Victorian Views of Women in Dracula Essay

Victorian Views of Women

During the early nineteenth century, the Victorian era arrived bringing new cultural beliefs for Europe. During this era, gothic architecture became significant and communication links became much more efficient. But more importantly, the Victorian era weaved new views of women into the European culture. Many writers depicted the Victorian views of women though their stories. When people now read the novels, they can grasp a deep understanding for what was expected of women during the nineteenth century. One of the writers of that time who portrayed this wonderfully was Bram Stroker, the author of Dracula. Though the novel was based around a vampire tale, he linked together vampirism and sexuality throughout all of the chapters. Stroker emphasized that during Victorian times women were either one of two things. A woman was either a virgin full of virtue, purity, and innocence, or she was a wife and mother. If a woman fit into neither of these, she was considered to be a whore. By using the genre of fantasy and the characters Mina Murray and Lucy Westenra, Stroker effectively represented the Victorian views of women during the nineteenth century in his best piece, Dracula.

Representing a woman of virtue and innocence, Mina Murray was considered to be the ultimate Victorian woman. The other characters considered her to be just that. She fit perfectly into the rigid expectations women faced. When Van Helsing spoke of her, he always spoke of her as one of Gods women, fashioned by his own hand to show us men and other women that there is a heaven where we can enter, and that light can be here on earth. So true, so sweet, so noble(Stroker 302). From the diary entries of the other characters, it is evident that all that knew Mina thought these things of her. During the first half of the novel, she became married to her beloved Jonathan Harker. Once a woman became married, the idea of sexual desire or impulse became accepted in the European culture of the time, but Mina continued to not speak of these things. By Stroker not having Mina speak of such things, he allowed her to retain her purity at least for the first half of the book. Lucy Westenra also began as an acceptable woman to society, possessing the traits of virginity and innocence like Mina. After only a few chapters into the book though, tragedy struck and the two women become more different than they ever imagined possible.

In the beginning of the novel, Jonathan Harker, Minas Husband, journeyed to Transylvania to make a business deal. He arrived at Castle Dracula and met his client, and soon to be enemy, Count Dracula. Jonathan was supposed to help Dracula find a home in London. After staying at the castle a few days, Jonathan realized he was a prisoner and escaped. Unfortunately, Dracula still found a way to London. The reader discovers that Dracula successfully arrived in London through symbolism. Newspaper articles speak of a vicious wolf attacking and killing. Also, a few other strange occurrences began to surface. For example, Lucy began to develop an odd and dangerous habit of sleep walking while staying with Mina. Mina did everything to prevent Lucy from sleep walking outside, but one night she woke up to find no Lucy. After searching the town, she saw Lucy sitting on a bench by a cliff in the distance. Over Lucys shoulder was a man dressed in all black that had red eyes, and seemed to be unnervingly close to Lucys neck. By the time Mina arrived to the cliff, the man had disappeared and Lucy appeared to be in a trance. After finding Lucy and bringing her home, Mina discusses how she is grateful that they ran in to no one, for it would have been embarrassing and unacceptable for with woman to be seen out in the middle of the night wearing inappropriate attire. Mina worries not only for Lucys safety, but for her reputation in case the story should take wind (Stroker 110).

The next few days, Mina watched her closely. She could see the signs of sickness setting in on her dear friend, and also observed odd puncture marks located on Lucys neck. Lucy went back home a few days after that, and became fatally ill. Many doctors could not understand what was wrong. She was weak and seemed low on blood. Four of the brave men in this novel gave blood transfusions to her, but eventually she passed away. Van Helsing, Arthur Holmwood, Quincy Morris, and John Seward felt defeated because they could not save Lucy even through their transfusions. Within a couple weeks after Lucys passing, news articles began coming out speaking of a Blooper Lady. The articles stated she was a woman who lured young children away to have them turn up dead the next day. All of the articles spoke of similar things, including the fact that every young child killed had marks on their neck. They also said that children were begging to go see her, for she was beautiful unlike anything else.

It did not take long for the men to realize who the Bloofer Lady was and finally what had happened to Lucy prior to death. Van Helsing had had some previous superstitions before Lucy died that an evil being was taking over her. For example, before Lucy passed she kept telling her love Arthur, Kiss me!, but Van Helsing would not let him get near to her (Stroker 206). It was clear to all now that Lucy had transformed into an undead or vampire after her passing, Lucy no longer represented a Victorian woman with purity and grace. She now exhibited traits of voluptuous wantonness, or openness of sexuality (Stroker 254). Lucy also began to represent a woman who was a threat to society. The transformation of beautiful Lucy to a demonic child-killer demonstrates the anxiety the Victorians felt about women whose sexual behavior challenged the convention of society.

The men decided that Lucy was a threat to others and they want her to rest in peace rather than live as an undead, even if it means they must drive a stake through her heart and cut off her head. When they confronted her, Lucy tried to seduce Arthur and convince him to be an undead with her. She begged him saying, Come to me ArthurMy arms are hungry for you! Come and we can rest together (Stroker 258). It became clear that this was no longer Lucy, and Dracula had taken over her soul. Knowing this, Arthur was able to resist her and did the tasks that had to be done to put her to rest once and for all. Arthur felt it was his duty to return her to a purer and more socially respectable state

The men continued on by creating a plan to destroy Dracula, but did not allow Mina to join them because they do not want to put her in harms way. Unfortunately, Mina became Draculas next victim. Foreshadowing helps us realize this is about to happen when Mina wrote in her diary, sleep begins to flirt with me (Stroker 384). Dracula did suck her blood once, but not long after the men killed Dracula and Mina remained alive, healthy, and safe.

Stroker used endless symbols within the fantasy genre of Dracula to depict the view of women during this time period. A few symbols are more important than others and deserve to be elaborated on. One that reoccurred throughout the whole novel was the bite marks that a vampire or vampira left on someone. It has a deeper meaning than the simple fact that their blood has been sucked. Stroker used the bite mark as a symbol of a virgins first sexual encounter. The bite mark erased the pureness from any woman bit. After Dracula had bitten women once, they became under his trance and longed for more. The women even longed to live eternally with him. This also represented how it was believed a woman would feel after having a sexual encounter with someone.

Dracula was sought out and killed not only because he was a killer, but also because he threatened the views of women in society. After he slightly influenced them, the women let all of their fears of a judgmental society go, and they expressed what they werent aloud to express before. They became more open about sexuality among other things, which was not acceptable for a woman of that time. Stroker did an outstanding job of lacing together the fictitious story and fantasy genre of Dracula with the real life issues that women of the nineteenth century faced. The fear of vampires represented the fear people had of female sexual expression. Like the characters voiced in the novel, it was believed that women being something other than pure or a mother would corrupt society.