In order to deconstruct the impression of gender I have taken a societal constructionist attack, as favoured by Judith Butler, who sees gender as a “ making ” or a “ public presentation ” which is enacted by persons in an attempt to conform to societal normatives. Butler takes straight from Michel Foucault who sought to expose the concealed systems of power peculiarly within establishments. His work is focused around the interrelated relationship between power and cognition and how this translates normative societal values through a series of societal discourses. Foucault refutes the impression of a “ natural ” gender and alternatively argues that the relationship between discourse, power and gender is used to render a signifier of societal order by painting certain groups of people as felons or insane. These discourses are so transcribed upon docile, or inactive, organic structures through establishments. The theories of Butler and Foucault have shaped modern constructs of gender and gender and therefore it is of import to observe the differences between modern societal constructionism and Victorian essentialism. Through an apprehension of the dominant positions of essentialism in relation to gender and gender, I hope that I have achieved a better apprehension of the anxiousnesss confronting the population of the clip and how this was taken up by writers and movie shapers likewise.
The birth of the adult females ‘s motion[ 3 ]greatly influenced cultural and societal alteration by seeking to expose patriarchal systems of power and by contending for adult females ‘s equal place in society. A century ago, about all places of power were held by work forces and many adult females were relegated to the domestic domains with small to no entree to higher instruction[ 4 ]. In wide footings being a adult male equated to being a individual, which led to adult females being constructed as non work forces and therefore were viewed as “ Other ”[ 5 ]. It was widely believed that the gender functions of maleness and muliebrity were portion of a natural order, to a great extent based in biological premises. Women ‘s organic structures were seen to be weaker and less capable of difficult labor[ 6 ], whilst their generative variety meats and delicate emotional province was seen to be another ground for why adult females were deemed unfit for work other than home-making, nursing or being a governess. Victorian society was governed by rigorous moral codifications, frequently based within Christian values, which dictated acceptable societal behavior through decency and decorousness. Sex was carefully controlled by merely O.K.ing of the act of sexual intercourse between married, heterosexual, twosomes in the attempt of reproduction. Sexual activity for single adult females was deemed to be socially detrimental and sex between male homosexual twosomes was illegal in both the United Kingdom and the Weimar Republic. However gender is now recognised to be a set of societal features and behaviors, as West & A ; Zimmerman describe it as “ ( … ) an achieved position: that which is constructed through psychological, cultural, and societal agencies. ”[ 7 ].
Butler goes on to province that gender can be seen to be something which we preform[ 8 ]in order to aline ourselves with the normative theoretical account through a series of repeated gendered Acts of the Apostless and behaviors. Here gender works as a concealed system of power where topics preform these Acts of the Apostless frequently without realization and an kernel of “ natural ” gender is achieved, for case hair remotion has become synonymous with muliebrity although it is a cultural, learnt, gendered behavior.
For Butler “ ( … ) gender proves to be performative ( … ) In this sense, gender is ever a making, though non a making by a topic who might be said to pre-exist the title.[ 9 ]“ Through this we gain a more complex impression of gender anxiousness of the Victorian period throughout Dracula, particularly the female characters.
Mina Murray is the most complex of the female characters who best embodies the battle of Victorian adult females. Although she is educated and adept with engineering through her usage of machines, she is a dedicated spouse to her fiance Jonathan Harker. Mina ‘s ability to ground and usage logic save the Crew of Light in their chase of Count Orlock by collating Dr Sewards record player entries and Harker ‘s diary. However, these traits are viewed as male 1s in a female organic structure which implies that for her to make success it must be on male footings. Once bitten by the Count, Mina displays an uncharacteristic show of open gender towards her spouse and when the lamia forces her to imbibe the blood from his thorax[ 10 ]we are led to see this act as a signifier of criminal conversation and promiscuousness. Bing bitten non merely renders Mina more animalistic but besides gives her supernatural qualities of thought transference which enable her to tap into the lamia ‘s ideas and emotions. Mina is finally saved and goes to be become Harker ‘s married woman and the female parent to his kids, therefore reconstructing patriarchal normalcy.
Stoker ‘s conservative position of adult females continues with the intervention of Lucy Westenra. Lucy is a beautiful immature lady of differentiation with three male suers. In her correspondence to Mina, she confides that she loves the attending and that she wishes to could be engaged to all three work forces. This allusion to a potentially aberrant and unfastened gender is penalised by Stoker in doing Lucy the Count ‘s victim. When Lucy is lured from her place by Count Orlock, she walks to Whitby, entirely and in the dark in nil but her nightgown. This barely clothed description alludes to Lucy being a “ adult female of the dark ” , or a cocotte, and Mina comments in her journal that this incident could hold been really detrimental to Lucy ‘s repute[ 11 ]. As Orlock quarries on Lucy over a period of clip, her suers come together with Dr Van Helsing in order to try to salvage her life. Gradually, they all give her blood transfusions which further the impression that Lucy is promiscuous and that her gender is taking the life blood from these work forces[ 12 ]. The courageous work forces fail to salvage Lucy ‘s life and she subsequently expires merely to return as a barbarous, lusting, female lamia. This is foremost noticed by Dr Van Helsing in the newspapers where they describe a “ bloofer lady[ 13 ]“ ( or beautiful lady ) who roams the dark before taking kids. When the Crew find Lucy in the graveyard, she is keeping a kid to her chest. However, alternatively of feeding the kid, she is banqueting on its blood. This minute defines what it is to be unfeminine in Victorian civilization ; by moving in a non-maternal manner in utmost signifier by killing a kid. Lucy is rendered unwomanly as she goes against her natural, gendered, function.
