CHAPTER 4

To begin the further characterization of the two women characters in Bram Strokers Dracula, first we must look at Dracula from the reader response approach, Wolfgang Iser said: "A text can only come to life when it is read, and if it is to be examined, it must therefore be studied through the eyes of the reader" [1978:163] This realism of this quote is evident within Bram Stokers Dracula. As we are introduced to Stokers characters they appear to almost come to life, with the majority of the novel being told in the form of journal entries and letters by the main characters Jonathan, mina, and Dr Seward, through the other characters opinions and descriptions we are positioned to read of. Written and set in the late 19th century, Bram Stokers novel Dracula is a very important book in horror literature. Like most novels written by men, Dracula appeals more to the male audience and fantasy. The entire Victorian culture revolves around the suppression of women and their belittlement is evident in several scenes and events throughout the novel closing with an ultimate moral of the story regarding these New Victorian views. In addition, only a subtle factor of how grudgingly a womans reputation influences a mans judgment and leaves very little room for superstition is addressed. Both Mina Murray and Lucy Westenra are major characters in the novel Dracula. Mina Murray is Jonathan Harkers fiance. Mina is a practical young woman who works as a schoolmistress. She is victimized by Dracula. Mina is also the best friend of the counts first victim in the novel, Lucy Westenra. Mina is in

many ways the heroine of the novel, embodying purity, innocence, and Christian faith. She maintains the virtues despite her suffering at the vampires hands. She is intelligent and resourceful, and her research leads Van Helsings men to Castle Dracula. In Victorian society, women were constricted to very narrow gender roles. Essentially there are two paths, she can either be pure and virginal (or a mother/wife) otherwise she was regarded as a whore, and expendable in any circumstance. This ideal is represented through two of Draculas main characters, Mina and Lucy. Both these woman are inexplicably feminine (pure, nave and almost dependant on their husbands) but each with one exception. Lucy Westenra is Minas best friend. She is an attractive, vivacious young woman. Lucy is the first character in the novel to fall under Draculas spell. She becomes a vampire, which compromises her pride of chastity and virtue, and banishes her soul from the promise of eternal rest. In many ways, Lucy is much like her dear friend Mina. Mina plays the important role of being faithful to Jonathan while resisting the charm of Dracula. Also, Mina is the person who is fated to become a vampire. However, Mina does not embrace it. Instead, Mina tries to fight it for the sake of her family. That is completely different from Lucy, who ended up embracing vampirism. She represents the need to resist while Lucy represents the notion of defeat and giving up. Mina is a secretary for the Children of Light; secretarial duties were a mans job then. And Lucy had three suitors, suggesting her subtle promiscuity and

desire to break social confines. Despite those facts, both women essentially were the embodiment of the ideal Victorian woman, as says Van Helsing about Mina, 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, Ch14.]

Mina Harker and Lucy Westenra are both lovely women who are loved and considered good by all the other good characters when they are themselves. They both have found a man they'd like to marry, though only Mina carries through with it. They both are nurturing, wanting to protect those more fragile than themselves. And both of them go through some strange symptoms after Count Dracula sinks his teeth into them. The threat Dracula poses in transforming these women becomes a battle that lies upon womens sexuality. This is shown as an evil in the novel as because a woman that embraces her sexuality has obtains power. This power is significantly demonstrated in two passages of the book. First was the rape of Harker by the three Weird Sisters. The women take on the dominating role that a traditional Victorian man is supposed to possess. Harker then becomes the submissive and is easily overpowered by their seduction and his own temptation. The fact that Harker is both aroused and disgusted by the Weird Sisters shows his super ego battling his id. His primitive want to satisfy his burning desire that they would kiss me with those red lips challenges his stature as a respectable Victorian man that should be repulsed and considerate of his wife, lest some day it should meet Mina's eyes and cause her pain. Yet, it is also an

indication that men in general, enjoy this aspect of women, but purely to satisfy themselves. Thus men are not as cultured as they think, submitting to their id and indulging in the sublime - a claimed female trait. Thus in the book, most of the characters are berdache and not one way or the other. It is seen as proper for women to be chaste, but not acknowledged that this is merely a mans primitive instinct to expresses territorialism to its extreme. Mina is somewhat more aggressive, though not so much as to undermine her femininity. She's a good wife; she just didn't want to wait for Jonathan to be declared sane before marrying him. The three Brides of Dracula also act as foils to our heroine, Mina. Jonathan Harker, Mina's fianc, is weirdly attracted to, and yet repulsed by them, and doesn't want Mina to find out. Later, he considers a comparison between them: I am alone in the castle with those awful women. Faugh! Mina is a woman, and there is nought in common. They are devils of the Pit! [Stroker, Ch4.]

Harker insists that there's nothing in common between Mina and the sexy vampire ladies. Does that mean that he doesn't want to think of Mina in terms of sexual desire, as he briefly thought of the Brides of Dracula, or simply that Mina isn't a blood-sucking she-demon. Either way, we're invited to think of the Brides of Dracula as sexy (but evil) foils to Mina. In Dracula, female vampires represent women sexuality and vampirism merely masks mans forbidden fantasies. Though Dracula makes up the horror aspect of the novel, the true terror lies in the awakening of female sexuality.

