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Expressive Culture: Film - 004 Instructor: Ed Guerrero Friday, May 15th, 2015 Final Essay Depiction of Female Sexuality in Bram Stoker’s Dracula Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a social commentary film directed by Francis Ford Coppola in 1992, has been subject to criticism due to its skewed interpretations of women and sexuality. It introduces an opposition between the virgin and pure woman against the prostitute and promiscuous one. Mina and Lucy are the characters who represent these roles, embodying contrasting fates for Victorian women: The modern woman, the one who rises to vampirism, and the traditional woman, the one who becomes a submissive housewife. The modern female usually bears physical strength, sexual allure, and dominance over men, whereas the traditional one does not exhibit these qualities. In this film, the monster that male characters fear and attempt to destroy is not exactly the vampire, but rather the powerful woman. Hence, the viewer can see Bram Stoker’s Dracula as a tale of horror that focuses on the Victorian idea that female sexuality was evil. This film contains beliefs central to the Victorian era, primarily the role of women in Victorian culture. The female characters in Bram Stoker’s Dracula exemplify the ideals projected on the powerful women. Before discussing various feminist readings of Dracula, it is important to establish a definition of power in the context of this argument. According to Sue Ellen Case, in her article “Tracking the Vampire,” power can be connected to “physical strength or mental resilience” (Case, pp. 78). In this film, powerful women are often depicted as capable of overcoming men when they provoke

sexual desires, which are illustrated through the female vampires that Stoker implements in this movie. This implies that power and strength intertwine with sexuality, dominance, and willingness to arouse pleasure. In addition, Judith Halberstam states in her essay “Skin Shows,” “Attempts to consume Dracula and vampirism within one interpretive model inevitably produce vampirism. So, an analysis of the vampire as perverse sexuality runs the risk of merely stabilizing the identity of perversity, its relation to a particular trait” (Halberstam, pp. 88). This argument defines power as anything sexual, physical, or mental that gives one person an advantage over another. Therefore, one can say that submissiveness to sexual acts can represent female weakness in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Female sexual expression was a social issue that threated Victorian society. Victorians cautiously guarded themselves against any temptation, no matter how slight it was. Gender roles portrayed women as “gentle and ladylike and, most of all, subservient to men” (Case, pp. 56). The ideal woman is both pure and compassionate. Women were expected to be innocent, chaste, and submissive. Because society viewed them as fragile, delicate, and helpless, they were presumed to take on the role of a housewife. It considered the sole purpose of a woman to bear children, maintain the home, and ensure that her husband would not be burdened with domestic concerns. Although men were afforded more freedom and pleasures, Victorians upheld strict social standards and expectations of both men and women. This is how the Victorian era is recognized for: its severe principles concerning the treatment and the appropriateness of sex and sexuality. Rigid Victorian values deemed it deplorable for women to express sexual desires. According to Bonnie Zimmerman in the Dread of Difference, “The virgin ideal of women in the Victorian age placed them under an extraordinary strain because it dictated the denial of many basic instincts” (Zimmerman, pp. 342). Standards saw women as

devoid of sexual desires. Moral respectability was one of the biggest concerns throughout this period. The biggest threat to this society was the fear of female sexual expression. Dracula embodies the Victorian preoccupation with moral and social corruption. Although Victorians focused on sexual repression and prudishness, the threat of female sexual expression was widely feared. The female characters in Dracula are not only virginal victims, but also they serve to illustrate the contradictions and ironic tensions within the Victorian value system as a whole. Significant in Victorian belief is the importance of strict gender roles. Within this film, the male characters struggle to restore the purity and innocence of the women who have been tainted by the sexually explicit vampires. According to Zimmerman, “The entrance of the feminist, sexually independent modern woman into Victorian society indicates the changing roles of females, and the theme of the modern women plays throughout Dracula” (Zimmerman, pp. 342). The female characters represent both the pure idealized ordinary woman and the wantonly sexual modern one that society was fearful of. As a Victorian tale, Bram Stoker’s Dracula mirrors the gender and sexual anxieties as well as the cultural fears of the late 19th century. Lucy and Mina epitomize opposite aspects of the Victorian woman. Lucy represents the rapidly declining and vapid British aristocracy and Mina illustrates the prim and proper population of the Victorian middle class. According to Halberstam, “Dracula illuminates how women are often defined by patriarchal needs, thus contributing to social inequities by undermining the power of women to define themselves” (Halberstam, pp. 99). Mina is content in her discretion, satisfied with her sole suitor, and excited to be useful to Jonathan when the two are married. On the other hand, Lucy has several men pursuing her until she finally chooses one. While Mina is

