The Culture of Victimization and Empowerment of Lucy Westenra Women in Bram Stokers Dracula 1897 essays

The Culture of Victimization and Empowerment of Lucy Westenra Women in Bram Stokers Dracula 1897 essays Dracula, a novel written by the British writer Bram Stoker in 1897, chronicles the life of Jonathan Harker and Mina Murray in Transylvania, where as engaged lovers, they encountered Count Dracula of Transylvania. Count Dracula's character provides the horror element to the novel because it was rumored (in the novel) that the Count is a vampire, who victimizes women in the town of Transylvania through impalement. The main conflict comes when the Count transferred from Transylvania to England, where there are more opportunities to victimize more people, putting Mina in danger. Prior to Mina's victimization, her best friend Lucy Westenra has already been afflicted with the Count's vampirism.' Chapters 7 through 16 chronicles, through journal entries and correspondences, the worsening condition of Lucy, starting from her sickness right after being impaled by Dracula, and eventual transformation, or "birth," as a vampire (Project Gutenberg, 2004). Lucy's victimization and transformation as a vampire illustrates a strong point in the novel. Lucy, as the victim, and Mina, as the potential victim of Dracula in the novel, exemplifies the culture of "victimization of women" in the novel, where they are first illustrated as weak individuals and later empowered through the significant roles they played in defeating and overpowering Count Dracula. This paper analyzes the theme of victimization and empowerment of women in Dracula. Lucy and Mina, as the main women characters in the novel, played important roles as victims of the Count who eventually became instrumental in making possible the defeat of Count Dracula from Harker's group (Quincey Morris, Dr. John Seward, and Professor Abraham Van Helsing). This paper specifically uses the character of Lucy Westenra in order to argue the position of this thesis. The analysis shows that in order to become empowered, women must ...