Gender in Dracula: The Undead, The Dead, and The Vulnerable
In the 1897 novel, Dracula, Bram Stoker includes many female characters pivotal to the plot. Mina and Lucy, the two women whose accounts are directly inserted into the text, represent the late nineteenth century New Woman, broadly defined as educated women who rejected feminine submissiveness and promoted women’s rights. Nevertheless, while there is a respectful inclusion of women in the narrative, Stoker’s different portrayals of masculinity and femininity highlight a lasting sexism. This sexism is primarily evident through the passive and active role of characters. The difference between male and female vampires, the strangely juxtaposed ways in which men and women are described in death, the varying gender roles that come into play in the quest to defeat Count Dracula, and the way in which sexuality is used to create an image of good and evil, all maintain a vision of traditional heteronormative masculinity. Stoker creates a world where complicated female (and possibly queer) characters live on the page; however, the handling of these characters indicate underlying insecurities about what happens to the role of men in a more modern, feminist society.
The idea of the New Woman is introduced early. Mina Murray notes that “some of the ‘New Women’ writers will some day start an idea that men and women should be allowed to see each other asleep before proposing or accepting” and that “New Woman won’t condescend in future to accept; she will do the proposing herself” (94), a thoughtful inclusion on the part of Stoker, which recognizes the work of female writers and the rise of feminism. Mina’s first direct line in the novel is “forgive my long delay in writing, but I have been simply overwhelmed with work” (60). While she takes on a more traditional role of a schoolmistress, she is notably independent, hard-working, and self-sufficient from the onset of her characterization. When Lucy Westenra is first introduced, she is pleased to tell Mina that she has received “three proposals in one day!” (63), and she asks, “Why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as wants her, and save all this trouble?” (65). With multiple suitors, Lucy has the ability to choose the kind of love she desires, granting her a certain power in the story. Stoker seems well aware of progressive shifts in the culture around him, imposing New Women — with prominent, independent voices — directly into his story. However, he also captures a continuing misogyny. Despite their apparent power, women characters are passive when compared to men.
When Jonathan Harker visits Dracula in Transylvania and becomes privy to the fact that he is a vampire, he also encounters three female vampires. Jonathan’s descriptions of Dracula are ghastly and gross: “As the Count leaned over me and his hands touched me, I could not repress a shudder. It may have been that his breath was rank,” and in seeing Johnthan’s fear, he reveals “a grim sort of smile” with “protuberant teeth” (27). This is a strikingly different description than that of the three female vampires, whose “golden hair and eyes like pale sapphires” and “silvery, musical laugh” and “scarlet lips” and “red tongue [which] lapped the white sharp teeth,” cause an “agony of delightful anticipation” (46-7). Even the breath of one is “honey-sweet” (46), a direct contrast to Dracula’s wretched smell. Dracula is repulsive, and in his attraction to Jonathan’s blood, he preys on him. On the contrary, the female vampires attract Jonathan to them, making him an undeniable seeker of their alluring beauty. One female vampire even says to Jonathan, “Go on! You are first, and we shall follow; yours is the right to begin” (46). While Dracula is an active villain, the women vampires are described as passive in their seduction. Stoker’s different portrayals of monstrosity highlight an insecurity surrounding gender. Dracula, an unscrupulous, disorderly man creates horror by disrupting the image of typical masculine gentility. However, the fear of female vampires is not in their disorderliness but rather in their absolute grace. In this drastic difference, Stoker suggests that a deceptively gorgeous woman is far more terrifying than a woman who is dirty or decrepit, like Dracula. As an ideal image of beauty, the women do not have to act in order to cause harm; they simply have to fool and seduce the strong, active male. Gender roles are maintained even by the undead.
This difference between active and passive roles comes up again in the portrayal of dead characters. In Lucy’s final moments of life, she receives a kiss on the forehead from Arthur, and soon after, her “breathing became stertorous again, and all at once it ceased,” with Dr. Seward noting that “death had given her back part of her beauty, for her brow and cheeks had recovered some of their flowing lines” (157). This alluring description of her languid state only grows with time; later, Dr. Seward writes, “God! How beautiful she was. Every hour seemed to be enhancing her loveliness” (163). These descriptions glorify her idleness, as if somehow her weakness and passivity have only made her more attractive to the men surrounding her. This glorification of dead Victorian women, their youthful innocence and purity frozen in time, is not unique to Dracula; it is apparent in many works of the time, including the calm death of Hellen Burns in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. This depiction of Lucy stands in stark contrast to the death of Quincey Morris. In the closing pages of the novel, “Mr. Morris leaned on his elbow, holding his hand pressed to his side; the blood still gushed through his fingers” (343), and after crying out about the passing of the curse of Dracula and his own death not being in vain, “to our bitter grief, with a smile and in silence, he died, a gallant gentleman” (344). Contrary to Lucy, when Quincey Morris passes, his death is painted like that of a war hero: bloody, well fought, chivalrous. This honoring of Quincey is furthered by the continuing of his legacy, with Jonathan and Mina naming their child after him: a memorial the like of which Lucy is denied. Lucy’s death is also much different from Count Dracula’s, for while she dies gracefully, the Count has a knife “shear through the throat; whilst at the same moment Mr. Morris’s Bowie knife plunged into the heart” (342). Even in death, men are bold and brave and gruesome, while women are complimented for the beauty of their inactive state.
