Lydia is outspoken and completely self-absorbed, even though she is the youngest of the sisters, which foreshadows the trouble she will get into later on in the story. This contrasts hugely with Elizabeth, who is responsible, grounded and far more reserved. This is shown after the ball at Netherfield, when Jane is displaying her gratification of the admiration she received, and Lizzie “felt Jane’s pleasure” – although Elizabeth is not directly concerned with finding a suitable husband, she is able to empathise with Jane. The main plot is that of Elizabeth and Darcy – there were many prejudices between the two; without Darcy stepping in and forcing Wickham to marry Lydia, they would have remained apart. Lydia is incapable of seeing the shame she brings on the family through running away to be married, as shown in her letter to Harriet; “I can hardly write for laughing.” Her thoughtless attitude to marriage is highlighted here – although she is motivated by love, she hasn’t thought about the consequences of what she’s doing.
The Victorians referred to homosexuality as "sexual inversion" (Kindron). In fact, many Victorians held the belief that a sexually inverted man was actually a woman trapped in a man's body (Kindron). Homosexuality emerged in the Victorian period much to the dismay of society. In reading Dracula, it is impossible for one to miss the homosexual tendencies that are present. Before diving too far into the homosexual side of Dracula, it is pertinent for one to understand the heterosexual side of the novel as well.
Stoker’s choose of women as the temptresses may be a warning to the women of the Victorian era to beware about pushing the boundaries of their sexuality. Stoker’s use of structuring emphasizes a women’s role in society at the time, this is the first women that Harker meets in the novel and they are devilish vampires, this implies that the novel appeals to an only male audience and their fantasy of women giving in to their temptations. Harker is simultaneously confronting a vampire and another creature equally terrifying to Victorian England, an unabashedly sexual woman, the evidence for this comes from the implied act of oral sex, ‘The fair girl went on her knees, bent over me, fairly gloating.’ Contextually the fact that Harker becomes the ‘submissive’ and is easily overpowered by their seduction and his own temptation shows the role reversal as women take on the dominating role that a traditional Victorian man is supposed to possess. The fact that Harker is both aroused and disgusted by the Vampires shows the Freudian
The instance when Mina drinks from Dracula’s breast is the strongest example of this; where the reader to this point is accustomed to Dracula doing the “biting”, and suddenly Mina has the power to penetrate a male. Both Lucy and Mina, when they carry out a relationship with Dracula, become sexual beings, as opposed to when they are mortals and are forced to obey the social boundaries of their society. By expressing this sexuality, they become threatening to the men. Mina is intelligent, and despite the strong aversion she has to the “New Woman” or the “Modern Woman”, she is, in fact, a sort of modern woman; connected with modern ways, a schoolteacher with secretarial skills, she possesses a “man’s brain”. It is this very brain, which is ultimately used to aid in Dracula’s downfall.
Some might even say Shelley ardently agreed with the position in which they found themselves and the securely fixed roles during the Victorian era. Caroline Frankenstein, for example, from the beginning is the embodiment of the idealised female. She is initially presented as the perfect daughter, nursing her father lovingly till his death, and progresses on to the perfect wife, though one might argue that she never ‘progresses’ at all . She remains pale, lacking the life and vigour the men in the book so often posses, and as a result the reader pushes her to the side as a minor character. But although at first Frankenstein may give the reader the impression that women have very little impact in the novel, Shelley slyly uses them to deconstruct the power and control that men had been enjoying for years .
Whilst both Dracula and Twilight explore similar themes they are expressed in different ways to represent different insecurities in society. For example in each text we see the classic universal battle of good versus evil however in Dracula this battle has been used to express societies fears for the loss of Christian values. In Twilight a key theme involves acceptance of others, which represents societies insecurities about the lack of acceptance for others within our modern society. The concept of the new woman used in Dracula demonstrates the 19th century role of women within society, this is then contrasted by the role of women in twilight, allowing the responder to see how differing themes in each of these gothic texts demonstrate the context of the society during the era in which they were composed. As these themes mirror the insecurities and fears of society as Dracula reflects the 19th Century society and Twilight represents a 21st Century society.
It could be deduced that Mary Shelley presents the female characters in ‘Frankenstein’ stereotypically. Caroline Beaufort, the first woman we as readers are introduced to, is presented as a strong female through the way Shelley has characterized her. For example, even after the death of her father, we are told that ‘her courage rose to support her in adversity’, and that she ‘possessed a mind of uncommon mould’. However, her roles in the novel could be criticized from a female perspective as being stereotypical due to the excessive description that could connote women to be soft, vulnerable and purely for maternal purposes. The use of the superlative ‘greatest’ in the quote ‘his daughter attended him with the greatest tenderness’, to describe the scale of tenderness whilst caring for her father and emphasizes the idea of women being extremely kindhearted and comforting towards their loved ones.
"In Frankenstein the female characters and their values are presented as a direct contrast to the ambitious, self-seeking men." In light of this statement discuss the presentation of women in 'Frankenstein' ‘Frankenstein’ was written in the first half of the 19th century where women were stifled by powerful patriarchal values. Women were conditioned to believe that the key to survival was with a man’s help. ‘Frankenstein’ is primarily a novel about male ambition and power with women merely featuring on the side-lines. There are three primary narrators featured in ‘Frankenstein’: Walton, Victor Frankenstein and the Creature however we never hear from the women directly.
The main points in Professor Smith's essay are that the female characters are there only to reflect the male characters, and that the Frankenstein family has a weird style of living, which she describes as a "bookkeeping mentality" (Smith 279). Smith begins her essay by looking at the historical factors that may have contributed to this seemingly sexist book. Shelley, writing in the first half of the 19th Century, was in a period in which a woman "was conditioned to think she needed a man's help" (Smith 275). In the novel itself, no women speak directly. The book has three basic narrators: Robert Walton, Victor Frankenstein, and Frankenstein's monster.
While the rest of the world is poverty stricken countries and they are in British control. With this type of thinking makes these women vulnerable and powerless. It also makes them easy targets for others that would harm them. In Jennifer Wicke’s, “Vampiric Typewritting”, Jennifer talks about Mina’s letter to Lucy about learning Jonathan’s short hand and her “girlish pursuits, if slavishly dutiful” (Wicke 467) this being part of the 1800’s beliefs. All of their correspondences suggest a shroud of innocence surrounds them.