How do Carter and Stoker portray Gender Roles and Patriarchal Ideologies in Dracula and the Bloody Chamber?

In both Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, gothic conventions are employed in order to express the writers’ attitude towards gender roles. 

During the Victorian era, attitudes to gender were very conservative and based on a rigid dichotomous model. Men were expected to be rational, intelligent and dominant, while women were supposed to be pure, passive, emotional and subservient. Additionally, it was believed that a woman’s role in society was to get married young and fill the position of mother and housewife to support their working husband, and they were expected to repress their sexual impulses, remaining submissive and unemotional during sexual intercourse. However, in the late nineteenth century, The “New Woman” rejected the traditional position prescribed for them by the ideologies of a patriarchal society, and desired a more active role in the workforce, sexual independence and an opportunity to pursue alternate lifestyle choices.  This movement lead to a great deal of anxiety and animosity amongst many people who believed that “for women to deny their traditional role was to deny their womanhood, and to challenge the distinctions between women and men”1. The breakdown of traditional forms of classification was particularly threatening to the identity, and, therefore, social power of middle class men. As Karen Volland Waters argues “the New Woman’s sexual independence made her particularly troublesome to the patriarchal order”2-this hostility, I will argue, is reflected in Dracula. 

The Bloody Chamber was also written in time of feminist uprising. “Second wave feminism” was a movement that brought about a revitalization of feminist activity that arose, in part, from the dissatisfaction of the objectification of women and emphasis on them as domestic figures prominent during the 1950s. As events such as the Vietnam War and Civil Rights Movement lead to the protest of outdated perspectives, the youth of the 1960s were concerned about the correction of the mistakes made by previous generations. Amongst the main aims of the movement was to rethink art with feminist theory, highlighting the masculine domination underlining most literature. Stephen Benson argues that by drawing on traditional tales “while simultaneously voicing the contemporary and more personal mores of its author”, The Bloody Chamber is able to offer “the opportunity for sharp comparisons and the possibility of transitions to new modes of thinking”3. In accordance with this view, I will argue that the collection intends to respond to the patriarchal views underlining Gothic texts such as Dracula.

Both Carter and Stoker draw on the stereotypical image of the vampire as a symbol of rampart, transgressive sexuality. Freud wrote that the vampire “yields plain indications of most kinds of sexual perversions”, because in the subconscious “blood is commonly an equivalent for semen”. The vampire’s act of sucking blood, therefore, with the penetration of the vampire’s phallic teeth leading to the symbolic exchange of semen, can be seen perceived as a metaphor for sexual intercourse. Additionally, the vampire blurs clear-cut gender distinctions, as penetration is a masculine act, yet the intake of fluid is feminine.

In Dracula, the Weird Sisters embody the dreaded vision of the New Woman as held by many of the movement’s critics, being aggressive, domineering and unabashedly embracing their own sexuality-radically different from the feminine ideal. Their sensual nature is highlighted by the description of their “radiantly beautiful” appearance, with a particular focus on their “voluptuous lips” (the mouth is an organ associated with sexuality).  While Victorians believed that females naturally felt the need to nurture children, the Sisters do the opposite by devouring children for their own benefit.

Because of their ability to penetrate, the Sisters are portrayed as threats to the traditional Victorian male. They usurp male power when they attempt to use Jonathan Harker to satisfy their predatory urges, as the sisters take on the position of dominant, masculine sexual partner, while seducing Jonathan into becoming the submissive feminine figure-he “lay[s] quiet” while a masculine hero would have been expected to defended himself. In addition, by expressing his “wicked, burning desire that [the Sisters] would kiss me with those red lips”, Jonathan implicitly reveals his desire to be penetrated, suggesting homosexual impulses raised by the assertive females’ alluringness. Jonathan’s attraction is clearly inexplicable to him and goes against his better judgement (the use of the oxymoronic phrase “wicked, burning desire” highlights his conflicting attitudes and confused state of mind, as well as the reference to the colour “red”, which has connotations of both passion and danger)—his reasoning and level-headedness break down when he is exposed to them. Because the vampire women threaten his self-control and ability to think rationally (elements that separate them from the female stereotype), they pose a threat to Jonathan’s identity as a man and, therefore, his power. When Jonathan averts the Sisters’ advances, he celebrates the fact that he may now sleep “as a man”-he has avoided metaphorical castration. The Sisters tempt Jonathan into being unfaithful to his wife (he frets that his behaviour could “cause [Mina] pain”), thereby threatening the stability of the Victorian family. As nuclear families such as this were considered the cornerstone of society, the metaphor can extend to the fear of the “New Woman” causing social breakdown. Because of the threat they pose to gender roles, and male control of society, Dracula portrays the Weird sisters as irredeemably immoral and demonic-Jonathan, acting as the voice of patriarchal morality, refers to them as “devils of the Pit!”

