In Dracula, there are several scenes featuring a perversion of Victorian ideas. Of these, the scene featuring a vampiric Lucy demonstrates the Victorian anxieties over the notion of the “New Woman.” In this blog post, I will focus upon the idea that Lucy represents a distortion of maternal femininity when the protagonists of the novel encounter her. In this scene, Stoker sets up the encounter by having Dr. Steward state that “When [they saw]… the thing that was before [them was Lucy but] she drew back with an angry snarl [and her] face became wreathed with a voluptuous smile”(225,226). Even then, before she advanced towards the men with a “languorous, voluptuous grace,” she “flung to the ground… with a careless motion… [while clutching a child] strenuously to her breast”(226). As a result of this passage, Lucy the Vampire is portrayed as a perversion of maternal femininity and of Victorian ideals. In an article written by Greg Buzwell, he discusses the idea of how vampires in Dracula represent Victorian anxieties. Greg Buzwell comments on this scene, stating that “Lucy behaves in a manner that would have been viewed as an affront to both femininity and motherhood” because she was feeding upon a child like an animal. In addition to this, by having Lucy approach the men in a manner that would be compared to a succubus, Stoker shows one of the social anxieties that were present in Victorian Society; sexually liberated women. As a result of these developments, Lucy, through becoming a vampire, acting like a seductress and behaving a predator, reflects upon the negative thoughts that Victorian society had about “The New Woman.”
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It is clear that in Christina Rosetti’s “Goblin Market” Laura’s character parallels Lucy’s. While Lizzie and Mina are strong of will and remain untempted by the goblins and vampires, Lucy and Laura fall prey to their evil tricks and pay the price. Similar to how Lucy represent a distortion of maternal femininity, Laura and Jeanie represent a loss of traditional feminine domesticity and maternal fertility. Lizzie says of Jeanie, “Then fell with the first snow, / While to this day no grass will grow / Where she lies low: / I planted daisies there a year ago / That never blow” (5). Not only is her body so infertile that the dirt over her grave won’t grow grass or daisies, but by dying so young, Jeanie will never meet her womanly duties of marrying or bearing children. After eating the goblin fruit, Laura starts neglecting her chores and domestic duties. Much like Lucy, after coming in contact with these evil, foreign creatures, Laura and Jeanie are less capable of fulfilling the duties of women in that time period. There is also the similarity in the foreignness of Dracula and the Goblin Men and the sexual nature of the women’s interactions with them, leading to a conclusion of xenophobic tendencies and fears of intermingling races and bloodlines.
This post clearly resonates with the poem “Goblin Market” by Christina Rossetti because the poem plays of the anxiety of the “New Woman”. In the poem, the idea of the New Woman becomes somewhat of a cautionary talk to dispel women from going out at night and accepting “fruits” from young men. Lucy becomes the New Woman when she is transformed into a vampire, and Jeanie in the poem ends up dying because of her “promiscuity”. Both women are presented as “infected” creatures that have mingled with too many mean to be considered “pure” anymore. I also find it interesting the the theme of the “New Woman” and sexuality revolve around the idea of the light and darkness. During the daytime, the women are complacent (or in the case of Lucy the vampire, sleeping), but at night they literally turn into monsters. Rossetti’s poem “The World” personifies the world and explains its transformation from day to night. The world is in the case personified as a women who is “soft” and “fair” when the sun is out, but instead becomes “foul” and “loathsome” during the night. This dual personality of women is what the Victorian society fears.