Stoker's Treatment Of Women In Dracula

This paper is an analysis of Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula". In this paper, I will answer and discuss several questions about the women of the novel. In what sort of ways does the novel engage in the question of women's role in a largely patriarchal society? What about work and career? What about sexuality and desire? What about marriage and childbearing? The women that are introduced to the readers of the novel are Lucy Westenra, Mina Murray, Dracula's three sisters and Lucy's mom Mrs. Westenra. As a writer Bram Stoker "did not ignore the budding influence of the turn-of-the-19th-century feminism movement" (Stoker 12-6210). Women at that time were gearing up a fight to be equal to men and have the right to vote. The novel "Dracula" is …show more content…
From the beginning of the novel where the two main female characters are introduced you see that Stoker has drawn a line in the sand to speak and develop two characters that completely opposite of each other. Mina Murray is the first woman introduced in the novel and she is the fiancée of Johnathon Harker. In Mr. Stoker's novel she is "described as having the intellect and energy found in an exceptionally talented man, together with the nurturing qualities claimed to be both ideal and typical in females" (Stoker 41-6210). She is not described as beautiful, but she isn't described as ugly either. Her looks seem to be just so-so. What she lacks in physical beauty she more than makes up with intelligence. She is strong-minded, serious, sweet, nurturing, resourceful and willing to do hard work. Mina is a hero and what most women even today strive to be. Lucy Westenra is the best friend of Mina. She is described in words as being beautiful, stunning, pretty, and sexy. She is playful, pure, sensitive, a bit ditzy, a sleepwalker and young. She is Dracula's first victim. Dracula's three sisters are hidden away in a room that Johnathon was forbidden to go into but snuck in while exploring the castle. They are described young ladies who were beautiful with red ruby lips, pale skin, and pearly white teeth. Their interactions in the book made them out to be sex …show more content…
"To be even considered as a potential wife, women had to be not only virgins, but were expected to remain innocent and "free from any thought of love or sexuality" until after they had received a proposal" (Kane 97). Lucy was talked about as being pure more than Mina was. It was the task of returning her to her purity that bonded all of the men in the first place. When she became a vampire and changed into a more sexual being it was killing her that restored her features to a softer more angelic like state. When Mina got bit she looked and acted sicklier. She never enticed the men or attempted to seduce her husband as they slept in the same bed night after night. The desire was shown by Lucy when she attempted to call Arthur to her once before she died and when she already turned into a vampire in the cemetery. The sisters showed desire when Johnathon found their room and they appeared to him. He felt ashamed for desiring them when he knew that he had a fiancée back home, but their arousing and seductive ways almost got him killed if he hadn't been saved by the count in the nick of time. "Victorians considered purity a crucial component in ideal maternity. Although mothers were necessarily women of some sexual experience, they were nonetheless often canonized as essentially virginal" (Holmes and Nelson 2). "Formally it was a sacred and honored position, as a mother was viewed as "an angel