{"id":646,"date":"2018-09-30T18:57:59","date_gmt":"2018-09-30T22:57:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/?p=646"},"modified":"2018-09-30T18:57:59","modified_gmt":"2018-09-30T22:57:59","slug":"the-new-degenerate-woman-in-dracula","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/2018\/09\/30\/the-new-degenerate-woman-in-dracula\/","title":{"rendered":"The New Degenerate Woman in Dracula"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sally Ledger and Roger Luckhurst\u2019s introduction \u201cReading the \u2018Fin de Si\u00e8cle\u2019\u201d offers an overview of many moving parts of the late 19th<\/sup>century.\u00a0 Throughout the introduction, the authors describe how the time period embodied an \u201cambivalence of modernity,\u201d where technological and social advances were accompanied by moments of decline and disaster.\u00a0 Ledger and Luckhurst specifically discuss the evolution of the New Woman, as well as ideas of degenerates, and how sexually active women function in both of those.\u00a0 In Dracula<\/em>, Lucy Westenra is an example in which ideas about female sexuality and female independence have moments of coinciding and conflicting with each other during the late 19th<\/sup>century.\u00a0Analyzing Lucy through Ledger and Luckhurst\u2019s introduction to the fin de si\u00e8cle and specifically through their descriptions of the New Woman and degenerates, allows one to see the comparisons and conflicts within the changes of the advancing new century or what Ledger and Luckhurst call the ambivalence of modernity.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0Dracula,<\/em>Lucy Westenra is introduced through Mina Harker\u2019s letters and journal entries.\u00a0While Lucy later goes on to respond to the letters, keep a journal herself, and appear in other characters\u2019 narratives, she appears first and foremost in the intimate written exchanges between her and Mina, her best friend of many years.\u00a0 That being said, Lucy and Mina\u2019s letters are very detailed and honest because of their close friendship.\u00a0 Through her exchanges with Mina, it becomes clear that Lucy embodies the double coded idea of the New Woman as described by Ledger and Luckhurst.\u00a0She encompasses \u201can image of sexual freedom and assertions of female independence,\u201d but also \u201cdangers of sexual degeneracy\u201d (Ledger and Luckhurst 17).\u00a0 In one pivotal letter to Mina, Lucy describes how she was proposed to by three different men in a single day.\u00a0 After describing how she had to reject two of the men, Lucy writes to Mina, \u201cWhy can\u2019t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble?\u201d (Stoker 67).\u00a0 Lucy exercises the female independence and sexual freedom of the New Woman when she declines two of her suitors, as well as when she proposes this radical idea of marrying more than one man, more specifically as many men that desire her.\u00a0Yet at the same time, she embodies the role of \u201cthe degenerate\u201d as described by Ledger and Luckhurst, or the person who is moving \u201cbackwards\u201d in the face of so much technological and social advancement.\u00a0 One of the roles that Ledger and Luckhurst list when describing the idea of \u201cthe degenerate\u201d in their introduction is the sexually active woman.\u00a0 A woman being sexually active is indicative of a lack of control or giving into instinctual almost animalistic tendencies.\u00a0 While it can be assumed that Lucy is not sexually active because she has not married yet, her statement about wanting to marry more than one man classifies her as both a sexually free and independent New Woman, but also a degenerate who should be condemned for halting the advancement of society and giving in to instinctual urges.\u00a0 Lucy\u2019s double classification emphasizes what Ledger and Luckhurst call the ambivalence of modernity, or the contradictions that exist within the push for expansion.<\/p>\n

Merely a few lines prior to her claim for wanting multiple husbands, Lucy contradicted the idea of the New Woman by emphasizing the stereotype of female weakness and traditional gender roles of women.\u00a0 She wrote to Mina, \u201cI suppose that we women are such cowards that we think a man will save us from fears, and we marry him\u201d (Stoker 66).\u00a0 Lucy is lumping herself, Mina, and all women into a stereotype of weakness as a result of their sex.\u00a0 She builds on the stereotype of female weakness and inferiority by arguing that she, and all women, marry men because they are too afraid to deal with life and their fears on their own.\u00a0 Lucy paints herself as vulnerable and in need of male protection.\u00a0 Lucy\u2019s claim not only contradicts her later statement about wanting to marry multiple men, but also contradicts the sentence that directly follows, \u201cI know now what I would do if I were a man and wanted to make a girl love me\u201d (Stoker 66).\u00a0 Stoker has written two consecutive sentences that both confirm and challenge traditional gender roles in the late 19th<\/sup>century.\u00a0 In one sentence, Lucy lumps herself into a stereotype of female inferiority, and in the following sentence, she challenges traditional gender roles by imagining her behavior if she was a man.\u00a0 Analyzing these two statements through Ledger and Luckhurst\u2019s introduction to the fin de si\u00e8cle allows one to see the ambivalence of modernity functioning in a novel written during the time period.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sally Ledger and Roger Luckhurst\u2019s introduction \u201cReading the \u2018Fin de Si\u00e8cle\u2019\u201d offers an overview of many moving parts of the late 19thcentury.\u00a0 Throughout the introduction, the authors describe how the time period embodied an \u201cambivalence of modernity,\u201d where technological and social advances were accompanied by moments of decline and disaster.\u00a0 Ledger and Luckhurst specifically discuss … Continue reading The New Degenerate Woman in Dracula<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3874,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[125359],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2018-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3874"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}