known for having a man’s brain in terms of rationality, Lucy is simply the glamorous lady who everyone seems to be drawn to. Lucy’s natural attraction, her calm sexuality, gives her power but is tied to her destruction. If she is the sexually dominant woman, who gains further power through vampirism, then the goal of Van Helsing in this film, rather than saving humanity, is to stop the vampire as a threat to their own dominance. Victorians condemned female sexuality as dangerous and destructive. Halberstam, when referring to this film, states “The film, indeed, is the discursive in which identity is constructed as sexual identity, the film transform metaphors of otherness into technologies of sex, into mechanic texts, in other words, that produce perverse identities” (Halberstam, pp. 289). The modern Victorian woman, the women who wished to advance their place and improve their social status among their fellow male citizens, were dangerous to the status quo. This is manifested in the beginning of the movie, through the character of Mina, when she expresses her sexual desires on pre-marital sex via her introductory journal entries. Modern women believed that pre-marital sex was taboo throughout that of the aristocracy and the middle class. For this reason, Victorian authorities attacked the idea of female sexuality to prevent these women from corrupting society. Female sexuality represents horror and vulgarity in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. In this film, when Lucy enters the Castle Dracula and encounters Jonathan, she sexually stares at him and suddenly demands a kiss from him. Here, Lucy symbolizes the release of female unconscious sexual desires that were repressed in the Victorian period. Jonathan, on the other hand, serves as an instrument through which Lucy lets her desires play out; he allows her to free herself without social limitations. In the Dread of Difference, Barbara Creed considers this action as “Monstrous Feminine,” a term that tags a woman who

imposes a castration anxiety in a man, which it is an act of aggression during the Victorian era. These undead women are sexually aggressive and confined to the dark castle in Eastern Europe, further emphasizing the ominous tone associated with Dracula and his evil influence. Such acts contradicted the word of God and were deemed socially unacceptable at this time. Coppola’s film portrays the idea of women as both sexually assertive and repulsive. The teasing ironies, which Stoker employs to represent Lucy, are strikingly absent from his characterization of Mina that suggests to the movie viewers that Lucy does not fully meet all the standards of the ideal Victorian woman. In this movie, when Dracula bites Lucy, she sheds her innocent inhibitions. From this point on, Lucy is referred to as voluptuous and her once enigmatic sexual desires are now blatantly broadcasted. Following her “contamination” by Dracula, Lucy transforms into a sexually aggressive woman. Lucy’s three former suitors are repulsed by her brazen sexuality. Victorians would view her transformation as monstrous and deviant. After several failed attempts to save her, Lucy eventually becomes one of the undead. In an effort to restore Lucy to her initial state of purity, she is slain, which is ultimately viewed as the consequence of her released sexuality. In the process of becoming a vampire, Lucy’s sweetness is turned to adamantine, heartless cruelty, and purity to voluptuous wantonness. Victorians believed in punishing aggressive women whose desires were too voracious. Lucy, who is so open about her sexuality, receives a crucial punishment in this movie: her decapitation. On the other hand, Mina lived a primarily chaste life, but because of the interference of Dracula and her past-life, she ended up renouncing her

