{"id":320,"date":"2016-03-31T23:18:33","date_gmt":"2016-04-01T03:18:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/?p=320"},"modified":"2016-03-31T23:18:33","modified_gmt":"2016-04-01T03:18:33","slug":"lucy-the-perfect-wife-or-tempest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/2016\/03\/31\/lucy-the-perfect-wife-or-tempest\/","title":{"rendered":"Lucy the perfect wife or tempest?"},"content":{"rendered":"

During the Victorian period, which Dracula<\/em> is set in, the role of women in society was a major issue. Women were held to certain standards and obligations. They were supposed to be innocent and pure virgins until marriage when they can bare children and take on a mother role. In Bram Stoker\u2019s Dracula<\/em>, the characters Mina Murray and Lucy Westenra depict the ideal Victorian woman and the worst. It is through these characters that the novel exposes Victorian fears of women gaining power in society. Mina is depicted as a pure and loyal woman. She misses and patiently waits for Jonathan when he is away and dutifully takes care of him when he returns. When Doctor Van Helsing meets Mina for the first time, he is overwhelmed with how wonderful she is, he says, \u201cI come here full of respect for you, and you have given me hope- hope, not in what I am seeking of, but that there are good woman still left to make life happy- good women, whose lives and whose truths may make lesson for the children that are to be (pg 197- 198).\u201d Mina is a symbol of hope because she is not seducible by Dracula and is loyal to her husband. Stoker does not sexualize her at all as he does Lucy. He links sexualized women with utter evil. We first learn that Lucy has three suitors who all love her dearly. Lucy writes to Mina, \u201c Why can\u2019t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble?\u201d (pg 67). The \u201cthey\u201d Lucy is referring to is society. Early on in the novel she questions the Victorian ideals, wanting something different. Dracula is able to seduce Lucy and turn her into a sexualized vampire. Through this, Stoker shows the potential for good, Victorian women, to be corrupted into evil and sexual beings with unholy desires. Stoker also uses Lucy\u2019s character to instill fear in woman to stray from the rigid Victorian beliefs. If they do not follow Victorian culture, they will be come evil and demon like beings. Van Helsing says, \u201cWhen they become such (referring to Lucy as the \u2018Un- Dead\u2019), there comes with the change the curse of immorality; they cannot die, but most go on and on age after age adding new victims and multiplying the evils of the world\u201d (pg 229). The \u201cnew victims\u201d he speaks of, are the women who will follow down the disobeying path like Lucy did. Van Helsing insists on stopping Lucy, so she cannot corrupt any of the pure, loyal women left. The only way to bring her back to her back to her pure self is for her fianc\u00e9, Arthur, to drive a stake through her heart. Van Helsing makes it clear that Arthur must be the one to do this, as he is her fianc\u00e9. Arthur thrusting the stake through Lucy\u2019s heart returns her as a virgin and monogamous wife. Arthur regains his power over his wife and cleans her blood of all other men including Quincy, Van Helsing and Seward. In doing so, he claims her once again, as his and only his fianc\u00e9; restoring her to the pure Victorian woman she was forced to be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During the Victorian period, which Dracula is set in, the role of women in society was a major issue. Women were held to certain standards and obligations. They were supposed to be innocent and pure virgins until marriage when they can bare children and take on a mother role. In Bram Stoker\u2019s Dracula, the characters … Continue reading Lucy the perfect wife or tempest?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2026,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[123782],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2016-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320","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\/2026"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}