Inverted Gender Roles Dracula by Bram Stoker - 1465 Words

There’s a Hidden â€Å"Monster† in Everyone In Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, Stoker’s use of inverted gender roles allows readers to grasp the sense of obscureness throughout, eventually leading to the reader’s realization that these characters are rather similar to the â€Å"monster† which they call Dracula. Despite being in the Victorian era, Stoker’s use of sexuality in the novel contributes to the reasoning of obscureness going against the Victorian morals and values. Throughout the novel the stereotypical roles of the Victorian man and woman are inverted to draw attention to the similarities between Dracula and the characters. Vague to a majority of readers, Bram Stoker uses Dracula as a negative connotation on society being that the values of†¦show more content†¦Johnathan yet to be married is moved by her beauty perfectly describing her as a â€Å"dreamy fear.† Kissed into a sudden sexuality, Lucy grows â€Å"voluptuous thrill her lips redden, and she kisses with a new interest. This, metamorphosing Lucy sweetness† to â€Å"adamantine, heartless cruelty, and her purity to voluptuous wantonness† (252), terrifies her suitors because it entails a reversal or inversion of sexual identity. Suddenly, Lucy is now toothed like the Count, takes the function of penetration reserved for males. After children were returning home with bite marks on their neck being attacked by the â€Å"Bloofer Lady†, Dr. Seward and Dr. Van Helsing soon realize that Lucy in truth is the â€Å"Bloofer Lady†. One of Lucy’s numerous roles as a Victorian woman was to care for the children, but her role as a Victorian woman is greatly changed in these scenes becoming evident to the reader. After being interrupted ,â€Å"With a careless motion, Lucy flung to the ground, callous as a devil, the child that up to now she had clutched strenuously to her breast, growling over it as a dog growls over a bone† (p. 236). Additionally, Lucy’s constant sexual desires and beautiful looks work hand and hand with one another. Altering the tone of her voice and acting as if she was alive attracted Arthur to go towards his once loved wife, but Dr. Van Helsing disrupted her plan by flashing a cross near her. During this scene Lucy takes on the role of a Victorian man seducing Art hur about toShow MoreRelatedSubverted 19th Century Traditional Social Mores and Norms in Dracula1059 Words   |  5 PagesMores and Norms in Dracula Bram Stoker’s Dracula remains one of the more recognizable novels of its genre despite being published in 1897. A classic horror story which has been retold and produced over and over again since its original publication, Dracula was especially disturbing when it originally was released because of how Stoker attacks Victorian era social mores and norms throughout the entire novel. Stoker subverts traditional 19th Century social mores and norms in Dracula through the portrayalRead MoreThe Ideas Of Sexuality And Gender1676 Words   |  7 PagesThis essay will discuss the ideas of sexuality and gender in Bram Stokers Dracula with comparative analysis of Robert Louis-Stevenson s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and it s ideas of doubling. While drawing from questions raised in Christopher Crafts essay Kiss me with those red lips on the dual inverted nature of vampirism. It will answer these questions of do we have penetrators or orfices? What are the relations between blood and semen, blo od and milk? While ultimately coming to a conclusion of whatRead MoreA World Of True Blood And Twilight1349 Words   |  6 Pageseasily accepted. However according to Christopher Craft and his work on â€Å"Gender and Inversion†, that conventional vampiric sexualization is more complex than perceived. Craft’s work outlines many of Bram Stoker’s theses throughout his novel Dracula. He states how there is a gender inversion within Stoker’s vampire; questioning conventional Victorian â€Å"gender codes† as the novel unravels. Focusing primarily on the gender paradigm, Craft surfaces arguments that would shatter beliefs of homophobicRead MoreDracula: An Epitome of the Gothic Novel2430 Words   |  10 PagesAlex Prather Weems British Literature August 9, 2010 Dracula, by Bram Stoker, is quite the epitome of the gothic novel. Towards the beginning of the story, the setting takes place in an old and ominous castle, which is highly characteristic of gothic literature. Harker’s tribulation begins when â€Å"the driver was in the act of pulling up the horses in the courtyard of a vast ruined castle,† (Stoker 18). There is also a gloomy and menacing tone given to the setting of the novel, as in most piecesRead More Repressed Sexuality in Bram Stokers Dracula Essay1426 Words   |  6 PagesRepressed Sexuality in Bram Stokers Dracula      Ã‚  Ã‚   Perhaps no work of literature has ever been composed without being a product of its era, mainly because the human being responsible for writing it develops their worldview within a particular era.   Thus, with Bram Stokers Dracula, though we have a vampire myth novel filled with terror, horror, and evil, the story is a thinly veiled disguise of the repressed sexual mores of the Victorian era.   If we look to critical interpretation and commentaryRead MoreHomosexuality in Victorian and Elizabethan Literature.6608 Words   |  27 Pagesdoes. Gothic writers of the Victorian Age played off of the fear and immorality of homosexuality and used those feelings as a basis for their novels. Bram Stoker told a story about a vampire that challenged the Victorian gender roles and managed to reverse them, making men faint like women, and making women powerful like men, and called it Dracula. Mary Shelley created a a physical being out of a mans suppressed homosexuality due to his Victorian male upbringing; a man named Frankenstein. RobertRead MoreAnalysis Of Emily Bronte s Wuthering Heights 1562 Words   |  7 Pageshe is a victim of circumstance, or just a scheming interloper. Maybe a both or neither? In the same vein, Bram Stoker’s Dracula presents the formidable and perverse creature, Count Vlad Dracula. An allusion to the very real Vlad the Impaler, Dracula is a character that inspires abject fear in every way. Both iconic characters belong in the cult of the repressed, as they take on villainous roles marked exclusively by the perspective of Western social standards and restricting expectations. However,