The number three is significant in so many aspects of Victorian and in modern life. In the Hindu, Buddhist, Christianity faiths the number holds great importance, on top of this, every sect of the Christian faith believes that three symbolizes the Holy Trinity. On a more secular level, the number can represent the three acts of existence birth life and death. While Dracula is riddled with allusions to the Bible and the Christian faith, Stoker uses the idea of three to also reinforce Victorian gender roles. The symbol of three first presents itself in Dracula on page 44 when we encounter the female vampires. Even though these characters are introduced in an attractive and sexual manner, Stoker quickly characterizes them as the monsters they are. At the end of chapter IV on page 61, Harker even states that \u201cThey are devils of Pit!\u201d. At this moment, the Vampires begin hunting for Jonathan, as they want to drink his blood and take his life. Just three pages later Stoker introduces a foil of the lady vampires, the three men who propose to Lucy. While the vampires look to take lives by draining the blood of their victims, these three men do the opposite. Each time Lucy\u2019s blood was drained by Dracula they voluntarily give up their own blood to regain her own health. Even though Jonathan was attacked by three vampires he still managed to escape with little to no help that we know of. Jonathan did not accept his fate, he was not a feeble victim, some of his last words were \u201cI shall try to scale the castle wall farther than I have yet attempted\u2026 I may find a way from this dreadful place.\u201d Jonathan is able to evade the female Vampires alone, Lucy on the other hand, is depicted helpless. Dracula can easily control her and she stands no chance alone, Lucy\u2019s only chance to survive comes from her male companions. Stoker contrasts Jonathan and Lucy, Jonathan is able to escape from three female vampires, while Lucy stands no chance against one male vampire. This not only highlights the differences between John and Lucy, but also the difference in strength between the male and female vampires. Reinforcing Victorian beliefs that men were more competent than women.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The number three is significant in so many aspects of Victorian and in modern life. In the Hindu, Buddhist, Christianity faiths the number holds great importance, on top of this, every sect of the Christian faith believes that three symbolizes the Holy Trinity. On a more secular level, the number can represent the three acts … Continue reading The Idea of 3<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3889,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[125359],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2018-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3889"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1290\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}