Female Characters Of The Novel Dracula - 1942 Words

Throughout the Victorian period in which Dracula was written, there was great concern over the roles of women, and the place they held in society. The two central female characters in Dracula are Mina Murray, later Mina Harker, and Lucy Westenra, though arguably Dracula’s three daughters also hold a strong place in terms of female characters in the novel also. One of the main depictions of women in the novel is that are either both sexually promiscuous and overtly sexual, or they are pure and chaste. In Victorian society, you were either a virgin or a married woman, if women were neither then they were not of much moral worth to society. Much like this Victorian ideal, the overtly promiscuous and sexual females of Dracula are depicted as evil and monstrous, while the pure and chaste women are displayed as strong and heroic. The character of Mina Murray, whom starts the novel as a young school headmistress that is engaged to one of the novel’s narrators, Jonathan Harker. Throughout the novel, Mina is depicted as the ideal Victorian woman. Take what Dr. Van Helsing says of Mina in chapter fourteen, She is one of God s women, fashioned by His own hand to show us men and other women that there is a heaven where we can enter, and that its light can be here on earth. So true, so sweet, so noble, so little an egoist†¦ (Stoker 2002: 198) Here, Van Helsing describes Mina as in possessions of such virtue that she is the epitome of what God intends women to be. He associates MinaShow MoreRelatedEssay on Paternalism in Bram Stokers Dracula920 Words   |  4 PagesPaternalism in Bram Stokers Dracula      Ã‚   Paternalism is the domination of a society by a male or parental figure that leads or governs much like the way a father would direct his family.   In Victorian society, the idea of paternalism was prevalent.   The idea was also frequently used as a motif in western literature.   Bram Stokers novel Dracula, published in 1897, depicts a paternalistic society through a repression of the female sex and a continuous exaltation of the domineering maleRead MoreDracula, By Bram Stoker1291 Words   |  6 Pages ​Bram Stoker, author of Dracula, not only creates the early depiction of vampire stories; but writes more to contradict the age old beliefs of women and their role in society. Dracula is more that just a vampire story. There is a deeper level to this. A level in which it can incite change in the way one percieves women. 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