The protagonist of The Lady of the House of Love, like the Weird Sisters, combines both male and female characteristics, and can be perceived as symbolising the feminist woman. However, Carter goes further in her gender subversion than Stoker. While the Weird Sisters entirely reject conventional femininity, becoming masculinised gothic villains within a feminized form (and, as a result, fall firmly into the “whore” side of the virgin/whore dichotomy), Countess fuses (and, therefore, subverts) the two traditionally diametrically opposed stereotypes of femininity-the female victim of Gothic fiction, who was based on the patriarchal image of an “idealized female”, and the figure of the vampire woman, who was based on the image of a “monstrous whore”, being sexual and forceful while retaining her gentleness, emotionality and naivety. 

Like a traditional, masculine Gothic villain, the Countess is animalistic and predatory (referred to as “a beast of prey”), resides in a “dark, high house” and appears powerful, with “great eyes” and “long, sharp fingernails” (a phallic image). Carter clearly links the Countess’ vampirism to sexuality, as she uses her sensuality to lure men in her bedroom, where she devours them. This act is described in very sexual terms, with her telling the soldier that she will “wait for [him] in [her] bride’s dress in the dark”. In an inverse of traditional sexual relations, the female is the aggressor while the male is the victim.

In addition to her villainous features, Carter’s heroine also contains characteristics of a damsel-in distress. The structure of the story is loosely based on Sleeping Beauty, with the protagonist being a beautiful woman trapped in a curse and locked in a mansion, waiting to rescued by a strong male (though the Countess is, in the meantime, feeding on others). Unlike Stoker’s vampire women, the Countess is sympathetic (partly because Carter’s story is largely told from the perspective the Countess, allowing the reader a closer identification and empathy with the type of foreign figure that was marginalised in Dracula), with her predominant emotion being “sadness”. She wants to take care of a rabbit, suggesting her caring, maternal instincts. She reminds herself that “a single kiss woke up Sleeping Beauty in the wood”, further associating her with the vulnerable damsel-in-distress, as well as creating a sense of optimism and hopefulness, suggesting that she, unlike the entirely monstrous and unemotional Weird Sisters, has a longing to experience true love. Carter creates a character that is both victim and predator. This duality in her character is highlighted when she is described as being both “death and the maiden”. 

Carter also criticises the traditional modes of patriarchal thinking that Dracula endorses. It is suggested that, as a sexually liberated woman, patriarchal attitudes demonize her, and her internal goodness isn’t recognised. The Countess has been forced into her situation by her ancestors-she has inherited the castle and the surrounding lands from her father, and has, as a result, inherited a role from outdated  patriarchal ideologies. The sense that she is being forced to indulge her predatory desires compulsively by her ancestors is reinforced by the description of her being “a haunted house”, with ancestors that “come and peer out of the windows of her eyes”. Her face described lacking “any of those touching imperfections that reconcile us to the imperfection of the human condition”-she isn’t a real woman, but a socially constructed idea of a fallen woman.

Because of this, she is unable to get pleasure or fulfilment from her actions, as she devours men who, treating her like a whore, enter her bedroom expecting consequence-free sexual relations. She feels trapped within her role as an aggressor, doomed to “helplessly perpetuate ancestral crimes”, and wonders if “a bird sing only the song it knows or can it learn a new song?” The lack of enjoyment she experiences while is shown by the absence of description when she is murdering them (her feeding is purely functional), she must drink blood despite “her horrible reluctance for the role”. In addition, as she leads the soldier to her bedroom, she repeats “I do not mean to hurt you”-the regular, monotonous rhythm highlights the difficulty of escaping from this cycle. The fact that the Countess is isolated in a mansion suggests that her liberated female sexuality isolates her from social life, due to society’s simplistic moral judgement. Carter criticizes patriarchal ideologies which place all women into one of two categories in the virgin/whore  dichotomy, a line of thinking that Dracula falls into.

Dracula focuses on the male characters’ attempts to prevent Lucy and Mina from transforming into vampires. At the beginning of the novel, they are portrayed as ideal models of Victorian femininity, being virginal, virtuous, passive and anxious to settle into their roles as housewives. Early in the novel, Lucy wonders “why are men so noble when we women are so little worthy of them?” establishing their perception of themselves as subordinates to males, she then worries that she isn’t yet engaged, though she is “almost twenty”, highlighting her aspiration to fit the traditional female role. Mina is idealised to an even greater extent, shown when Van Helsing calls her a “pearl”, (symbolising purity) who is “so true, so sweet, so noble”. Her maternal instincts are revealed when she tends to Jonathan while he’s ill, and explains “we women have something of the mother in us”. The gulf between her and the Weird Sisters’ mode of femininity is highlighted when Jonathan writes that the characters have “nought in common”.

