Dracula about sexuality during Victorian era

Dracula presents a strict interpretation of gender roles for women. Females are characterized in one of two ways: as a madonna or a whore. Lucy and Mina are clearly madonnas. They are pure, chaste, generous, submissive, and constantly in grateful awe to the nobility and virtue of the men around them. These are women men want to marry; Lucy receives three marriage proposals, and every man among the Harkers’ circle of friends would give their life to protect Mina. These women embrace their roles and eschew the “New Woman,” which is the name used for the feminists who are rallying for more independence and rights for women at the end of the nineteenth century.

On the other hand, the three female vampires who live at Dracula’s castle personify the whore side of the dichotomy. As vampires they are evil, but their evilness is tied closely to their sexuality. They are described as “voluptuous” and “coquettish.” Readers understand how damning these adjectives are when used to describe the women. Their tremendous beauty acts as a luring temptation for men, who cannot resist attraction to them. Lucy herself becomes the same after she is reborn as a vampire, her “sweetness was turned to adamantine, heartless cruelty, and the purity to voluptuous wantonness” (Page 228). She wants to kiss Arthur, to bring him to the dark side with her, just as Eve caused the fall of Adam in Genesis.