When she catches sight of the work forces nearing her, she calls out to her fiance , Arthur, to run to her[ 14 ]as her weaponries are “ hungry for him ” . Lucy ‘s public show of gender once more likens her to a cocotte and her blood ruddy lips and heaving bosom work to finish this image. The lone manner to halt Lucy is to subject her to the ultimate act of patriarchate ; she is stabbed through the bosom by a phallic object before holding her caput cut off and talk stuffed with Allium sativum in a ceremonial similar to ravish through the usage of titillating description and utmost force. Similarly, the female lamias whom Harker encounters in the Count ‘s palace are forceful with their desires. As they lean over and imperativeness against him, he becomes afraid as their potent gender and yet aroused. The Count intervenes by declaring: “ How daring you touch him, any of you? ( … ) This adult male belongs to me! ( … ) Yes, I excessively can love ( … ) I promise you that when I am done with him you shall snog him at your will[ 15 ]“ before giving the adult females a half stifled kid to banquet on. Stoker plays to a great extent with the naturalist constructs of gender functions here and creates horror by change by reversaling them. Womans who display aggressive gender by diverting from the hegemonic theoretical account are constructed as monsters and perverts who deserve penalty, which works in line with Foucault ‘s theory on pathologies and mental unwellness.
However, there are some evildoings within the novel which concern gender such as the male lamia ‘s ability to make new lamias therefore taking the generative function from adult females. Throughout the novel it is the Count who creates new lamias while the adult females merely banquet on kids but do non make them. Jonathan Harker is portrayed as a sensitive and weak adult male who struggles with the lusting of the three female lamias and who displays emotion when confronted with hard state of affairss. His hair goes white and his skin color turns Greies[ 16 ]when disturbed and he and Dr Van Helsing turn hysterical after killing Lucy ; “ The minute we were entirely in the passenger car he gave manner to a regular tantrum of hysterics ( … ) He laughed boulder clay he cried and I had to pull down the blinds lest anyone should see us and misjudge ; and so he cried boulder clay he laughed once more ; and laughed and cried together, merely as a adult female does ”[ 17 ]. Although this is deemed to be feminine behavior ( note the “ merely as a adult female does ” ) it is non treated as pervert, unlike the adult females. Dr Van Helsing and Dr Seward portray classically educated and important work forces who keeping the operation of the group by giving orders and advice. Stoker ‘s male character besides imposes the Victorian values of muliebrity onto their female opposite numbers and Judgess them consequently. Mina is admired by Van Helsing for her adult male ‘s head and her loyal dedication to Harker ; attributes which he believes do her a good function theoretical account for her future kids. The male characters which subvert hegemonic heterosexualism are Renfield and the Count who both play with impressions of homosexualism although one is pathologised as insane and the other a monster.
Womans in Nosferatu faced the restraining manus of Victorian ethical motives along with new troubles acquired through life in a station war period after World War I ( 1914-1918 ) . The impact of war left the Weimar Republic in a hard state of affairs both economically and socially[ 18 ]. While work forces had been out contending, many adult females had been required to take on male functions in work and in the place. The recruitment of adult females to the work force offered independency and chances which had antecedently been impossible. The quality of adult females ‘s work and the increasing size and force per unit area of the right to vote motion[ 19 ]led to adult females winning the right to vote in 1918 in Britain[ 20 ]and 1919 in Germany. Unfortunately the disagreement between the sexes continued as after the war work forces returned to their occupations, therefore anticipating adult females to travel back into the shadows of domesticity. However, this was impossible for many adult females after being given the chance to portion in public life which was a combative issue, as Anthony Clare argued in his book “ the functions that make work forces procure in their maleness- supplier, defender, accountant, father- are all under assault[ 21 ]“ .
Within Nosferatu, the characters struggle to suit into the universe around them. Hutter ( Harker ) takes the same sensitiveness from the novel and visualises it through his effeminate vesture such as his rippled shirts. He seems to be distant from his married woman Ellen ( Mina ) as in the early scenes he picks her flowers, to observe his escapade into the Carpathians, merely to be reprimanded for killing them. Like Harker, he deals with hard or awful state of affairss in a inactive and emotional manner. When he is afraid in the palace, he hides under the eiderdown and this action is repeated throughout the movie. However, none of the male character in Nosferatu play up to the hegemonic theoretical account of maleness as they do in Dracula. Bulwer ( who is most similar Dr Van Helsing ) is a Doctor of nature and therefore his cognition of workss and natural orders are useless against the unnatural monster of the lamia. Orlok is non the imposing, virile, lamia of the novel. Alternatively he is hunched and carnal like, emerging from the shadows. Indeed the lone scenes in which he appears to be genuinely endangering are aboard the ship through a series of collages where we can see the devastation that he can do. These sequences are far more elaborate than in the novel and aid to make a sense of predicting as does the “ disease ” which the townsfolk are frightened of.