Freud’s theory of the “return of the repressed” stipulates that “the uncanny arises as the recurrence of something long forgotten and repressed, something superceded in our psychic life”, as well as that “morbid dread always signifies repressed sexual wishes”. However, both Lucy and Mina also show signs of autonomy associated with the New Woman at this stage, and this is what makes them susceptible to Dracula’s attack, which awakens their latent sexual power. What would be particularly frightening to a Victorian audience is that Dracula’s female victims are in some ways complicit in this act, they are seduced by his foreign sexuality-illustrated by Mina’s claim that “some leaden lethargy seemed to chain my limbs and even my will” during Dracula’s seduction. It can be perceived that the females’ succumbing to Dracula’s advances parallel women desiring to be emancipated and become a part of the New Woman movement, breaking free of the patriarchal underpinnings of Victorian Britain’s societal parameters. As a result of this, their status as ideal women comes under threat.

Lucy exudes a level of carnal energy typically associated with males. Through her letters to Mina, it is suggested that she takes pleasure in the power and control granted to her by her sexual alluringness, which attracts three potential suitors, and implicitly expresses a desire to be married to all of them by declaring her love for all three. Although she does choose one man to marry, she muses afterward “why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all the trouble?”-this suggests that her sexual appetites cannot be satisfied by a conventional, monogamous relationship. 

After her metamorphosis is completed, this repressed sexual energy is released, and Lucy becomes, like the Weird Sisters, a demonized figure of violent, mobile sexuality, with the descriptions of her drawing attention to her “wanton smile” and “soft, voluptuous voice”. Her teeth are “longer and sharper than ever”, signalling her masculine and predatory aspect. She (in a parallel to the earlier scene with the Weird Sisters) makes sexual advances upon Arthur, asking him to “kiss [her]!”, as her “arms are hungry for [him]”, and Arthur, like Jonathan, becomes the feminized sexual partner. Again, Sexual identity is inverted, and the male’s power of penetration is usurped. Lucy is also considered “more radiantly beautiful than ever” despite her masculinity, similarly threatening male identity. Additionally, Lucy displays a lack of maternal instincts; she holds a child “strenuously to her breast”, and feeds off it, leaving it “weak” and “emaciated”.

Mina also exhibits some masculine characteristics, however, she, unlike Lucy, shuns the most intimidating aspects of the New Woman, and utilises the qualities she does embrace in a manner

that is non-threatening to male control of society.  For example, she uses her gifts of intelligence and skill with machinery to serve men as a secretary to the Crew of Light. Her only aspiration is to fill the role of a mother and housewife, illustrated when, after she has been married, she writes of henceforth having “love and duty for all the days of my life” and aims to “be able to be useful to Jonathan”. In contrast to Lucy, the wholesome Mina doesn’t demonstrate any sexual impulses, and is never described as being alluring (so, she isn’t a threat to male self-control).

Following Mina’s encounter with Dracula, her “white night-dress” is “smeared with blood”, symbolising her newfound status as a fallen woman. After this, however, it is Mina’s masculine intellect that enables her to survive, as Van Helsing uses her mind to find out Dracula’s weakness. Mina, unlike vampire Lucy, consciously rejects the activation of libido and destruction of nurturing instincts brought about by Dracula’s kiss. When she sees the red mark on her forehead, Mina exclaims “Unclean! Unclean!” and later begs the men to “without a moment’s delay, drive a stake through [her]” if she becomes a vampire. She never behaves in a subversive way, and is dependent on the efforts of men to thwart Dracula’s attempt to ruin her. At the end of the novel, she chooses to enter a conventional domestic marriage, in which she will be subordinate to her husband. 

The true nature of the men’s concern, therefore, is the loss of feminine innocence and the awakening of female independence and sexuality. As Laura Linneman argues the novel “identifies women as idealized females or as monstrous whores”4-they aren’t allowed to move away from the idealised image of them as naive subordinates without being perceived as a diabolical threat to society, and, in particular, the power and reason of males. Lucy is threatening in her independence and sexuality and, therefore, needs to be eradicated, while Mina’s variety of gender blurring isn’t harmful to the power of middle-class males and patriarchal paradigms, as she is willing to fit into the role of the idealised women, she is able to be saved. (maybe cut this)

The character arcs of Lucy and Mina pose an interesting contrast to that of The Tiger’s Bride’s protagonist. Beauty initially appears, like Mina and Lucy, to be an ideal of femininity as defined by a patriarchal society. She is “pretty”, virginal and subservient to her father. 

