Representation of Sexuality in Dracula

The roles and sexuality in Dracula can be very complicated due to the Victorian era of the representation of men and women. A perfect example of this is, how during this specific era, women were expected to remain virgins and “pure” until the night of their honeymoon and not show any type of PDA or engage in any sexual activity. So in Stoker’s Dracula, the thus explores these themes thru the male and female characters. The women in this novel are being represented as being highly sexual which is something frond upon during this era.

One good representation of this is when Jonathan Harker is a prisoner in the castle of Dracula. ‘I was afraid to open my eyelids but I looked out and saw these perfectly under the lashes. The girl went on her knees and then bent over me, simply gloating. This was deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive to me, she arched her neck and began actually licked her lips like she was an animal.

I closed my eyes in a languorous ecstasy and waited–waited with beating heart (Storker, Chp3).’ In this scene he is about to be bitten by the Count’s daughters, which are vampires. And in this book vampires are not following the so called, “right thing to do” during this era. They are free to do as they wish and act on the desires that may or may not be sexual. While having Jonathan close his eyes shows that he does not have the mind set of being able to handle the open sexuality that these women vampire possess. But at the same time, he is showing interest in the vampires when he talks about closing his eyes and waiting for them. He thus wants the women to take advantage of him. An opposite view is on Mina, which she is pure and follows the Victorian women and is the “ideal women” in this era. I believe that the author does this to be able to compare the vampire women to Mina. How wrong of the behavior of the vampire women is and how women should act and address themselves in society.

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