The Victorian era produced a community organized strictly into stratified classes and social positions. Men dominated this cultural structure, while women served as inferior counterparts. Women were tied to an expectation of servitude, seen as inferior beings to strong, intelligent men, and forced to act as docile subordinates, especially towards their husbands. Women's duties were limited to household-related activities, including maintaining a proper home, raising children, and entertaining guests. The ideal woman of the Victorian age embodied purity and obedience. Sexual interactions were strictly between husband and wife, and any provocative expression outside of these relationships was prohibited. Sexuality is a fundamental human characteristic and men feared that women who indulged these innate tendencies would then seek other freedoms and upset the balance of Victorian society. Therefore, in order to maintain despotism over the female sex and protect Victorian virtues, it was vital that men demoralized and rejected women who defied these sexual restrictions. In Bram Stoker's novel Dracula, Lucy Westenra, initially the archetypal Victorian woman, is bitten by the evil vampire protagonist, and therefore takes on an undead form. His transformation into the Undead is accompanied by erotic physical characteristics that oppose the norms of his modest society. In a passage describing an encounter between the vampire Lucy and four Victorian men - Morris, Van-Helsing, Arthur and Doctor Seward - the author illustrates the expectations held by Victorian women by contrasting the modest and pure pre-vampire Lucy with the transformed , sensual, the Undead Lucy. Because her new defiant appearance and actions threaten the core of Victorian values, it is necessary for men to subjugate the rebellious woman, re-establish the patriarchal hierarchy, and safeguard the norms that stabilized that period. To do this, Stoker strips Lucy of her humanity, equating her with an animal, a demon, and a lifeless “thing.” Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Stoker uses Lucy's metamorphosis to expose the dichotomy between the Victorian ideal and its licentious counterpart, and highlights society's need to return Lucy to her former self. The pre-vampire Lucy, the model Victorian woman, is described with words of innocence, "sweetness," and "purity" (187). Stoker describes pre-vampire Lucy's eyes as “pure and gentle orbs” (188). Stoker's rhetoric emphasizes the qualities expected of women of his time: virginal and angelic. In comparison, Undead Lucy's physical appearance is one of lust and free sexuality. Her supposed “purity” transforms into “voluptuous wantonness” (187). However, because her lust openly confronts the feminine expectations of the time, her enlightened sensuality is condemned. Her newfound seductiveness has transformed her "sweetness" into "adamantine, heartless cruelty" (187). She is made evil in the eyes of men because of her defiance of Victorian norms of sexuality. In this passage, the undead Lucy's sensuality challenges men's patriarchal expectations, and her threat provokes a physical reaction among traditional men. Their responses illustrate the danger he poses to their lives, their established social values, and their need to defeat this dangerous being. Horrified by her carnal appearance, men undergo visceral reactions. Dr. Seward is so offended that his "heart becomes cold as ice" (187). Its sensuality generates a“Arthur gasps” and the four men “[shudder] in horror” (187). Men have never seen anything like Vampire Lucy before. Her eroticism so boldly challenges the norms of the Victorian era that men recoil in fear. Even Van Helsing's valiant “nerve of steel…failed” at the sight of the new woman (187). When Arthur, Lucy's fiancé, confronts his transformed bride, “he would have made him fall” if Dr. Seward “had not grabbed his arm and supported him” (187). Because of the stark contrast between the engaged couple, a Victorian role reversal is taking place. Arthur is now the weak and weak figure, embodying some of the delicate attributes that Lucy once possessed. Lucy, by contrast, is completely emancipated from her Victorian shackles, now stronger than the mere mortals who once dominated her. Men are at the mercy of this powerful and supernatural being. However, they soon realize that they must overcome their fear. They must kill the formidable and lustful vampire to protect themselves physically and restore Lucy to her "natural" place in society as a pristine Victorian doll. Stoker highlights this need to return Lucy to her rightful place as an insubordinate in the patriarchy through his degrading diction. Using Dr. Seward as a narrator, Stoker projects the thoughts and mind of the Victorian man to demonstrate the threat Lucy poses to his society and to debase the defiant vampire as a response to his cultural challenge. Dr. Seward equates it to a subhuman entity in three degrees: 1) comparing it to an animal, 2) comparing it to a devil, and 3) comparing it to a personless "thing." (188).Because Lucy's natural sexuality is carnal, Stoker devalues ​​her humanity and compares her to an animal to reestablish her as an inferior being to Victorian man and safeguard the virtues of the era. When Lucy meets the four men, the vampire "[pulls] back with an angry growl, as a cat does when taken by surprise" (188). The growl, which triggers in the reader's mind the image of an aggressive beast baring its teeth and growling, distorts her face into an animalistic shape, removing from her all human physical characteristics. Stoker continues the metaphor, stripping it of any human-maternal instinct, as he “[throws] to the ground... the child he had until now held strenuously to his breast, growling at it as a dog growls at a bone”. "(188). By stripping her of any maternal tendencies, Stoker transforms the Victorian woman into a cruel and heartless beast. She is the antithesis of herself, so different from the pre-vampire Lucy that she is now more like a dog. Through the Seward's descriptions, Stoker is repositioning Lucy in her subordinate role. This dehumanization continues as Lucy is stripped of her human morality and compared to a demonic figure, in order to further distance her from Victorian society and protect the Victorian values ​​she upholds Lucia's sexuality endangers the social structure of the time to such an extent that the woman is described as a "devil" (188). Her temptation is so powerful that her existence can only be that of an evil spirit Christianity is at the heart of Victorian values, this is one of the most offensive insults. Lucy's eyes, which often serve as a symbol of one's interiority in literature (in the cliché, they are "the window to the soul"), are "impure and full." of hellish fire” and “[burning] with unholy light” (188 ). By making Lucy satanic, Stoker alienates her from the Christian values ​​of Victorian society, rejecting her completely and further exerting the superiority of men over the sexual creature. Furthermore, Victorian men are depicted as saviors of this Christian principle, and thus advance their place in the.