Female Characters in Bram Stoker's "Dracula" (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2013 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,0, Ruhr-University of Bochum (Philologie), course: Vampires and Zombies, language: English, abstract: Initially this paper will give an overview about the role of women in the Victorian era during which "Dracula" was written. This is important in order to identify to what extent the main female characters - Mina Harker and Lucy Westenra - go conform to those former roles. Their characters and respective roles in society will be analysed arguing that Mina represents a role model of a Victorian woman and Lucy an example of a fallen woman.

Bram Stoker's novel Dracula is set in England and Eastern Europe at the end of the nineteenth century. It consists of a collection of journal entries, letters and telegrams so that there are several narrative perspectives. The main characters are Jonathan Harker, his fiancée Mina Murray, her friend Lucy Westenra, her fiancé Arthur Holmwood, Quincey Morris, Dr. Van Helsing and Dr. John Seward.

The novel opens with Jonathan Harker, an English lawyer who travels to Transylvania to conclude a real estate transaction with a man called Count Dracula. On his way to the destination he is being warned about the castle of Count Dracula. Just a few days later Harker learns why: he is kept in prison in the castle and nearly attacked by three seductive, female vampires. Concurrently with this, his fiancée Mina visits her friend Lucy Westenra and finds her sleepwalking one night. She believes that she has seen a creature with red eyes bending over Lucy what proofs to be true: Lucy has been bitten by Dracula and therefore is slowly transforming into a vampire.

As one night a wolf breaks into the house of the Westenra's, Lucy's mother gets a heart attack and Lucy herself gets killed. After her death Van Helsing wants Quincey, Seward and Holmwood to come Lucy's tomb because he wants to convince them that Lucy has transformed into a Vampire after her death. The men see her preying upon a child and get to the conclusion that she has to be destroyed. Her former fiancé Arthur Holmwood stabs a stake through her heart and hereby ultimately kills her.

After this incident Jonathan, Mina, Dr. Seward and Van Helsing start hunting Dracula. One night Mina is also attacked by Dracula but she does not transform into a Vampire. At the end of the novel the male characters finish their hunt by killing Dracula and his three female vampires.