However, she, like Lucy, quietly criticises the restraints of her society, frequently questioning the authority of her father and her lack of identity. She cynically thinks of her father as a “self-deluding fool” and a “feckless sprig of Russian nobility”. Her intellectuality, like Mina’s, is a masculine characteristic, however, she, in contrast, seems reluctant to subscribe to a role as a passive subservient to men. The key difference here, however, is that Carter portrays the patriarchal society as unjust, and her heroine as being correct for rebelling against it.  Beauty explains how he killed her mother through his sinning, and there is the suggestion that if she doesn’t break free from the control of patriarchs like him she will suffer a similar fate (metaphorically)-this is highlighted by the description of Beauty being the “living image” of her deceased mother. Although she is more intelligent than him, and can tell when he is acting foolishly, her father has complete control over her, and she, restrained by the attitudes of society, is viewed as weak, and forced to remain silent. She must watch her father gamble “with the furious cynicism peculiar to women whom circumstances force mutely to witness folly”. It is clear that Beauty, like Lucy, is aware of the flaws of living in a patriarchal society, but hasn’t yet got the autonomy to break away from it. (shorten)

And, in another similarity to Dracula, her power and sexuality are awakened by a foreign figure, who, like Carter’s Countess, initially appears to be a traditional Gothic villain, but is then revealed to

be a more complex, likeable character.  He appears harsh and powerful (with eyes like “twin suns”, “ungainly” and “giant”), with a strong connected to animalism. Like Dracula, Beast takes on both male and female characteristics; however, Carter again goes further with her gender blurring. While Dracula is just a masculine villain within a (somewhat) feminized body, Beast, is gentle, emotional and vulnerable. At first he is so shy and nervous that he won’t talk to Beauty directly; he gets his valet to speak for him. 

Beast covers his true nature behind a “mask” (which conceals “all his features”) painted to make him looks like a masculine villain. This mask “appals” Beauty, as she sees it as being “too perfect”. It is a constricting, unnatural representation, and Beauty implicitly recognises that she wears a similar veil of gender expectations. At the beginning, Beauty narrates, upon arriving in Italy: “you think you’ve come to the place where the lion lies down with the lamb”. This labelling suggests in conventional society an inequality between males and females, as well as a clear cut division between the sexes. Beast, like Dracula, disdains society, and wishes to excite Beauty’s inner passion and autonomy in order to return to a more natural way of life, a union of lion and lamb. His vision can be read as gender equality, and also a union of masculinity and femininity within a person’s character.

At first this is unable to happen, however, as both Beauty and Beast can’t overcome their socially imposed attitudes towards each other. In conventional Gothic fiction, the beast is a villainous figure who attempts to kill the heroine if they succumb to his advances. Carter alludes to these when Beauty thinks back to the fairy tales taught to her by her nurse, being warned that if she wasn’t a good girl a tiger man would “gobble [her] up”. Carter suggests that such ideologies are used to repress female sexuality, and are undermined as the audience can clearly see that Beast isn’t how society defines beastliness to be like, and is actually a more positive, empowering figure than the traditional hero.

Beast will only reveal his true nature to someone if he feels they can trust them-this desire manifests itself in his request for Beauty to shed her clothes in front of him, as he views them as a mask forced upon people by society. However, Beauty immediately thinks of this request as sexual, she believes that all he wants is a criticized male gaze (a means by which men dominate women in patriarchal society), and doesn’t want to turn into mere “spectacle”. When Beast revises his demand, saying that if she won’t reveal herself to him, then she must “prepare to see [him] naked”, he is placed under the “female gaze”. This parallels the many incidents of inverted sexual relations in Dracula (most notably the incident involving the Weird Sisters), however, Beast willingly enters such a situation in order to place the female in the position of power. This action suggests a separation from patriarchal society, but portrayed, unlike Dracula’s seduction, in a positive light, and Beauty takes off her clothes. This is a moment of liberation and equality as both characters shed their social roles, and is comparable to what Dracula does to women.

Beauty’s.father.represents.patriarchal.ideologies.in.this.story..The.first.line.(“My.father.lost.me.to the.Beast.at.cards”),.immediately.establishes.the.large.influence.he.has.over.her.life,.as.well.as.his controlling.and.objectifying.nature.

