Argumentative Analysis of Bram Stokers Dracula using Feminist Theory - Book Report/Review Example

The 19th-century Victorian society underwent a change in which, women became more free and liberal with the feminist movement. Critically, the novel sheds light on modernized women and their changing roles in a patriarchal society, which was unacceptable and alienated for Stoker and other men. The female characters of the novel can be analyzed in the light of feminist theory. These characters include Lucy Westenra, Mina Harker and three women vampires residing with Dracula, also called his three brides.

This paper evaluates Dracula using radical feminist theory and also includes authorial analysis of critics supporting claims. Victorian society to which, Stoker belonged was repressive and patriarchal and with radical changes in the roles of women from dependent mothers and wives to more independent and sexually liberal New Women, the male dominant society as a whole got frightened. The differences existent between masculine and feminine appeared clear in Victorian society. In Stoker’s narration of Dracula, the differences between the two genders in terms of their positioning in the society is shown.

Females and males are incomplete without one another as they participate in procreation, but the new awakening of women was regarded as a threat to the stability of Victorian society. Stoker in his portrayal of different characters in his novel, Dracula informs about the change as an evil that is damaging for the structure of society. “Stoker copes with society’s “unprecedented anxiety and uncertainty about the social roles, sexual nature, and natural spheres of activity of men and women by hiding female independence, aggressiveness, and sexual insatiability behind the mask of the demonical influence of vampirism.”