Quotes About Gender Roles In Dracula

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Gender Roles and Female Sexuality in Dracula by Bram Stoker A key theme woven throughout the novel is the threat of female sexual expression to the male-dominated society of Victorian London. In this time and place a woman was expected to be pure, chaste, and completely devoted to her man. Dracula threatens to turn Lucy and Mina ‘evil’ by destroying these virtues and making them women who are open about their sexual desire, and so, these female virtues become the base for the battle between good and evil in the novel. Though no scenes in the novel are explicitly sexual, the way many of them are written implies that the act of drinking blood is symbolic of such. The characters are horrified at the idea of having their blood sucked, but seem to derive at least some pleasure from it during the act, and immense guilt following. After being forced to drink Dracula’s blood, Mina says, “…strangely enough, I did not want to hinder him. I suppose it is part of the horrible curse that such is, when his touch is on his victim.” (Stoker, 304) When faced with the threat of the three mysterious women in Dracula’s castle, Jonathan Harker is horrified, yet strangely attracted to them. “There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive…I closed my eyes in languorous ecstasy.” …show more content…
Dracula transforms Lucy, and once she becomes a vampire and loses the virtues and purity expected of her, she loses all value in the men’s eyes. “…Lucy’s eyes unclean and full of hell-fire, instead of the pure, gentle orbs we knew… had she then to be killed.” (Stoker, 222-223) They feel as though the only solution to their problem is to kill her, in order to return her to her former state of purity. Fittingly, it is Arthur, the man to whom she is expected to be fully devoted, that drives the stake through her heart, killing her and restoring her in the men’s
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