“The role of women in the gothic genre is as victims, always subject to male authority.” By comparing the presentation of women in your three chosen texts, say how far you would agree with this view.”

Women are central to the narrative of Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, Bram Stoker’s Dracula and within Christina Rossetti’s poetry. All three texts were written during significant times in history: Rossetti and Stoker’s works during the infamous reign of Queen Victoria, and Carter’s collection during the year Margaret Thatcher became the first female prime minister of Britain. As a genre, the gothic is often regarded as being dominated by men, with women featuring in the role of victim subject to patriarchy. Many early gothic texts feature women in the role of victim under the authority of predatory men, perhaps most notably in Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto and Matthew Lewis’ The Monk. However, Stoker, Rossetti and Carter all at times break with this convention by characterising some of their females as strong, independent and liberated. As writers, they experiment with the characteristic features of the gothic genre, particularly Carter and Rossetti who challenge the traditional conceptions by presenting many of their female characters in dominant, authoritative roles which break convention.

There are occasions in all three texts when the passivity traditionally associated with femininity in the gothic genre can be perceived to be a direct result of oppression from patriarchal figures. In Dracula, Stoker uses a quintessentially gothic scene to portray Lucy being preyed upon by the Count:
“The window blind blew back with the wind that rushed in, and in the aperture of the broken panes there was the head of a great gaunt grey wolf.”
The imagery used here is very typically gothic through its wild portrayal of the weather, followed by the terrifying entrance of Dracula as a wolf. Stoker uses the image of Dracula as a wolf to symbolise Dracula’s dominance over Lucy in this scene. This image is enforced by the description of the wolf’s features as ‘great gaunt grey’, with the alliteration placing emphasis on the powerful, hungry and threatening nature of the wolf. Dracula’s dominance over Lucy is conveyed through the sexually intimidating nature of the act of breaking into Lucy’s bedroom, invading her privacy in order to suck blood from her. Lucy being woken by Dracula breaking in also depicts her passivity in not being to prevent Dracula from entering and so this reflects the idea of Stoker presenting passive women under the oppression of patriarchal figures.
Carter likewise presents the forceful nature of men in victimising women, however there is more of a sense of the cunning nature of men (rather than simply intimidating) in the Marquis luring the narrator figure into becoming a victim of his sexual fantasies:
“His wedding gift, clasped round my throat. A choker of rubies, two inches wide, like an extraordinarily precious slit throat.”
The ruby choker portrayed epitomises the objectification of the narrator, through the fact that in the Marquis’ eyes she is merely an object of his barbaric desires, just as this choker is a symbol of barbarity and domination. The resemblance presented between the ruby choker and a ‘slit throat’ foreshadows the ending and hence the imminent authority the reader will see the Marquis has over the narrator. Furthermore, Carter employs the verb ‘clasped’ in relation to the gift’s hold round her neck to heighten the feeling of sadistic power that the Marquis has over her. Carter then continues the use of images to symbolise the Marquis’ authority over the narrator figure with
Rossetti’s portrayal of male oppression is most clear in Cousin Kate, and there are striking similarities between her presentation of the Lord and the dominant male characters in Dracula and The Bloody Chamber story. Cousin Kate herself is manipulated, used and then cast aside by the Lord as if an object: “He lured me to his palace home… He wore me like a silken knot, He changed me like a glove.” Rossetti employs verbs, such as ‘lured’ and ‘wore’, which allude to manipulation and exploitation. The Lord seems to have total control over her, and Kate seems unable to affect this, which therefore gives the sense that she is a victim under his patriarchal authority. Likewise, she is conveyed as being passive to his actions and the sexual undertones within the language (like ‘changed’ as a reference to virginity) intimate to the sexual power of the Lord. As with the protagonist in The Bloody Chamber story and Lucy in Dracula, Kate is seduced by the material advantages offered by the Lord and perhaps also by his social status, so therefore she does have a hand in her ultimate victimisation. The seduction of the female characters through materialism was also perhaps a reflection of Rossetti and Stoker’s time, where women often could be seen to marry for position and wealth, rather than love.

