Lucy and Three Vampire Women as the Proactive New Women Represented in Bram Stoker's Dracula

This study addresses how the middle class woman's adaptation from traditional to modem gender roles affects how they are treated. In Dracula Bram stoker shows his own opinion that how the female character, Lucy, adapts to the role of the New Woman determines the way in which they are treated in the social environment in the novel. This study also examines the three other women in the novel, Dracula's wives, who are often seen by critics as examples of the sexual predator "New Woman," but who are really victims of the patriarchal system. Through the novel Dracula, Bram Stoker offers ample opportunity in which the readers can think discourse in the Victorian society relative to the issues of the New Woman, gender roles, and ethnic purity caused by immigration. Through Dracula, he also explores the essence of fear of the Victorian period about women's changing roles and independence to be able to endanger men's perceived roles as protector and provider.