Female Expression in The Novel Count Dracula

In the book Dracula, one of the most important themes is the threat of female sexual expression. I believe Bram Stoker wrote this book to deliver some of the awareness of the threats of female expressions going on at the time. Bram Stoker seemed to get this idea across by pampering the concept of how England men feel about the responsibilities of women, but particularly regarding the topic of female sexuality.

In England, women’s sexual behavior was imposed by society’s absurd assumptions. It was believed that woman adequately had only two choices: they could be virgins, which symbolized them as a model of purity, or a wife and have kids. If they were neither of these, then they’d be considered “whores”, and which so they be classified as no repercussion to society. When Dracula set asail in England, he was working his evil magic on Lucy Westenra. This then went on to set the tone for the brewing battle between good, and the corrupt and then which would pend upon female sexuality. Characters such as Mina Harker and Lucy Westenra were barely real people rather than two spatial embodiments of virtues that have, over the ages, been classified as female. Both women are pure, celibate, and honest of the world’s malicious ways, as well they are dedicated to their men. But Count still manages to transform the two women into their antithesis, into women acknowledged for their open sexual greed and a word Bram Stoker tends to turn to repeatedly, “voluptuousness”.

Count Dracula prevails in transforming Lucy into a vampire, and once she became a phrenetic vampire fiend, Van Helsing’s men could not see any other option than to kill her, to return her to a more pure and socially respectable state. Before Lucy was transformed, Count Dracula tried to seduce her, but she still advanced, however, and with a languorous, voluptuous grace, he said:—“Come to me, Lucy. Leave these others and come to me. My arms are hungry for you. Come, and we can rest together. Come, my wife, come!”(Chapter 16) Meanwhile, after Lucy was transformed into a vampire, the men clutched onto Mina, bothered they’d squandered another model of England womanhood to the immoral side. In reality, the men fear for nothing less than their own safety.

As the novel was coming to an end, Dracula derided Van Helsing’s crew, stating, “ Your girls that you all love are mine already: and through them you and others shall yet be mine.”(Chapter 16) Dracula articulates a male reverie that had existed since Adam and Eve were turned out of Eden. Meaning a women’s indocile desires leave men afloat for an opulent fall from grace

In conclusion, I still believe that Bram Stoker tried to raise the awareness of threats of female sexual expressions were real at the time. He clearly shows this in his novel “Dracula”. The England males wrongly determine women’s sexual behavior.

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