It can be considered that in some of these texts, the consummation of a sexual relationship as presented by the writers is synonymous with the entrapment of female characters. The women can be seen as victims since they are no longer free to choose their destinies. Carter can be seen to present this form of male dominance in The Bloody Chamber story, where the female narrator is conveyed as being both an object of the Marquis and a victim of his sadistic sexual fantasies. The language used in the first sexual encounter between them highlights the girl as being the Marquis’ object; “He stripped me” and “He kissed me”. This particular sentence structure is used numerous times in this scene, with emphasis placed on ‘he’ (the Marquis) as the subject of the sentence and ‘me’ (the narrator) as the object. Therefore, it can be inferred that the girl is entirely passive under his authority, and by entering into a sexual relationship with him, the narrator has lost her independence in becoming a trapped victim.
Carter further explores this idea of sexual relationships being synonymous with female entrapment and/or male dominance in The Erl-King. The male figure in this story turns the women he is associated with sexually into caged birds;
“How cruel it is, to keep wild birds in cages! But he laughs at me when I say that; laughs, and shows his white, pointed teeth with the spittle gleaming on them.”
Carter portrays male dominance in a relationship here through the trapped, isolated nature of the ‘birds’ (women) and their passivity in not being able to change this. Furthermore, the male character is presented as being authoritative asserting his supremacy by mocking the female character and intimidating her with his ‘white, pointed teeth’. In both stories, Carter places the male character in an intimidating, overtly dominant role where the woman has no say in her status and so is overtly conveyed as a victim. This could be intimated to reflect Carter’s staunch feminist views, in that she felt women were gravely mistreated by daunting male figures in both relationships and society, with women having little choice as to their status.
Rossetti also explores the link between consummation of a sexual relationship and male assertion of authority in Love from the North. The female narrator is presented as losing her independence and freedom by entering into a relationship with the ‘strong man from the north’: “He took me in his strong arms… He made me fast with book and bell.” Similarly to Carter, Rossetti uses sentence structure to convey the male as in control of the woman. This is shown through ‘he’ being the subject and ‘me’ the object of the sentence, with the idea of the narrator being entirely passive under the male’s authority implied, and hence the narrator is presented as losing her independence. Furthermore, the possessive use of the word ‘took’ and the forceful connotations surrounding ‘made’ also suggest that the male is now totally in control of the female narrator, who could now be considered a victim under patriarchy. Rossetti’s exploration of this idea is strikingly similar to Carter’s, with both cases explicitly conveying sexual relationships hindering any chance for female empowerment or freedom.

