Women in Dracula, A Street Car Named Desire and Birthday Letters

In the three texts the characters that are presented as ‘new women’ are also presented with a downfall, those who are presented as traditional women are seen to survive and do well.

Within the three texts, Dracula, A Street Car Named Desire and Birthday Letters, the authors present the female characters within certain ways which allow us as the audience to look closely at the battle of equality between men and women and the rise of feministic views. However the battle isn’t always apparent and some female characters allow themselves to be the inferior characters compared to the male characters who take on dominant roles within their relationships. Within the three texts a downfall of death is presented, this is always presented to those women who are presented as New Woman.

Feminism - ‘is a movement for social, cultural, political and economic equality of men and women. It is a campaign against gender inequalities and it strives for equal rights for women.’ Within the three texts we are presented with many female character types, A Street Car Named desire, allows its audience to compare and contrast its female characters. We are presented with Blanche who is on first appearances seen as a New woman ( A women of the late 19th century actively resisting traditional controls and seeking to fill a complete role in the world) she lives by herself, has no male role controlling her life and makes her own decisions, however it isn’t too much later that we learn a different aspect of Blanche, she becomes a character that needs a man to keep a roof over her head and food in her mouth. We are easily able to compare Blanche with her sister Stella, who is a women that presents traditional roles however some times does challenge these, Stella lives with Stanley and allow him to control her life, he tells her what to do and she takes on stereotypically traditional roles within the house. However we do see some New Woman actions within Stella’s character such as when Stanley hurts her she runs away however this is then counter parted with Stella returning to Stanley. In the end it is Blanche that has the biggest downfall within the novel and we are left with the question of is this because she present’s a post- feministic woman? This question can also be placed when looking at Dracula, Lucy is presented to the audience as a very sexually aware female she is also shown to have less traditional views on marriage - ‘why cant they let a girl marry three men or as many as want her and save all this trouble’, Lucy is also like Blanche presented with the biggest downfall within the novel, she is controlled by Dracula and even killed more than once. Sylvia Plath like Lucy and Blanche also are presented with death within the novel, Sylvia could be seen to have the biggest downfall of all three of the characters, it is not only physical but also a mental problem. Hughes talks of his and Sylvia Plath life journeys through his poetry and we come to understand the life style that they lived, Plath’s death is central to Hughes poetry and we are able to understand the kind of women Sylvia is, she is shown as a weak women who needed her husband by her side, when he fails to do so she becomes weaker and commits suicide. However we can see the power that Plath had on Hughes due to the high impact that Sylvia’s suicide had on his poetry - ‘Years after your death’. Plath’s downfall doesn’t seem to be due to her position as a women it is presented within the opposite, she is a traditional women and this causes her problems.

This is a preview of the whole essay

Dracula sees a downfall for its female characters in the way of death, Lucy is killed by a male character. Arthur Holmwood buries the stake deep in Lucy’s heart in order to kill the demon she has become and to return her to the state of purity and innocence he so values. The language with which Stoker describes this violent act is unmistakably sexual, and the stake is an unambiguous symbol for the penis. In this way, it is fitting that the blow comes from Lucy’s fiancé, Arthur Holmwood. Lucy is not only being punished for being a vampire but also being available for seduction by Dracula himself, who we can recall has the power to only attack a willing victim. When Holmwood slays the demonic Lucy, he returns her to the role of a legitimate, monogamous lover, which reinvests his fiancée with her initial Victorian virtue, again degrading Lucy’s female role, needing a male character to take care of her to the end of her life.

Lucy Westenra, is first presented to the audience as an out going, sexually aware, less traditional women. In many ways, Lucy is much like Mina Murry. She is a paragon of virtue and innocents, qualities that draw the attention of three men to her. However Lucy does differs from her friend in one key area, which makes her much of a New Women, Lucy is sexualised. Lucy’s physical beauty captures the attention of the three men, which is where she displays a comfort of playfulness about her desirability. This is displayed in an early letter to Mina when Lucy states ‘why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save her all this trouble’. This presents the idea that Lucy has troubles that she cannot and will not meet, going against the New Women model. Stoker presents this simple, small idea of Lucy’s instability to a huge volume when he describes the undead Lucy as a ‘creature’ of a ravenous sexual appetite. Lucy is presented as a dangerous threat to men and their self control, Lucy’s second death returns her to a harmless state presenting her again with purity, assuring the men that things are exactly how they are suppose to be. Lucy presents the idea of the ‘new woman’ to the reader, she is also represented as a creature when she is a vampire.

Dracula succeeds in transforming Lucy and becomes a vampire vixen, Van Helsing’s men see no other option than to kill her, in order to return her to a purer, more socially respectable state. After Lucy’s transformation, the men keep a careful eye on Mina, worried they will lose yet another model of Victorian womanhood to the dark side. It is here seen that Lucy is a model female until she is turned into a vampire. Late in the novel, Dracula mocks Van Helsing’s crew, saying, “Your girls that you all love are mine already; and through them you and others shall yet be mine.” Here, the count voices a male fantasy that has existed since Adam and Eve were turned out of Eden - that women’s ungovernable desires leave men poised for a costly fall from grace. Women through out Dracula are shown as something that men own and something that can be used as a bargaining tool. Blanche like the female characters within Dracula is also presented as a object by Stanley when he attacks her, however when Blanche is with Mitch alone he treats her in a way that she expects as a New Woman ‘Can I-uh-kiss you-good night?’ with dignity and respect, this isn’t however carried through out the whole novel. Blanche doesn’t accept males help through out the play and tries to hide the things that she has done before, this adds to her downfall which allows her to become more and more depressed and pushing towards her downfall. Which we can also assume this happens to Plath, Hughes talks of their past and their lives together, this allows us as the audience to know what events happened to add to Plath’s depression and her death. Looking at other sources we find out that ‘Ted Hughes, had left her for another woman’which then pushes Plath to her suicide. This goes against the idea that the Downfall of woman is due to woman being post feminist woman. The three texts all see big punishment for its three leading ladies, this influences them in many ways and pushes them all towards their deaths.

