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yeeeetDeath hangs like a shroud over Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula.
From the titular undead Count, to
the violence that the protagonists must endure to end him and his evil, death is never far behind.
Death’s ‘grim irony’ first makes itself known in Chapter Thirteen after Lucy Westenra falls to the
predations of Dracula.
Her death is not taken lightly by Dr. John Seward, the in-novel author of this chapter; he remarks
that ‘The romance of his life is told’, a clear reference to his previously demonstrated adoration for
the ‘lovely lady.’ Lucy herself is described as ‘fair’, ‘lovely’, and ‘sweet’. She’s dressed in her
traditional white, as are the ‘holy men’ that are so awed by her beauty that they ‘pretend to read’
their ‘holy books’ to look at Lucy. Even in death, her characterisation as a ‘fair lady’ is upheld. Lucy’s
dehumanising characterisation being upheld is evidenced further in the passage as Seward ‘laments’
the loss of his ‘romance’, and not the loss of an equal partner or respected friend. The way that Lucy
is spoken of in this passage exemplifies how even in death she is the ideal Victorian woman:
Beautiful (
With death comes grief and loneliness, which ‘will sit over our roofs for many a long day’, according
to Seward, but Professor Abraham Van Helsing has a different view: He ‘laughs’ at the tragedy, and
alludes to ‘King Laugh’ entering the family of the deceased’s life, a reference to the sunrise that
comes after tragedy. Van Helsing also remarks that if the ‘transfusion’ that Arthur Holmwood gave to
Lucy brought them closer and made ‘Her truly his bride’, then Van Helsing is a ‘Bigamist’, and that
Lucy, the ‘so sweet maid’ is a ‘polyandrist’. Seward is not offended at Van Helsing making jokes at a
funeral, btut rather at ‘Him [Van Helsing] for saying such things.”, and impling that Lucy was
anything other than contemporary ideal of Victorian womanhood.
Within this passage, Stoker condones and supports the attitudes that men held at the time towards
women. Seward’s focus on the loss of his unrequited ‘love’ as opposed to the loss suffered by Lucy’s
family or close friends, who’s perspective is not considered: There is no mention in the passage of
any of Lucy’s family or her ‘beloved’, Arthur Holmwood. This view of women as merely factors in
men’s lives as opposed to people shows that Stoker still doesn’t respect the agency of his female
characters, and that the regressive views of Victorian times still factor into his work.