However, there is an ambivalence surrounding the role of women across these three texts when the writers present women as being victims of their own sexuality. In Dracula, Lucy is initially portrayed as being almost as pure as Mina, with her desire to be married and conform to the traditional, maternal role women occupied in society at the time. Although, her transgressive nature is also apparent and it is this underlying desire to be sexually liberated that can be ultimately linked to her victimisation by the Count, as she assumes a journey from “purity to voluptuous wantonness”:
“Why can’t they let a girl marry three men or as many as want her?”
Lucy’s wish to have several husbands would have been received as strictly blasphemous to a contemporary reader as polyandry was an extremely serious sin at the time. Likewise, her frivolous nature is clear here, and the rhetoric employed conveys her innocence in not recognising the importance of Victorian social standards when describing her desire to break them. Her desire to commit polyandry essentially comes true when she receives the blood transfusions. These transfusions make her symbolically married to all three men (as semen was believed to be in the blood during the Victorian era) and so this scene marks the first of her transgressions.
However, it is her transformation into a vampire which can be considered her largest transgression. It can be considered that her transformation is as a result of her liberated, sexual nature, which can be perceived when she attempts to kiss Arthur:
“And said in a soft voluptuous voice, such as I had never heard from her lips: ‘Arthur! Oh my love, I am so glad you have come! Kiss me!’”
Lucy is transformed into a highly sexualised vampire, with the charged language conveying this. Her ‘soft voluptuous voice’ portrays her carnal nature and the way in which she lures Arthur to kiss her symbolises sexual maturity, in that she is in the dominant role luring him. Lucy elevates herself above Arthur by holding a degree of power over him in her sexuality. Although, she is still a victim by being hunted by the men who wish to kill her, it can be perceived that the men seek to kill her and assert their authority as a result of a fear of this powerful female sexuality which Lucy expresses. Ultimately, her sexuality leads to her being victimised initially by Dracula and then by those who she loved most.
Goblin Market features a similar antithesis in its two central female characters as Dracula does. Whilst Stoker contrasts the ‘pure’ Mina with the sexualised and transgressive Lucy, Rossetti juxtaposes the ‘Christ-like’ Lizzie with the curious, naïve Laura. It quickly becomes clear in the poem that Laura is tempted by the goblins continual, explicit calls of “Come buy, come buy”, even though she knows she should not feel tempted by these calls: “We must not look at goblin men, we must not buy their fruits.” Rossetti uses anaphora to reinforce the illicit nature of the goblins offerings and the importance of resisting enticement. Rossetti further explores the idea of temptation by making it clear that temptation is omnipresent: “Their offers should not charm us, their evil gifts would harm us.” By resisting temptation, strength of character can be shown with the ability for female empowerment. Yet by giving into their calls Laura becomes a victim of her lustful desire under the authority of these goblins, who by some critics were perceived to be symbolic of the worst facets of contemporary men.
After having given into the fruit, Rossetti portrays Laura’s health as rapidly degrading, showing the consequences of exploring illicit, sexual desires in contemporary society. An anecdote is used to symbolise the harsh consequences of giving into lust: “While to this day no grass will grow where she lies low.” Setting is used here somewhat intriguingly to symbolise society’s attitude a woman like Laura. Jeanie’s, who the anecdote is about, grave was corrupted as a consequences of her actions and hence she is essentially branded for her sins. Laura simply becomes a victim because of her desire to explore her sexual boundaries, and by contrasting this type of woman with the purer Lizzie it can be implied that “Rossetti creates an uncomfortable struggle between the consequences of pursing lust and the need to explore natural human desires.” (Erika Andersen) The portrayal of the subsequent implications of Laura taking the fruit reflect the strict Victorian society in which Rossetti lived. A critic named Harrison agrees with this view by asserting that ‘in cultural context, this poem can be read as an extreme instance of Victorian sexual repression’ and hence that Rossetti’s ‘unrelenting attacks upon the indulgence of sexual desire’ were entirely intentional, especially when it is considered how religious she was.