In combination with the exertion of power if women were openly sexual, the men in the book fear for their own safety. They are selfish in that they must repress and prevent this liberating movement so that they will not be associated with the socially outcast. When analyzing the character of Lucy, even before becoming a vampire, she exerts an aura of subtle sexuality and boastful flirtatiousness. If Mina is everyone's mother, Lucy is everyone's wife: at one point, she says to Mina, Why cant 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, Ch. 5] Though Lucy wouldn't mind marrying all three of the men who propose to her, she chooses Arthur, because she loves him best. When writing this to Mina, it suggests that Lucy has a hidden desire to break out of the constraints of Victorian social expectations. Another piece of evidence that Lucy is a subordinate sexual woman is her statement of My dear Mina, why are men so noble when we women are so little worthy of them? This was simply Stoker catering to male readers and appealing to their secret fantasies, but this one line reduces Lucy to a shallow Victorian woman whos desire to be satisfied by men is as strong her desire to satisfy men herself. Lucy exemplifies the modern woman who grasps for her own assertive libido only to be decapitated as the bad girl, who submits to Darkness. She is, as Mina observes, a virtuous girl with loose ways. The novel shows her as a desirable sexual object. She knows what men want. Red hair down, shoulders bare, breasts heaving, she is the type, the mythic Woman of male fantasy who today sells everything from beer to automobiles.

Mina is, by contrast, buttoned up; her hair coifed into a bun. Titillated by the Arabian Nights, she lacks sexual imagination: an "old fashioned girl." Both invite domination [2004: 2-3]. In one case, Holmwood does not believe that Lucy is the kind of woman without maternal nature until he witnesses the actions of the infamous Bloofer Lady. Perhaps even the most controversial fact is that though gothic, Dracula has incorporated female sexuality as a hidden message of Christianity and redemption. The book is rather littered with Christian propoganda. Once transformed by Dracula, Lucys sexuality is unleashed. Lucy was transformed into a vampyress again bringing upon the sexual role of the vampiresses throughout the novel, this is shown in the text when the three men are waiting for Lucy to rise from her tomb so that they may killer the evil un-dead suductress Lucy and put her soul to rest, when she returns Lucy attempts to lure Arthur to her, using her power of seduction. Her lust for both blood and sex are untamable and insatiable, much to he horror and disbelief of her three suitors and Van Helsing. One must understand that before death, Lucy was already a woman of quiet sexual expression and once after death, she begins to feed on humans. But not any regular human being, but Stoker makes it painfully clear that she stalks children, discrediting her of any maternal instincts. With a careless motion, she flung 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 gave a sharp cry, and lay there moaning [Stoker Ch.16]

Though never directly noted that Lucy sank her teeth into the children, tossing a crumpled child to the floor without any stain of conscience along with the readers imagination, condemns her to the equivalent fate/label. Looking back at Lucy on the brink of death, she seems to be fighting an inner demon (perhaps her potentially heightened sexual hunger) with her pure, innocent self. On one hand, she wants Holmwood Arthur! Oh, my love, I am so glad you have come! Kiss me! but in a moment of confliction, she quickly gives Van Helsing her dying wish, Oh, guard him, and give me peace!. This analogy of demon to sexual appetite seems to warn and try to remind female readers of the black and white boundaries of their current society. At this point in time, Stoker writes Dracula when the New Victorian Women are beginning to emerge (ex. woman suffrage). Then looking towards the staking of Lucy, this passage connotates a deep sexual meaning. This scene occurs near the end of the book, suggesting that killing Lucy, thus punishing her for being sexually forward, will restore Victorian order. After the feminization of Harker with the three weird sisters, Stoker tops that by killing Lucy with four men to return her purity. The person that actually stakes Lucy is her fianc, Arthur Holmwood. This represents the consecration of their union implying that Holmwood puts Lucy back into a position of monogamy and passivity. in the coffin lay no longer the foul Thing her destruction was yielded as a privilege to the one best entitled to it her face of unequalled sweetness and purity [Stoker Ch.16]

Before her destruction, Lucy stands as a threat to male willpower and judgment. Therefore, Stoker has the four men mutilate and destroy her to reassure male readers that the women are back in their rightful place. Then, in considering Lucys best friend, Mina, she is almost the opposite of Lucy but still infinitely womanly. Where Lucy is seen as the innocent and playful, Mina is viewed as a practical, down-to-earth, figure. Unlike Lucy however, Mina is not described as physically beautiful or sexy. Mina is virtuous and the picture-perfect woman not because she seems to be asexual but because she uses her New Woman skills to service men (an underlying meaning that Stoker suggests to give), be it the Van Helsing gang or her husband. She is intelligent and useful to the men, which is perhaps the only reason she is spared at the end of Dracula. Stoker consummates Minas ethical merit by having her hand over her body and soul to the men if she would become an enemy. She asks of them to, without a moment's delay, drive a stake through me and cut off my head, or do whatever else may be wanting to give me rest! [Stoker Ch.25 Oct. 11] In essence, Mina compares her fateful destruction to, when brave men have killed their wives to keep them from falling into the hands of the enemy did not falter because those that they loved implored them to slay them men's duty towards those whom they love [Stoker Ch. 25]

In addition, she praises and pleads that they allow Jonathan Harker to kill her as Holmwood did Lucy. All the while, blushing at the request, again implying at the sexual connotation attached to the staking; reaffirming that the death of

Lucy was undeniable sexual but to him who had best right to give her peace [Stoker Ch. 25]. A right only to her fianc, not simply to those who loved her since all three men loved her. Stoker practically bends over backwards to show the reader the repercussions of women who are sexually freer than what they ought to be and that even though they are the most sinful creatures, in their destruction, they will give Christian redemption. Dracula himself represents the sole opposite of god. He is seen as a demonic creature and might as well be the embodiment of Satan himself with his pointed teeth, pronged ears and eyes blazing with demoniac fury [Stoker Ch. 2]. In fact, Dracula is Wallachia word for Devil of which Stoker found this name from a book.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Humphries-Brooks, Stephenson. The Body and the Blood of Eternal UnDeath. May. 2004. Clinton: Hamilton College Press. Iser, Wolfgang. The Act of Reading: a Theory of Aesthetic Response.1978. Baltymore: The John Hopkins University Press.