In the 1880’s and the 1890’s saw the publication of many studies in psychology and sexology. For example, Dr. Krafft-Ebing, a German sexologists ‘‘medico-legal study’’ Phychopahia Sexualis, documented hundreds of cases of divergent, ‘deviant’ sexuality, listing, cataloguing and typing each individual. Under ‘Sadism in Women,’ he describes case 42, a women’s who sexual history prefigures that of Stoker’s Lucy: ‘ A married man presented himself with numerous scars of cuts on his arms. He told their origins as follows: When he wishes to approach his wife, who was young and somewhat ‘nervous,’ he first had to make a cut in his arm. Then she would suck the wound, and during the act become violently excited sexually’. Most critics agree that Dracula is, as much as anything else, a novel that feeds on the Victorian male imagination, particularly concerning the topic of female sexuality. In Victorian England, women’s sexual behaviour was dictated by society’s extremely rigid expectations. A Victorian woman effectively had only two options either she was a virgin or she was a wife and mother. If she was neither of these, she was considered a whore. A women never had the right to choose which kind of life style she wanted to have, she was simply labeled if she didn’t conform, we can see this with Lucy when she must choose who she wants to marry she simple states that in her ideal world ‘Why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble.’ This is very degrading, Lucy, is stating that she wishes she didn’t have to make a choice and she wishes that her life was all laid out for her, however it could be argued that she wants this because of her personality rather than her fate.

By the time Dracula lands in England and begins to work his evil magic on Lucy Westenra, we understand that the impending battle between good and evil will depend upon female sexuality, both Lucy and Mina are less like real people than two-dimensional embodiments of virtues that have, over the ages, been coded as female. Both women are chaste, pure, innocent of the world’s evils, and devoted to their men. But Dracula threatens to turn the two women into their opposites, into women noted for their voluptuousness—a word Stoker turns to again and again—and unapologetically open sexual desire. Blanche within A Street Car Named Desire is also presented as a sexual desire from Mitch and even Stanley. Mitch likes her not only for her looks but who she is ‘I like you to be exactly the way that you are’ Mitch doesn’t think of Blanche in a sexual way until later on in the play.

Blanche’s fear of death presents itself in the fear of her ageing and loosing her beauty. She refuses to tell anyone her own age ‘ why do you want to know’ Blanche seems to believe that by continually asserting her sexuality towards men especially those who are younger, she will be able to avoid death and return to the world of teenage bliss that she experienced before her husband committed suicide. However, beginning in Scene One, Williams suggests that Blanche’s sexual history is in fact a cause of her downfall. When she first arrives at the Kowalskis’, Blanche says she rode a streetcar named Desire, then transferred to a streetcar named Cemeteries, which brought her to a street named Elysian Fields. This journey, the precursor to the play, allegorically represents the trajectory of Blanche’s life. The Elysian Fields are the land of the dead in Greek mythology. Blanche’s lifelong pursuit of her sexual desires has led to her eviction from Belle Reve, her ostracism from Laurel, and, at the end of the play, her expulsion from society at large. Sex and death are intricately and fatally linked within Blanche’s experiences through out the novel.

In Scene One, Stanley throws a package of meat at his adoring Stella for her to catch. The action sends Eunice and the Negro woman into peals of laughter. Presumably, they’ve picked up on the sexual innuendo behind Stanley’s gesture. In hurling the meat at Stella, Stanley states the sexual proprietorship he holds over her. Stella’s delight in catching Stanley’s meat signifies her sexual infatuation with him. This also shows Stella in light of the new woman, however Stanley is the one initiating the sexual activity again pushing Stella back into her traditional role. Stella tries on many occasions pushing herself into the role of the new woman however Stanley always fails to allow her to do so.

A Streetcar Named Desire presents a sharp critique of the way the institutions and attitudes of postwar America placed restrictions on women’s lives. Williams uses Blanche’s and Stella’s dependence on men to expose and critique the treatment of women during the transition from the old to the new South. Both Blanche and Stella see male companions as their only means to achieve happiness, and they depend on men for both their sustenance and their self-image. Blanche recognizes that Stella could be happier without her physically abusive husband, Stanley. Yet, the alternative Blanche proposes—contacting Shep Huntleigh for financial support—still involves complete dependence on men. When Stella chooses to remain with Stanley, she chooses to rely on, love, and believe in a man instead of her sister. Williams does not necessarily criticize Stella—he makes it quite clear that Stanley represents a much more secure future than Blanche does.

Five: contextual information linking to the authors and the characters.

The decade in which Stoker wrote and published Dracula was one of the unprecedented anxiety and uncertainty about the social roles, sexual nature and natural spheres of activity of men and women. As many women fought for a larger role in public life and a bigger challenge towards the traditions that define women as being, passive, domestic and naturally submissive, the debate opened to men and the males natural role.

while Victorian feminists advanced on previous male preserves, crossing boarders and redefining categories, the more conservative press reacted by reiterating gender normalities, insisting that the essential differences between the sexes and their separate duties.

Stoker deliberately located the gothic horror of Dracula in the late nineteenth century world of technological advances, gender instability and the rapid increase in conversation. Mina Travels with a portable typewriter which presents her with power and knowledge of a skill such as writing, which today we take for granted.