On the face of it, the gothic genre seemingly supports the gender imbalance within society through typically casting males in the dominant or heroic roles. However, the gothic also at times manages to reform these apparently strict gender roles by breaking down the boundaries of society in order to allow women to be presented as liberated from the conventional roles. All three writers explore the liberation of women through reversing the traditional gender roles, presenting women in dominant or inspiring roles, not as victims at all. Stoker reverses the traditional roles associated with sexual acts through placing the female vampires in a predatory role when seducing Jonathan: “This fair girl advanced and bent over me till I could feel the movement of her breath upon me.” This scene contrasts with the scene where Dracula is bent over Lucy later in the novel, and so there is a nice juxtaposition between the gender roles in both instances. The female vampires are in the position of power over Jonathan, who is conveyed as the victim here. The reference to Jonathan feeling their breath upon him is cleverly used in that it heightens the sexual tone and reinforces Jonathan as being under their control, because the female characters are taking the lead in the sexual activity, unlike the norm. The transgressive nature of the three female vampires would certainly have been frowned upon by the majority of the contemporary readers, hence Sos Eltis makes the comment that these women are “monstrous embodiments of Max Nordau’s nymphomanical New Woman”. In other words, these sexualised women would have been perceived as monsters or animals by the patriarchal society.
Stoker reinforces the reversal of gender roles through his use of setting with Dracula’s castle. It is ironically used as it is a class gothic setting, yet neither of the main female characters enter the castle and it is in fact Jonathan who becomes the victim whilst he is in the castle. This use of setting challenges the traditional view of only women being victims, by in fact having women in a position of authority and a male figure presented in the role of victim.
Whilst Stoker perverts the traditional expectation of women as passive victims through the female vampires and choice of setting, Carter goes one step further. From the narrative which gives the woman a voice to her defiance of the Marquis’ orders to not enter the locked room to the feminist ending, Carter totally overthrows male domination and authority.
At the end of the story when the narrator is saved by her mother, she states: “You never saw such a wild things as my mother, her hat seized by the winds and blown out to sea so that her hair was her white mane.” Carter reconstructs the stereotypical male hero into a female one to convey female empowerment and show that women aren’t necessarily reliant on men. This presentation of the mother paints her as an independent, liberated woman through the reference to her being both ‘wild’ and animalistic in her likeness to a lioness (‘mane’). The image created almost symbolises the mother breaking out of the constraints of society, and this free woman is the result.
There is a certain admiration for her mother within the tone of the narrator’s language, especially at the end of the story, and this reinforces Victoria Leslie’s suggestion that the title of The Bloody Chamber is ‘a reference to the womb’. The ending of this story clearly portrays female empowerment in overcoming male authority and breaking out of the role of victim, ‘drawing on the bond of unity between mother and child’. It can be implied that women are victorious in this instance because they realise the value of their bond as women and family, as opposed to the lonely figure of the Marquis.
Carter somehow manages to take the inspiring female empowerment within The Bloody Chamber even further in The Company of Wolves. The girl in this story completely subverts the traditional of a contemporary woman within sexual activity by mocking the wolf’s sexual advances:
“The girl burst out laughing; she knew she was nobody’s meat. She laughed at him full in the face, she ripped off his shirt for him and flung it into the fire…” The female character turns the tables completely by showing a maturity and wisdom (through her awareness of female objectification ‘meat’) unlike any of the wolf’s previous victims. She takes control of the situation, and uses her powerful sexuality to assert authority over him, thus empowering herself. This portrayal of a dominant woman can be likened to the female vampires in Dracula, as in both instances the females almost intimidate their male counterparts into becoming victims under female authority, unlike the inspiring role fulfilled by the mother in The Bloody Chamber.
Throughout many of her poems, Rossetti features female characters in subversive, inspiring roles. Lizzie, from The Goblin Market, is often considered by critics to be a ‘Christ-like’ figure in the poem due to role as Laura’s saviour. The way in which she urgently cautions her sister about the dangers of the fruit, and then goes onto risk her safety to help to cure Laura, paints her as selfless and heroic. Lizzie, unlike Laura, resists temptation in the form of the goblins advances, instead showing determination and courage to save her sister; “At last the evil people, worn out by her resistance, flung back her penny.” Lizzie’s strength of character is displayed here and it is a show of female empowerment through resisting the ‘evil people’, it is this side to Lizzie’s character which Janet Galligani Casey says proves Lizzie is a ‘female Christ’. Through Lizzie’s character, Rossetti is able to convey the idea that women can not only be in control of their own fates, but they can also assume roles traditionally preserved for men (heroic). As a writer, she takes a slightly different approach to Stoker and Carter in presenting women subverting their traditional roles in this poem, although it still has the same effect of displaying female empowerment and uprising against patriarchal figures.
Another poem in which Rossetti explores women subverting their conventional roles is in No, Thank You John, where strength and independence of the female character is achieved through rejection of male advances. The female narrator confidently and emphatically turns down her male suitor: “I never said I loved you, John… I’d rather answer ‘No’ to fifty Johns than answer ‘Yes’ to you.” The narrator’s resolve and independence is conveyed through the hyperbole of ‘fifty Johns’ and the blunt language used to discard her suitor. By presenting an independent and powerful woman, similar to in Carter’s The Company of Wolves and Lizzie in Goblin Market, Rossetti subverts the traditional gothic gender roles, no doubt inspiring the sisterhood in society which Rossetti felt so strongly about.

Stoker, Carter and Rossetti all present women as being victims of patriarchy, subjugation, plain objectification, and even their own sexuality. The way in which female characters are so constantly subjected to being under male authority is indicative of the traditional gender roles within the gothic genre as a whole. Although, the way in which women are presented as independent, inspiring and powerful, breaking out of the role as victims and reconstructing conventional gender roles is just as striking as their shocking subjugation. Ultimately, describing women as constantly in the role of victim should be considered a gross oversight given all that these writers explore. Yet it would not be so unjust to state that women are continually under male authority, that is not to say they are not able to break out of the iron grip of power which men are so frequently portrayed as having.

Word count (including quotations) – 3,421
Word count (excluding quotations) – 2,892