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The novel "Dracula" by Bram Stoker is outdated and old-fashioned in its treatment of female characters. The men in the story overly sexualize women, exploit and commit violence against them, and view them as weak and emotional. Women are objectified and seen as property to be used and abused. These depictions are considered sexist and misogynistic by today's standards. The novel highlights the progress made in gender equality and the importance of not repeating the mistakes of the past. You may have heard about the legend of the vampire Count Dracula, but you may not have read the novel written by Bram Stoker. So this novel came out in the 19th century, and it tells the story of a group of men who meet up out of fate and join forces to defeat their common enemy, Count Dracula. They track him down in his native land of Transylvania, and they destroy him near his castle. So this story has multiple main characters, including a couple important female characters, too. But the way these female characters are treated by the men is discriminatory and misogynistic, and I believe the novel is outdated and old-fashioned because of how women are thought of by the male characters. So I believe this for three main reasons. One, men overly sexualize the women in many scenes. Women are exploited and violence is committed against them. And the men think of women as too weak and emotional to handle danger. I'm focusing on this because there's a stark contrast in contemporary society with how women are viewed. So the examples I talk about will most likely be thought of as sexist and misogynistic according to today's standards. So the first point I want to talk about is sexualization. Women are hyper-sexualized by the male characters in the novel in multiple scenes, a couple of which I will talk about here. So one scene is towards the beginning of the book, and it features one of the book's main protagonists, Jonathan Harker. So he's at Dracula's castle when he's approached by three vampire women who attempt to lure him into their trap so they can suck his blood. Now, Jonathan describes these vampire women in a very sexual and promiscuous way, bringing out their facial features in particular. In a quote on page 34, he says, So here Jonathan is describing how he is both terrified but also aroused by the vampire women. He says they have red voluptuous lips, perfect white teeth, et cetera. He really makes them out to seem like the most beautiful creatures in the world. He talks about how he's attracted to their features, but he's also afraid that he'll be distracted by their beauty. I mean, this whole scene shows how back during the 19th century, men largely viewed women as sexual objects. You know, they admired their beauty, but not necessarily them as people. The objectification of women was just much more normal back then. In another scene, a similar objectification is seen with one of the book's main female characters, Lucy Wassenra. Now, this is after Lucy has already died, when Dr. Seward and Arthur Gaudelming visit her tomb. So when the men open her tomb, they see her corpse, and in a quote on page 139, they say, And the hours that had passed, instead of leaving traces of decaying, effacing fingers, had but restored the beauty of life. So positively, I could not believe my eyes that I was looking at a corpse. So here, Dr. Seward and Arthur are looking at Lucy's dead body, but they still can't help but objectify her. They talk about how pretty and alive she looks, explaining how they thought she would look more decayed. This emphasizes how the men viewed Lucy as just eye candy for them to look at and admire, and this was way more common back in the 1800s. In contemporary society, this would most definitely be viewed as objectification, and these men would be called perverts for thinking of women in this way. So the next point I want to touch on is violence against women and exploitation. So the female characters in the novel are often taken advantage of, exploited in physical ways by men in the novel. They're touched and operated on without their consent, and violent acts are committed against them with no hesitation. So Lucy is turned into a vampire by Dracula, and she is exploited by him. Dracula is very violent towards her. In this quote on page 129, it says, When the day came, its searching lights showed the ravages in poor Lucy's strength. She was hardly able to turn her head, and the little nourishment which she could take seemed to do her no good. So in this quote, the men are explaining how Dracula sucks the life out of Lucy's body while he's turning her into a vampire. Lucy loses her strength, she's barely able to move, and she's also extremely malnourished. Dracula does this to her because he views her as his property to do whatever he wants with. He abuses her and takes advantage of her because he feels like she belongs to him. Men were much more willing to exploit women back in the 1800s. Dracula was more acceptable to do so back then. In another scene involving Lucy, a blood transfusion is performed on her by Arthur, Dr. Seward, and Dr. Van Helsing without her knowledge or consent. In a quote on page 104, it says, At last, however, the narcotic drug began to manifest its potency, and she fell into a deep sleep. So here the men inject a drug into Lucy so they can knock her unconscious and perform a blood transfusion on her. So Lucy doesn't even give them permission to do this, but they do it anyway, and they knock her unconscious so she'll have no awareness of what's happening to her. The men feel like they can do whatever they want to women without their consent, touching and violating their bodies. Now, this was never punishable by law during the time. In the modern era, this would be seen as abuse and sexual harassment, which are illegal. So the final point that I want to explain here is how the male characters view women as weak and emotional. So Mina Harker, another one of the novel's main female characters, is left out of the Dracula business, treated like an outcast, and the men never listen to her advice up until the end of the novel. They don't bring her along on missions, and they withhold important info from her. Now, this is because the men believe Mina to be too emotional, not mentally strong enough to handle the situation with Dracula. They see her as too pure and innocent to be involved. In this quote on page 210, Jonathan Harker says, I am so glad that she consented to hold back and let us men do the work. Somehow it was a dread to me that she was in this fearful business at all. So Jonathan is explaining how he's glad that Mina consented to stay out of the business to find Dracula and stay at home instead. He views it as a man's job. The men should be left to deal with Dracula. He was scared that Mina was even involved in the situation to begin with, because he believes women are not strong enough to deal with such a dangerous situation, emotionally or physically. He thinks Mina is too sensitive and too fearful to be with them, and women are too fragile, too easily afraid. So in general, in modern-day society, all of these beliefs about women would definitely be seen as misogynistic and discriminatory, just because society is generally more inclusive now. Women are able to do almost any job and can do pretty much anything a man can do, and to exclude them from that would be seen as wrong today. So in conclusion, the Dracula novel is outdated in the way that men view and treat women in the story. Throughout the novel, men treat women as sexual objects. They admire their attractive features but don't really acknowledge anything else about them. They also abuse and exploit them without their consent, and they see them as too weak and too emotional to handle the situation at hand. These depictions and beliefs about women are outdated because of how blatantly sexist they are, according to today's standards. Today, you could never get away with sexualizing women like this and treating them like eye candy, because you'd be called a pervert for that. Men who exploit and abuse women are called predators. They're called abusive, and you can go to jail for that today. Women are seen as much more intelligent now, much more mentally capable of dealing with dangerous situations, and I think it's very important to point out how dated and sexist the depiction of women is in the Dracula novel, because it shows how far society has come in relation to gender equality and women's rights. It really shows how sexist society was back then and how women were treated like second-class citizens. Even though we still have a long way to go, the reality of women's lives in the 19th century was way different to how it is now. The only way that we can really make change in society is by learning from the mistakes of the past and making sure that we don't repeat them. Thank you.