities Between Macbeth And Dracula

William Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Bram Stoker’s Dracula were written three centuries apart in vastly different social climates. Macbeth was born from the beginning the English renaissance, as King James took the throne after the long reign of “The Virgin Queen,” Elizabeth I.. Dracula was written during the tail end of the Victorian era, a time of rampant social anxiety and unrest stemming from the Industrial Revolution and new ideological movements such as women’s suffrage. Despite the differing circumstances of their writing, Macbeth and Dracula exhibit many commonalities: both utilize dramatic, old buildings as their primary settings to create an uneasy atmosphere, both rely on leaving the state of reality ambiguous to create tension , and both have active female characters who reveal period gender norms of their respective social climates, Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Stoker’s Dracula reflect respective societal anxieties over the concept of the empowered woman and the role of women in society in their depictions …show more content…
It is interesting to consider though, why Gothic literature* as a genre would tend to handle female characters in a less than delicate manner. Gothicism thrives in times of rapid, intense cultural change. Gothic Literature transfigures real-life societal fears into tangible monsters. Just as Frankenstein’s monster is the personification of fears over rapid technological advances and the growing impersonality of the industrial revolution, Lady Macbeth could be viewed as the physical representation of the anxieties over Elizabeth I’s reign, while vampire Lucy is clearly the fear of first wave feminism. Ultimately however, the comparison of female characters in Macbeth and Dracula exposes how painfully slowly society changes its