Women counted for little, but not everyone agreed with these Victorian standards.
For example, J.S. Mill and Harriet Taylor, a couple who flaunted convention of the time, advocated happiness above all and divorce when necessary (which was unheard of in Victorian times). They write, "If all persons were like these, [happy] or even would be guided by these, morality would be very different from what it must now be; or rather it would not exist at all as morality, since morality and inclinations would coincide" (Mills and Taylor 108). All they advocated was contentment over convention, but it was a radical idea for the time. The couple also advocated the "elevation of women" in society, and recognized the difficulty of being a woman in Victorian society - something which most Victorian men did not understand or agree with at all (Mills and Taylor 109).
Most men held beliefs more like Thomas Gisborne, who urged women to "fulfill their charge" (Gisborne 101), and not share secrets with their servants. Here is another important aspect of Victorian society and women's roles. There were two distinct classes in society, just as the two women in Stoker's novel come from two classes - the working class (Mina) and the upper class (Lucy). It was nearly impossible to move upward between classes, and there was a great difference between women of the working class, forced to work hard for meager wages to support their family, and women of the upper class, who employed the working class women. Thus, females also had class roles to overcome in...
Dracula - Bram Stoker's Immortal Count, the Modern Anti-Hero and Fallen Angel of Romantic Dreams Dracula, written by Bram (Abraham) Stoker in 1897, and was originally published by Archibald Constable and Company. The modern version is Published by Penguin Classics, London. Dracula is set in 1893, 4 years prior to the books published date of 1897, Bram Stoker takes the reader from the journey of a young Solicitor named Jonathon Harker
Though the character is remarkably static for a major character -- he is meant to be seen as completely evil -- he is worth studying as a major character in regards to the origins of his evil and immoral behavior. On the other side of Dracula, Van Helsing, Dracula's foil is portrayed as an older, educated man who is, nonetheless, moral. While Dracula and Van Helsing share many characteristic, including
Dracula Bram Stoker's Dracula represented for the Victorian reader the assault of the libertine on Victorian sexual morality. Dracula was a predator who stalked at night and had the capacity to transform himself into a beast in order to escape deduction. His method was seduction, which led to death, and in an age when propriety concealed all such discussions as sexual adventurism (which had to some extent characterized the preceding Romantic
Dracula There are numerous themes and motifs present in Bram Stoker's "Dracula," such as sexuality, femininity, Christianity, superstition, and ancestral bloodline, to name but a few. However, perhaps one of the most obvious themes surrounds sexuality and femininity. Stoker's "Dracula" can be seen as a sort of Victorian male "Harlequin" novel, filled with adventure, intrigue, and damsels in distress. And much like the Harlequin type novels for women today, Stoker's novel has
Dracula Through the Lens of Freud Count Dracula is one of the most recognizable figures in the world today; his name has become synonymous with vampires and with the sexualization of horror. In fact, the sexual aspect of Dracula has become one of the most commented upon features of the figure and of his story. There is certainly a huge basis for such an emphasis in Bram Stoker's original novel. In
..almost entirely occur within the first sixty pages." If it is true that the best passages of Dracula are found in the early portions of the book, it would make sense that the first chapter (or was it to be the second?), which later became the short story, was not necessary. Perhaps the publisher / editor who handled the manuscript saw the chapter (short story) as overkill (no pun), since
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