When Beauty sees the mechanical maid, a patriarchal image of perfect femininity, she recognises the extent to which she was similarly passive in her objectification by patriarchal society, musing “had I not been allotted only the same kind of imitative life amongst men that the doll-maker had given her?" (This can be perceived as a critique of the attitudes of women like Mina). She realizes

that Beast isn’t like “other men” such as her father who “denied [her] rationality”. At this point, Beauty begins to shed the artificiality of gender construction in a manner similar to Lucy’s actions after being bitten by Dracula, however, instead of being punished, Beauty is rewarded. It becomes clear to Beauty at this point that she needs to overcome her (nursery fears), let go of the inhibitions of society, embrace her own independence and sexuality, and live with Beast. She sheds her riding habit (a symbol of her former life), and remarks that she “was so unused to [her] own skin”.  When Beauty sends the soubrette home to her father in her place, she rejects her former position as an idyllic female stereotype. Like Dracula’s vampire bites, Beauty’s transformation combines the acts of sex and birth and represents her loss of virginity. She is naked and shaking (suggesting arousal), and Beast licks her. It symbolises an embrace of sexual desire, and portrays sex as an act of collaboration, as opposed to an act by which a man dominates a woman. While Dracula ended with the re-instatement of traditional gender dualities, The Tiger’s Bride ends with these roles being broken down, and, as a result, the protagonist enters into a healthier, more equal relationship. 

The Tiger’s Bride, in contrast to Dracula, portrays the patriarchal male as the villain and Beast as the saviour. While Dracula’s women are “saved” by patriarchal male characters and returned to a subordinate state, Beauty chooses to reject male-dominated society in order to live a more equal, unrestrained life with Beast. In Dracula, the male characters that constitute the Crew of Light are portrayed as the heroes, with a duty to “save” Mina and Lucy, damsels-in-distresses, from transforming into sexualized demons. Their method of killing the vampirised Lucy, stabbing her with a phallic stake (“some two and a half inches thick and three feet long”), represents a particularly violent form of masculine penetration, thus forcefully reinstating the traditional gender roles. When she is dead, Lucy is described as laying in her coffin with “unequalled sweetness and purity”-a position that is desexualised, submissive and traditionally feminine.

The battle between the Crew of Light and Dracula is metaphorically a battle over the control of women. The vampires fight against the constricting social roles imposed on men and women by society, while the Crew of Light fight to impose these traditional models. Stoker’s viewpoint aligns with the patriarchal mode of thinking, believing that the vampirism (and therefore, the threatening power and sexual liberation) needs to be eradicated from the vampire women, and conventional gender roles re-established in order to Victorian society to survive. This is illustrated at the end of the novel, as, after the vampires have been destroyed, Jonathan and Mina have children and, therefore, become an ideal family unit.

The character of the soldier in The Lady of the House of Love is a semi-satirical reimagining of this type of masculine Gothic hero. He, regarding himself as a conventional hero and the Countess as a helpless victim, plans to “take her to Zurich, to a clinic; she will be treated for nervous hysteria ". The soldier, in a manner very similar to the Crew of Light, wishes to mould her into a patriarchal image of an ideal woman, without “claws” or “hysteria” (the behaviour of Stoker’s vampire women display symptoms similar to women believed to be suffering from hysteria). His desire to “put her teeth into better shape” also suggests that he wants to completely strip her of her power (as these are the tools she previously used symbolically usurp the power of young men), as well as her individuality. Additionally, When he begins to feel sexual attraction to her, thinking of her mouth as a “whore’s mouth”, he “put[s] the thought away from him immediately”-while the other men, and her ancestors, see the Countess as a purely sexual “whore”, the soldier sees her as a sexless “virgin”, however, she is, in fact, a blend of both of these. Therefore, in an inversion of the typical Gothic tale,

the soldier doesn’t offer the Countess an escape liberation, but, instead, represents another form of incarceration. If the Countess was to live as the patriarchal man’s bride, as Mina chooses, this would doom her to a life of passionless subordination. This can be perceived as a critique of the ending of Dracula, in which the vampire women are “cured” by being turned into passive beings. The only way the Countess can truly be set free from the gender roles prescribed to her by patriarchal attitudes is by dying.

In conclusion, both of the texts are concerned with the blending of gender roles, portraying a world in which the traditional dichotomous models can no longer be applied; however, their attitudes towards their respective social changes are very different. Stoker portrays the emerging emancipated woman as an immoral threat to male power and Victorian civility that needs to be destroyed, while Carter portrays their ambition to transcend gender boundaries as an act necessary to establish gender equality. While Dracula ultimately endorses conventional Victorian patriarchal attitudes, Carter, through her utilisation and subversion of Gothic conventions, highlights and reconstructs the latent content and patriarchal ideologies implicit in such works of Gothic fiction.