Explore and compare the ways in which women are presented in your two novels
Both ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ and ‘Dracula’ are written in the Victorian era, where the
changes within society and industry were making a vast difference to how women –
originally severely inferior to men - were viewed. This can be seen from how the ‘New
Woman’ started opening new doors for those who wanted to go into the world of work or
education, which is particularly shown in ‘Dracula’ through Lucy and Mina, who also show
aspects of the ‘Ideal Woman’ they would have been expected to be; the aspects of ‘Ideal
Women’ are more prominent in ‘Dorian Gray’ which could be a result of characters such as
Mrs Vane, Lady Henry Wotton and Sibyl, who are more concerned by the physical traits of a
woman and the aspects in which they would make a good wife, but also are less influential
within the novel unlike Lucy and Mina.
Mina and Lucy both have aspects of a ‘New Woman’ and ‘Ideal Woman’ incorporated into
their characters, and as a result present women in a different light to how the female
characters in ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ do; I believe that Mina and Lucy are presented as
females who, whilst are both aware of the social constraints women were under, were
capable of showing strength and intelligence amongst and away from the male characters.
Lucy is more of a ‘New Woman’ than Mina – although Mina has become a teacher, which as
a woman in the Victorian Era shows not only education but also independence, which are
key elements of this societal change - which is shown by her openness about Victorian
‘taboo’ topics such as sexuality, and through the times of change within the Victorian
period, this could be interpreted by contemporary audiences as an inferior trait opposed to
those of the ‘Ideal Women’ which could give an explanation for why Lucy becomes more
sexualised as the novel progresses - increasingly so as the reader goes further into her
transformation as a vampire. The way in which Stoker presents Lucy in the way of a physical
being – where descriptions of her are focused predominantly on her appearance and how
she ‘looks, oh, so sweet’, the adjective ‘sweet’ suggesting pleasantry and delightfulness in
her appearance to explain her beauty, as opposed to being seen like Mina to being having a
‘man’s brain’, which suggests that her intelligence is her best feature, especially as she could
compare to the intelligence of a man, which in Victorian times was superior to a woman’s -
as opposed to a proper and pure Victorian woman suggests Stoker’s and societies beliefs
that if a woman were to have any degree of promiscuity then their fate will be similar to
that of the undead, much like Lucy. This indicates that Victorian society saw sexualisation as
impure and disgraceful – which is implied through how Mina worries for Lucy’s reputation
when she sleepwalks into the graveyard in her nightwear ‘in case the story should get wind,’
suggesting that this act of being naked whilst in public was something to be horrified by, and
gives further evidence to suggest that the Victorian audience acknowledges this type of
situation and sexual, and therefore against Heaven and God - and in the eyes of the Catholic
Church would prevent women from entering Heaven, and therefore the character Lucy
would be seen as something evil by the contemporary audiences.
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