Struggling to summarise thematic comparative points for Dracula and The Bloody Chamber? Then this booklet is for you. It consists of:
4 detailed thematic comparative notes consisting of:
1. Women, 2. Villains, 3. Settings, 4. Structure.
Each theme is broken down into two, focusing on Dracula...
Rigid social expectations had that women behaved either as virgins, wives or whores. Whilst Mina represents
the first two, the apex of Victorian women, Lucy appears to be the latter. They become vivid dichotomies of
each other.
LUCY:
Lucy is the complete antithesis of a typical Victorian woman. She’s overtly sexual and craves polygamy. Her
metamorphosis into the Bloofer Lady is a punishment for defying the patriarchy and her character arc is perhaps
used by Stoker to frighten the reader and embody the consequences of living promiscuous life that goes against
traditional Victorian ideologies of women being chaste, refined and modest.
The Bloofer Lady is an intertextual reference to the Boofer Lady in Charles Dicken’s novel Our Mutual Friend
(1865). Interestingly, whilst the Boofer Lady is a rather maternal figure, her counterpart in Dracula is a
complete subversion. The Bloofer Lady is an infanticidal vampire that yearns for innocent children and becomes
a dimensionless, unequivocal female figure. The Boofer Lady is perhaps an intertextual foil character, utilised
by Stoker in order to emphasise how immoral and corrupt the Bloofer Lady truly is.
In the Censorship of Fiction, published in the appendix of latter versions of the novel, Stoker states “The only
emotion which in the long run harm are those arising from sexual impulses.” Perhaps Lucy is an embodiment of
these conservative ideas.
Lucy’s voluptuous, overtly sexual nature is strikingly emphasised in Coppola’s 1992 adaptation of Dracula.
The Bloofer Lady’s death is charged with phallic imagery of the stake. Lucy is sexualised until her last breath of
existence.
QUOTES:
“The sweetness was turned into adamantine, heartless cruelty, and the purity to voluptuous wantonness”
“Diabolically sweet”
“Lucy’s eyes unclean and full of hell-fire”
“She had clutched strenuously to her breast, growling over it as a dog growls over a bone”
“Why can’t they let a girl marry three men”
“All of Lucy’s loveliness had come back to her in death”
“Deeper and deeper the mercy bearing stake”
MINA:
The Victorian fin de siècle was an age of tremendous change and with it came The New Woman. Mina a prime
example of The New Woman. She was previously a school mistress and is pivotal in the Crew of Light’s battle
against count Dracula.
QUOTES:
“A man’s brain and a woman’s heart”
“Want to keep up with Jonathan’s studies”
“Practicing shorthand”
“Best woman”
“assistant schoolmistress”
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