The adult females in the movie differ well from those in the novel. Ellen, who is most similar to Mina, is the dedicated married woman to Hutter. In the gap scenes of the movie she comes across as aloof and cold with small look and small motion. She retains a deep affinity of nature ( she likes animate beings and is upset that Hutter picked the flowers ) and senses her hubby ‘s hurt. However, it is non Hutter who responds to her calls as one time Orlok has seen her image in Hutter ‘s locket he seems able to tap into her ideas and yearnings. When Ellen calls out for Hutter in the dark, it is Orlok who responds through a series of shootings which let their gaze meet. When Ellen sits with her friend Ruth ( Lucy ) she says that she “ must travel to him ” but we are left wondering who she means. This extramarital scene concepts Orlok as Hutter ‘s darker, more unsafe, dual who could be stand foring her pent-up desires[ 22 ]. This once more draws on Freud ‘s theories of pent-up desires taking to mental unwellness and deviancy. In the terminal it is Ellen who must salvage the town from the lamia as none of the work forces seem capable and most of them are trailing after Knock ( Renfield ) .
In this minute, Ellen preforms her female responsibility of forfeit in order to salvage her hubby ( whom she has diverted to safety ) and the people of the town. Unlike Lucy ‘s barbarian decease, Ellen wilts as the air current runs through her sleeping room and blows out a taper. It seems that for Murnau, adult females were still to make full traditional functions of altruistic married womans and lovers.
The function of gender within Dracula and Nosferatu is conveyed through the act of vampirism. Vampires by their nature are polymorphou[ 23 ]s in footings of gender and this androgyny was improbably endangering to Victorian and post-war society. Particularly because of the societal illegibility of homosexualism which likens people to animate beings. The count can transform into a Canis familiaris or chiropteran and his palace is infested with rats. Renfield eats insects in his cell room[ 24 ]whilst being described in animalistic footings. Even the female victims are tainted with the “ disease ” in the description of Lucy ‘s dentitions turning long and crisp[ 25 ]like an animate beings after the Count has drawn all of her blood. This statement is peculiarly affecting because at the clip homosexualism was under the same jurisprudence as bestiality. In fact, the word buggery, which in English refers to anal intercourse, descends from the German term for bestiality. Hence homosexualism becomes a societal degeneration which turns worlds into animate beings. This runs through into Nosferatu as Orlok has pointed, crisp, rodent characteristics and his lone comrades in the palace are the rats. However, in Nosferatu, we are cognizant of the intense solitariness of the lamia, as he is ostracised from the community, which is a contemplation on the societal conditions of the clip for homosexual work forces[ 26 ]. Homosexuality in Nosferatu is non conveyed to be as a unsafe or endangering as it is in the book. When Hutter cuts his finger at the dinner tabular array, Orlok moves over to him and looks at the blood with intense desire but does non harm him. Orlok ‘s yearning for Ellen besides suggests the desire to be free from sexual restraints as does Ellen ‘s relationship with him.
The building of homosexualism as a offense or as a mark of mental unwellness is something which Michel Foucault wrote extensively about. For Foucault, gender has been turned into a discourse[ 27 ]through the act of confession. Sexuality becomes a manner of power employed by establishments in order to command docile, or inactive organic structures. Power is inscribed onto these organic structures through discourses, such as constructs of gender, in the effort to build a “ natural ” gender or so a “ natural ” organic structure. Judith Butler goes on to state that the stiff prescription of heterosexualism in a tool of patriarchate. These constructs are seeable in both mediums ; through the usage of offense and insanity within Dracula and through the intense solitariness and contagious disease felt within Nosferatu.
Vampirism besides suggests the act of sexual intercourse itself for the Count in Dracula can non interrupt into a house, he must be invited in through an unfastened window or door. Such as when he transforms into a chiropteran and knocks against Lucy ‘s window. This suggests a consensual nature to the proceedings and the exchange of bodily fluids furthers this comparing. Once the Count has prayed on his victim they are describe as being “ flushed ” and healthy looking. In Nosferatu we are cognizant of the consensual nature between Orlok and Ellen as the collage directs their gazes towards each other.
However, one time bitten by the Count, the female victims turn into hungry enchantresss who seek out their following victim by scoring them. This heightened sense of gender is portrayed as highly negative and unsafe where the lone solution is to viciously slay them by recovering patriarchal control of their organic structures. As antecedently mentioned, Lucy ‘s coquettish behavior with her three suers is badly punished by Stoker and this is grounded in a Victorian fright of the reverberations of liberated female gender. Female gender was seen as insatiate if let loose and so constructed as a moral state of affairs ; adult females should merely kip with their hubbies on their footings.
