Bram Stoker novel, Dracula, presented the original vampire story that later dominated various parts of the society in the 18th century. Despite being a piece of vampire fiction, Dracula presents various thoughts, ideas, and beliefs that characterized the Victorian period (Bell para 1). The novel portrays an extensive picture of the society during Bram’s generation. Throughout the Victorian era, the most dominant concern of the society was the role of women and their place in society and Dracula depicts different types of women of that era. The ideas and beliefs reflected in Dracula primarily focus on the controversial issues of sex, lust, and evil which dominated the late 19th century in what was considered as an extremely conservative society (Humphrey para 2). This paper argues that Dracula supported the traditional gender roles.
Dracula has discussed how certain gender roles were appropriate to societal cultures of people as well as the interaction between male and female in that extremely conservative society. In the 1890s, gender roles were generally defined by culture and they were considered as social roles that included different feelings, behaviors and attitude that were perceived as acceptable, appropriate, and desirable for people depending on their actual gender description of being male or female (Moore para 2). In addition, gender role in a society is associated with how a person is expected to act, speak, dress, groom or portray himself or herself with regard to their assigned gender or sex.
Mina Harker and Lucy Westenra are the two most popular women characters predominantly featured in the novel. Despite the two being best friends, they are totally very different women. Both women played a traditional role in advancing the ideals of decent and home-loving women who are devoted to the family (Humphrey para 3). Both women wanted to be wives and they were really hopeful of getting married because they valued family. This is evident when Lucy tells Mina that “I wish to get a husband”. This means that they both played a role in advancing the concept of getting married, having children, and building a family which was the core value of Victorian society that Dracula supports. They both played an important role in restoring the good reputation of women in the society by maintaining their societal expectations to be virgins and free from any thought of sexuality.
However, the two women played contrasting roles in embracing the new woman in society. Mina was educated middle-class working woman who was very reserved. This implies that Mina played a significant role in redefining the new role of women in a society where women were expected to depend on a man’s income rather than making their own (Bell 8). Conversely, Lucy’s role was to advance the ideals of a traditional woman who barred by customs to enter any trade and profession to earn a living. Although Mina and Lucy portray the new woman, Stoker is of the opinion that a new woman who is strong, educated, intelligent, and independent is evil and most likely to destroy men. This is evident when Lucy easily becomes a vampire and turned her bloodsucking passion in men.
Compared to Mina, Lucy is very much more extroverted and flirtatious and these are some of the reasons why she was an easy target for Dracula. Lucy was young, kind, innocent, beautiful, and vulnerable and this is the reason why everybody wanted to associate with her and probably why Dracula chose her first (Bell 15). Lucy’s natural sexiness, innocence, and a little voluptuous nature is argued to be the reasons why she was physically attractive and why she was easily approachable by everyone, including Dracula. Stoker uses this description of Lucy’s to demonstrate a traditional woman who stays at home will not be flirtatious and therefore cannot easily fall for devil spell.
Furthermore, religion is common and one of the most important themes in Dracula. As a result, good and evil are presented in Christianity versus Black magic where Stoker portrays Christianity as good but black magic and superstition as bad. Religion was a fundamental aspect of people’s life during Stoker’s period and anybody who possessed contradicting religious beliefs was considered evil. Such people were considered wicked or bad because of their religious differences (Moore para 6). Dracula was a symbol of evil and Anti-Christ and people were united in a common purpose of defeating him. Throughout this novel, women who observed traditional gender roles were expected to be religious and respectful and therefore Dracula supports traditional gender roles.
Another example of good versus evil in the novel is purity and love versus promiscuity. Stoker portrays purity as a good thing while promiscuity and sexualized women are associated with evil. A clear example in the book is when Jonathan woke up and unexpectedly found three female vampires in his room and he admits that he felt wickedness in his heart and a desire to be kissed by those red lips. However, he proceeds to admit that there was something unusual about them that made him feel uneasy (Moore para 8). Jonathan’s assertion, was a good example of how Stoker depicted extremely sexy women as evil and of how they should be feared. In contrast, Lucy who was sweet, sexy, innocent, and pure was loved by every man and was viewed as good but immediately she got tainted by Dracula, all men feared her and considered her evil.
Dracula was written in the Victorian period, during which people valued bravery among men and weakness among women. Although both sexes’ behaviors were expected to follow a stringent social structure and expectations, men enjoyed more privileges and freedom than women. The concept of male superiority and dominance over women was also well enhanced in the society (Humphrey para 9). Women had a narrow role like to ensure that they remained virgin and pure and devoid of any sexual thoughts or love for them to be considered as a potential wife. Women were expected to be kind, caring, motherly, and submissive to their husbands. This is evident when Mina despite being portrayed as a progressive new woman played a motherly role to Lucy and Jonathan and finally got married to become a mother. Her criticism of the new woman is a clear indication that Stoker supported the conservative women.
Women were expected to play an important role as wives by staying at home in order to take care of domestic chores because they were considered weak and only suitable for light duties. For example, social gender role expected that the traditional conception of household and childcare responsibility falls squarely on women. This means that women were not allowed to engage in any income earning activity rather than to depend on their husband for support and to only help them with their duties (Amanda Of Happiness para 12). On the other hand, men were expected to work hard and earn a living for the family because male figures have always been viewed as strong. As mentioned above, men were supposed to be generally aggressive, strong, and bold in order to perform some outdoor chores. Dracula supports the gender roles by arguing that the emerging new women are strong and behave like men and this is against the societal norms.
Women during the Victorian period were expected to be submissive and only to help their husbands when required to do so. However, the new woman challenged this ideology and strove to acquire even more recognition in the society. This is evident in a letter to Mina where Lucy wrote “the woman ought to tell her husband everything-don’t you think so, dear? (Amanda Of Happiness para 5). In addition, women were not supposed to seduce men and the attempt by the three Dracula daughters to seduce Jonathan is viewed as an evil work. This is evident when Jonathan refers to women as “monsters”. This shows that Stoker used the example of these weird women to show his disapproval of women who were trying to deviate from culture and also to object unacceptable behavior of women. According to the novel, it was unacceptable for women to pursue men or seduce them in any other way, especially during the Victorian period.
However, traditional gender roles have undergone a tremendous transformation in the recent past. Dracula does not support the emerging new women who make their own earnings, are educated, and independent. The concept of new women is explicitly elaborated in Dracula by the roles of Mina who is used to showcase that the place of women in the society is no longer in the kitchen (Moore para 12). The contemporary women are educated and have taken up paid work in society thus abandoning the traditional role of domestic chores. Although some women still maintain the traditional definition of a woman’s role, domestic responsibility such as childcare is now a shared responsibility between husband and wife.