chastity. She sucked the blood of vampire and turned into one. Unlike Lucy, Mina was given a chance to redeem and set herself free. All vampires, regardless of gender, possess inhuman physical strength and promiscuity that gives them power and the ability to provoke fear. However, fear of the female vampire is characteristically more sexual than fear of the male vampire. This fear is fuel for the mission carried out by Van Helsing to stop Count Dracula from destroying Lucy and his female accomplices in this movie. As is evident in the characters Mina and Lucy, there were obvious social and sexual expectations for women. There were corollary consequences: Mina never displays sexual desires and settles into a happy life of motherhood, while Lucy feeds off of the power of Count Dracula and is violently executed by her fiancé before she can marry. Lucy meets this fate as the result or consequence of her allure, proving that male characters in Bram Stoker’s Dracula are terrified of any woman with sexual or physical power. Vampires are depicted as powerful creatures in horror movies. For the sake of this film, Stoker makes Lucy a vampire that moves with rapid speed to appear like a white streak. She has unholy physical strength, but still can shape-shift to pass through the interstice where scarce a knife blade could have gone. However, the most powerful aspect of the female vampires in Coppola’s film is their sexuality. According to Eric Yu in his essay “Productive Fear: Labor, Sexuality, and Mimicry in Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” the fear of the vampire in Dracula has to do with “sexual menace or the dreadful perception of sexual perversity... [it] threatens through subverting proper gender definitions and behavioral expectations, which keep the imperial subject in place” (Yu, pp. 147). Vampirism is frightening because it mutilates the sexual norm. This is evident in the scene when Jonathan encounters the three vampire women in Castle Dracula. As they

tempt him, Harker feels some longing and fear. Their sexual dominance is both thrilling and repulsive, and produces a wicked burning desire that paralyzes him in ecstasy. Even though Count Dracula is also dominating and appears in this particular scene, Jonathan never experiences such fear around the male Count; his fear is rooted in the sexually overbearing female vampires. Female vampires represent sexually independent and fearful woman. In this film, the three female vampire seductresses are described as possessing a deliberate voluptuousness, which was both thrilling and repulsive. They take on the role of villainesses and radiate sexuality. The vampires embody the evil that is brought forth through extravagant sexual freedom. In contrast to the matronly ideals of the Victorian woman, the female vampires display “a lack of maternal feelings” (Yu, pp. 54). When the men encounter the overtly erotic female vampires they are fearful and uneasy in their presence, but at the same time an unfamiliar wicked, burning desire to be seduced takes over. The role of the female vampires in Bram Stoker’s Dracula is to personify the fear that lies in the awakening of female sexuality. The seductresses possess a strong sexual prowess and pose a threat to male willpower and judgment. Overall, the excessively sexual female vampires are considered to be everything a Victorian woman was not. The vampires are portrayed as both enticing and revolting and they symbolize the anxieties felt by the Victorians towards the emergence of female sexuality. According to Case, Dracula “is an extreme version of the stereotypical Victorian attitudes toward sexual roles” (Case, pp. 84). Throughout the film it is apparent that the dominant theme is the repercussions elicited by sexually independent women. Victorians were highly fearful of societal changes, and this is evident throughout Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

Stoker uses Count Dracula to reveal detailed vampiric transformations and rebellions in Victorian women. He draws this character as a vampire who preys on women to make them powerful over men. He gets enjoyment from removing women from submissive societal roles to give them freedom to be sexually aggressive as vampires. Yu states remarks that “Dracula is as austere and diligent a scholar as Van Helsing... a champion of intellectual labor with surprising modernity” (Yu, pp. 160). Count Dracula is intelligent, sophisticated, deliberate, and efficient in his encounters with others. Based on this context, one can say that he resembles a progressive social figure. He empowers women by infecting them with vampiric strength, getting them out of the household, and liberating them from male and Victorian control. Coppola’s depicts a victory over a progressive and damaging social figure that attempts to empower and sexualize Victorian women. In the final scene, the viewer is able to see how Dracula depicts a consummated marriage resulting in the birth of a son, named by a group of men as Quincey Morris, at the forefront. There is a notable contrast between how the group honors Morris in comparison to Lucy. In this scene, Lucy is absent; indeed it seems the group of men have forgotten her by now, encouraging the viewers to do the same. Now Mina is the female at the forefront, a new mother and a sexually submissive housewife. Zimmerman claims, “In the Victorian mind... a good woman only submitted to her husband’s bestiality in order to reproduce” (Zimmerman, pp. 106). Here, honoring Lucy then would contradict the entire basis of the journey. Why honor a female vampire you worked so hard to eliminate? What is there to gain by raising the sexual, disobedient being to sainthood? The fear of the powerful woman, of the sexualized being turned physically dominant, is the driving force behind the male characters in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

