Like most women written by men, the women in Dracula by Bram Stoker are shallow and lack character development. One can argue that Lucy is a round character, because she turns into a vampire, but is that really character development or a poke at the “New Woman” by Bram Stoker? According to Sally Ledger and Roger Luckhurst in Reading the ‘Fin de siècle,’ the “New Woman” can be interpreted/read two ways: a more positive image of sexual liberation and independence or the negative aspects of breaking social norms such as motherhood and the nuclear family.
In Dracula, Mina is a symbol of what is good about the “New Woman;” she works but is still a dutiful, loving wife, while Lucy symbolizes the moral and sexual corruption of the “New Woman.” Mina writes, “We women have something of the mother in us that makes us rise above smaller matters when the mother-spirit is invoked…” (Stoker, 245) Stoker uses the imagery of the mother to paint Mina positively according to social norms of the time; she always thinks of her husband, she wants to be a mother and she works, but not too much that she neglects her tasks as a woman. He uses the word “spirit” and “invoked” combined with “mother” to further claim that all women have this innate motherly sense, as all humans have spirits (if that is what you believe, if not call it gothic and go with it), which contrasts Lucy’s actions when she eats a child, furthering Lucy as the extreme negative outcome of the “New Woman.”
A few pages before, Stoker writes, “She seemed like a nightmare of Lucy as she lay there; pointed teeth, the bloodstained, voluptuous mouth – which it made one shutter to see – the whole carnal and unspiritual appearance, seeming like a devilish mockery of Lucy’s sweet purity.” (Stoker, 228) Although the first quote is not a direct description of Mina, the two quotes have very different tones, clearly contrasting the women as the two aspects of the “New Woman.” Specifically, the description of Lucy’s mouth is very sexual, utilizing creepy words such as “pointed,” “bloodstained,” “voluptuous” and “carnal,” harking on the sexual corruption aspect of the “New woman.” In a long winded way, Stoker is saying Lucy is no longer pure. If the reader still did not pick up on the implicit, Stoker explicitly states, “…a devilish mockery of Lucy’s sweet purity,” creating a relationship between the evil and “sweet” Lucy.
Through the contrast of pure Mina and corrupt Lucy, Stoker cautions against the “New Woman” in the Fin de Siècle era. Stoker uses sensationalism to provoke curiosity of the corrupt imagery of vampires and Lucy-turned-vampire to show the dangers of the abandonment of gender roles, specifically motherhood in the Victorian Era. Ledger and Luckhurst note that the double standard of the “New Woman” brought forth “..productive sites for thinking through the articulation of gender with other significant markers of identity.” (Ledger and Luckhurst, 18) So, some positive social change was made as a result of the “New Woman”, contrasting Stoker’s negative depiction of the movement in Dracula. Although Lucy is not a direct “outspoken attack on male sexuality,” as self proclaimed novelist, Sarah Grand is described as by Ledger and Luckhurst, still Lucy and her vamperic, child eating, motherhood abandoning, sexual advances are a threat to Victorian culture as Bram Stoker knows it. (Ledger and Luckhurst, 17)
This is a great interpretation of Lucy and Mina as foils, and I was especially interested in your analysis of their individual relationships to motherhood as the point of contrast. I also wonder if you could build up this argument by analyzing Lucy as she was before she became a vampire. Though she wasn’t eating children, she did flirt with the concept of polygamy, which perhaps was an early sign of her deviation from traditional gender roles. While Mina was devoted to one man from the start, Lucy received proposals from four men (as well as their blood transfusions), already framing her as a symbol of the dangerous “New Woman.”
While your analysis of Mina and Lucy as foils is great, I have to push a little harder on your assertion that Stoker meant this as a critique of the “New Woman.” Before Lucy is bitten by Dracula, she is beautiful and youthful, receiving marriage proposals from several men, before finally choosing to settle down with one man, as did Mina. It isn’t until Dracula bites her and turns her into a “nightmare of Lucy” that this young, pure woman is corrupted. Therefore, I have to wonder if part of Stoker’s critique is that the figure of the “New Woman” is more vulnerable to attack by men who would seek to corrupt her, if Lucy is meant to be the “New Woman” of the story, or if Mina is meant to be the “New Woman” then perhaps he is criticizing the “Old Woman” as too vulnerable.
I want to start by saying, I love this reading of Mina and Lucy and their relationships relative to the New Woman movement. I wonder if you could even tie in their relationship with each other, since the two women love each other dearly. Me personally, I would love to see this evolve into an analysis that ties in feminist theory as well, by incorporating the fact that women’s worth is measured by the men in the story. Honestly Lucy and Mina have a lot to be unpacked and analyzed, so this could go any way you like.