The Oppression Of Women In Bram Stoker's Dracula

The Victorian ideology of women is centered on the oppression of females and the idea that a woman’s sole purpose and duty in life is to be obedient and compliant to her husband. It was believed that “New Women” who stepped out of the ideal Victorian role were whores, unfit mothers and brides, and would ultimately cause chaos. In Bram Stoker’s, Dracula, Lucy and the three seductive vampires serve as women who step out of their Victorian role and are in turn punished for their actions. From the beginning of the novel, Lucy had already started to secretly think and step away from the boundaries set for Victorian women. In a private letter to Mina, Lucy wrote “Why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all the
trouble? But this is heresy and I must not say it” (Stoker 60). By admitting that her ideal fantasy was inappropriate to acknowledge publicly, Lucy knowingly realizes that she is crossing the boundaries set for her. One consequence for her continually stepping out of the Victorian role is her bite from Dracula.
Once Dracula turns her into a vampire, Lucy is unleashed from her Victorian laces causing her sexual desires to erupt, and she is portrayed as an untamable pedophile. Stoker emphasizes immoral behavior through his portrayal of vampire-Lucy when describing her in the act of preying on innocent children and how “with a careless motion, she [flings] to the ground, … the child that up to now she had clutched strenuously to her breast, growling over it as a dog growls over a bone. The child [gives] a sharp cry, and [lays] there moaning” (Stoker 211-212). With these details, Stoker illustrates how the “New Woman” would serve as an unfit mother and as well as a profane wife. She is described as wild and animalistic; the fact that Lucy assaults multiple children discredits her even more as she is the one to seduce the children and want them coming back for more to play with the “bloofer
lady.” To correct and moralize Lucy, Arthur and three others must behead her, drive a stake through her heart, and stuff her mouth with garlic. Her killing serves as a restoration of Victorian purity ideals among the men and society, as well as a punishment for Lucy’s inappropriate sexual behavior. Through her death, all threats of the “New Woman” and their threat to male authority are put to rest, and women are again placed in what was perceived as their proper place in Victorian society. The three seductive and voluptuous sisters also serve as examples as to what happens when women step out of their Victorian restrictions.
When Dracula transforms women into vampires their bodies and mindsets change. The vampires are “fair as can be, with great wavy masses of golden hair and eyes like pale sapphires” (Stoker 38). Their minds become seductive and sexual, and their bodies become voluptuous, causing men to fantasize and desire their kisses and touches. It was perceived as evil for a woman to embrace her sexuality back in the Victorian time period because it symbolized her gaining power and taking control away from the man. In Harker’s case, he is afraid yet bewitched by the three women as they take command and seduce him into sexual behavior that typically he, the male, is used to leading. These sexual encounters lead Harker to feel subjugated by the women, which in that time period was unheard of and taboo. Later in the novel when Van Helsing is about to kill the three vampires, he opens their boxes and becomes infatuated with their appearances. He immediately notices how they are “so fair to look on, so radiantly beautiful, so exquisitely voluptuous, that the very instinct of man in [him]…made [his] head whirl with new emotion” (Stoker 372). By allowing a notable intelligent doctor to become entrapped in these women’s power to seduce, Stoker is revealing how dangerous they can be to society. He describes the vampires as lustful and emphasizes that
although they are beautiful, they ultimately must be put to death. Through the life spans of the three vampire sisters and Lucy, Stoker navigates the reader through the lives of women who step out of their confined traditional roles and the consequences of their seduction and modernity. Their aggressiveness and domineering character is described as animalistic and purely unsuitable. In Dracula, Stoker successfully guides the reader to understand his opinions about the women of his time period, and his belief that they should be limited and confined to their Victorian roles as housewives.