Much before the passing of Quincey, Mina Harker (formerly, Mina Murray) convinces her male companions to allow her to join them on this mission to conquer the Count, and her telepathic connection to Dracula becomes a useful tool. However, even during her participation on this quest, she is characterized as feeble and in need of protection. After Mina’s insistence on joining their travels, Dr. Van Helsing asks, “But why, dear Madam Mina? You know that your safety is our solemnest duty. We go into danger, to which you are, or may be, more liable than any of us” (299). While respectful in intention, there remains an implication that it is the responsibility of men to keep women safe from danger. Mina even takes on this belief, justifying the dominating power of men who must protect vulnerable, defenseless women. She asks that in the worst case scenario, as counterintuitive as it may sound, that they be willing to even kill her as a means of maintaining peace. “Think dear,” she says to her husband, Jonathan, “that there have been times when brave men have killed their wives and their womenkind, to keep them from falling into the hands of the enemy” (303). The insistence of women being more susceptible to persuasion and harm — in desperate need of men to protect them, even from themselves — is so ingrained in the text that Mina internalizes it in her own dialogue.
Furthermore, this entire journey Mina joins them on is framed around a maintaining of masculine values, which stand in contrast to the queer image that Dracula represents. Encounters with vampires are coded with explicit sexual intimacy; in the mansion, “I [Jonathan Harker] felt in my heart a wicked, burning desire they would kiss me with those red lips,” and one vampire says “there are kisses for us all” (46). Dracula himself emerges and states that “this man belongs to me!” (47), then looking at Jonathan says “Yes, I too can love” (48). Jonathan writes that “the last I saw of Count Dracula was his kissing his hand to me” (57), and much later, in another encounter, the Count “held both Mrs. Harker’s hands, keeping them away with her arms at full tension; his right hand gripped her by the back of the neck, forcing her face down on his bosom” (261). Through his thirst for victims of all genders, Dracula can be seen as a pansexual character. The romance, in each of these occasions, is not thoroughly one-sided, however, for although Dracula is more vigorous in his desire, his victims are often active participants to some degree as well, evidenced by Mina drinking Dracula’s blood in the aforementioned scene.
Similarly, Jonathan is very much attracted to the female vampires, but he even hints at some attraction towards the blood-thirsty Count as well, writing many descriptions of the Count’s fascinating character: “cheeks [with] the warmth of light of all their pallor, and lips as red as ever” (55). Living in the Count’s mansion, he becomes rather emasculated, spending much time alone with his diary, forced to write false letters back home. He compares himself to a lady using the same desk to write at “a little oak table where in old times possibly some fair lady sat to pen” (45). He also compares his experience to that of a woman when deciding to sleep “where, of old, ladies had sat and sung and lived sweet lives whilst their gentle breasts were sad for their menfolk away in the midst of remorseless wars” (45). Dracula is quite possibly not the only queer character, as Jonathan exhibits femininity and, to varying degrees, fascination towards both women and men as well. Nevertheless, Jonathan escapes from Dracula, ends up married to Mina, and by the end of the novel, victory is maintained right alongside his reclaiming of a traditional heteronormative identity. Stoker’s cast of youthful, straight-presenting gentlemen are deployed to overpower the pansexual demon, Dracula, and they succeed — “the body crumbled into dust and passed from our sight” (342). This lead cast helps save the world from evil vampirism, but in doing so, they fortify problematic gender roles, priding themselves on protecting weak women and warding off threats to their own masculinity.
Dracula is rich with subversive gender dynamics, from the inclusion of characters representative of the New Woman and characters that can well be interpreted as queer; however, these challenges to the rules which govern sexual desire and gender distinctions are only explored through a lens of toxic masculinity. Female vampires lure their victims, while Count Dracula attacks; dead women are beautiful and peaceful, while dead men are violent and chivalrous; women heroes are vulnerable, while male heroes are strong, masculine protectors of honor. Queerness is explored but only as a form of monstrosity and weakness, which in the end, must be overcome. Stoker reflects progressive changes of the late nineteenth century into Dracula but also includes the insecurities that come with it, the underlying fear of what happens to masculinity as feminism takes rise. He includes women in the journey to destroy the Count, but ultimately, men are the ones to restore peace, overpower an unusual threat, and maintain traditional values. The speculative, fantasy genre of Dracula provides room for vampires to exist and challenge preconceived social roles, but in the creation of monsters, one must question what fears in society make a monster scary, and on the contrary, what values make a hero honorable. Dracula takes full advantage of this speculative space but also amplifies the subterranean homophobic, misogynistic values which paint the pansexual vampire as dangerous, women as passive participants, and straight men as the ideal arbiters of peace.
