If Dracula succeeds in turning the ladies into vampires, this will fully release their sexuality and its expressions. This is shown as an evil in the novel perhaps because a woman that embraces her sexuality has obtained power. In Dracula, female vampires represent women’s sexuality and vampirism; merely masks man’s forbidden fantasies. Though Dracula makes up the horror aspect of the novel the true “terror” lies in the awakening of
Harker’s provocative description of these women turns the Victorian ideals into alluring acts of human sexuality. “I was afraid to raise my eyelids, but looked out and saw perfectly under the lashes. The girls went on her knees, and bent over me, simply gloating. There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive, and as she arched her neck, she actually licked her lips like an animal” (Stoker 39).The description of the women vampires illustrates the lust and weaknesses that men have for controlling women. The sisters are a prime example of how Victorian men are weakened by aggressive sexy women.
This representation of the woman as powerful differs from the original expectation in a gothic novel, as the woman would usually be portrayed as weak, and in need of saving. Despite this, it is seemingly the man who is the victim here, as he enters the house. She claims she will be ‘very gentle’ while killing the man, so this is the indication that he is the one in trouble. By creating this role reversal, Carter projects the possibility of a powerful female, or even a female villain within Gothic novel. Now some could say that she is in need of being saved from her vampire personality, but in a physical sense of things she is completely self-sufficient.
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla, is the original vampire story to which Stoker's Dracula serves as a response. Carmilla - the first vampire tale whose protagonist is a powerful female vampire - marks the growing concern surrounding the power of female homosocial and homosexual relationships in the nineteenth century. His creation of a female vampire anticipates the shift toward the end of the century to predominantly female vampires. Carmilla is the vampire tale that most readily defies the established patriarchal systems of kinship and that most provokingly challenges nineteenth century notions of the "contamination of lesbianism" and the female "psychic sponge.” Le Fanu’s Carmilla is a prime example of how fearful men were of the rising surge of powerful females. In many ways, Carmilla can be seen by feminists as a heroine in an antagonist’s role because the story is written by a man.
At no point in the novel are the sisters referred to as brides of Dracula. This is related to the idea of the Victorian woman. Victorian woman who are not married must be pure and innocent souls. You first meet the sister’s when Jonathan Harker is wandering through Dracula’s castle. They come upon Harker with sexual aggression and desire.
OUTLINE Bram Stoker uses the women and their sexuality in the novel, to portray the changing society. I. Introduction II. Victorian Women -Written before the suffrage movement of the early-mid 20th century -male dominance over women -Women were not to be sexually leading -Conservative society - In the mind of society, females did not have a sexual drive - Unnatural- evil - Victorian standards - III. The Weird Sister -The three mistress vampires -encountered in Dracula’s castle represent all the qualities of how a woman should not be; voluptuous and sexually aggressive IV.
In his novel, Dracula, Bram Stoker is no different from other horror writers. The known women in the story are both sexualized, and victimized. Stoker takes one of the main characters, Lucy Westenra, and after her death at Dracula's hands, see her transformed from silly girl ready to marry, into a seductress trying to gain victims. She's dehumanized in more than one way. Dracula's “brides,” on the other hand, are never seen as human in any sense of the word.
On his way back he meets three witches who tell him his future “Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be what thou art promised”. In the play the speaker who has the strong feelings is Lady Macbeth. The main theme in the laboratory is revenge as the speaker is willing to do anything to have her revenge, she woman seems to be a cold blooded murderer as she is not thinking about changing her mind. However the main theme in Macbeth is to do anything to achieve your ambition, even to go as far as to kill some one. The speaker in the laboratory uses an impatient and curious tone as she want
When Jonathan Harker first visits Dracula’s castle, he is confronted by three female vampires in a scene where he drifts in and out of consciousness. In his journal, Harker describes the three vampires: “There was something about them that made me uneasy, some longing and at the same time some deadly fear. I felt in my heart a wicked, burning desire that they would kiss me with those red lips. It is not good to note this down, lest some day it should meet Mina’s eyes and cause her pain; but it is the truth” (Stoker, 3.40). As Harker tries to control his sexual desire for the three vampires, he feels both attracted to them, and disgusted by them.
Her actions ultimately lead to the murder of her first husband Camillo, her sexual presence and beauty creating jealousy and envy in the men that meet her. Vittoria is not an innocent character, but she is a product of women’s social limitations in the patriarchal society Webster has chosen to set the play in. Vittoria is undoubtedly the central character of the novel, the events throughout are as a result of her liaison with Brachiano, sparking a journey of murder and treachery. The title of the book ‘The White Devil’ describes Vittoria well, and helps display that she is not an innocent character. Being compared to the devil in a novel set in a heavily catholic country shows that she is evil, and the subtitle ‘The Tragedy of Paulo Giordano Ursini, Duke of Brachiano, With the Life and Death of Vittoria Corombona the famous Venetian Curtizan’ supports this.