During the Victorian era, some scientists, including Freud, tried to formulate treatments for contemporary ailments. The idea was that there was something wrong with women for advocating for their rights, actions that were thought to have degenerated into a mental disease. However, Stoker perceived the new wave of feminism more as a sexual being, rather than a mental one. He focuses Dracula mainly on the importance of a woman’s innocence during a time when social reform was rampant throughout London. The scholar Stephanie Demetrakopoulous states in her essay “Feminism, Sex Role Exchanges, and Other Subliminal Fantasies in Bram Stoker's Dracula” that: A few professionals began to distribute birth control information in the belief that smaller families could better survive the challenges of urban life… Aletta Jacobs (1851-1929), a Dutch physician, opened the first birth control clinic, which specialized in promoting the new, German-invented diaphragm…working class women used these clinics, and knowledge of birth control techniques spread by word of mouth. The churches adamantly opposed this trend and even reformers wondered whether birth control would increase the sexual exploitation of women if the threat of pregnancy were removed (Demetrakopoulous, pp. 52). This trend of using birth control would allow women freedom from merely caring for children to advance in the workforce if they were unmarried. In addition, birth control would serve to taint the innocence of the women of England. It is these outside influences and Stoker’s own beliefs that define the underlying moral of Dracula, which is the importance of keeping women safe. After all, the first half of the movie centers on the innocent Lucy’s transformation into a vampire, which must violently be destroyed; Van Helsing destroys the three vampire women in Dracula’s castle at the conclusion of this

movie. The destruction not only of the three women, but Lucy who had been tainted by Dracula allowed the women to remain innocent and free from all forms of corruption. The importance of keeping the Victorian women innocent of outside influences or from their natural drives was the pressing matter in the minds of Stoker and the average Englishman. If women were not innocent and chaste before they were to be wed and their husbands were granted the opportunity to “see them sleep,” as Mina so eloquently puts it, they were useless to them and thereby destroyed socially. This act enabled the police force to arrest poor women suspected of being prostitutes thereby depriving them of their constitutional rights. Stoker, through Van Helsing’s destruction of the vampire women, puts the situation in a light that would allow others to cheer for destruction while not realizing that Englishmen had done the same thing, figuratively to their wives. Interestingly enough, none of the vampire women in Coppola’s film are named. This could be analyzed as Stoker celebrating the destruction of the nameless lower-class women of Victorian society. Women belonged to a suppressed and marginalized underclass in the 19th century. Society believed that the modern woman would violate the natural order of society and encase the world with sexual endeavors, despite of the fact that “as the twentieth century opened, traditional social norms such as heterosexual marriage and woman’s domestic role as wife and mother came under attack by what were seen as the forces of modernity” (Creed, pp. 53). Because of these beliefs, the viewer can infer that Bram Stoker was motivated to present the female vampires as hypersexual fiends. He introduces the idea that female sexuality is evil and must be stopped by making the vampire women indulge their sexual cravings. Victorian Englishmen, on the other hand, also believed that no one could surpass the superiority of the British Empire or destroy the British colonial

presence in the East. According to Zimmerman, “…This divided thinking characterized the Victorian’s public discourses about females sexuality and continues to dominate our own understanding of the relationship between women and sex in the nineteenth century” (Zimmerman, pp. 231). Victorian society looked down on the idea of female sexuality, allowing Stoker to reinforce that belief with his use of the vampire women. Some viewers may claim that the vampire women are the personification of the belief that some women jeered openly at the ideal of the maternal instinct and scorned the notion that the care of children was the highest duty to which they should aspire. The vampire women do the opposite of what maternal instincts prohibit: they devour a baby. With this idea, Stoker drives in one of the final nails of his anti-female sexuality propaganda, the idea that all females wanted was to have sex with wild abandon and neglect the future of the British Empire. As seen in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, women use social cleavages in order to further their personal ambitions, and conceptions of sexuality and gender play a ...