Bram Stoker'ın Drakula Eserindeki Cinsiyet ve Güç Dinamiklerinin İncelenmesi

Öz

Mevcut çalışmada incelendiği üzere, Bram Stoker'ın Drakula eseri, sosyo-kültürel perspektifler kullanarak Gotik edebiyata bakmanın yeni bir bakış açısıyla cinsiyet ve güç dinamikleri hakkında pek çok bilgi ortaya koymaktadır. 1897'de yayınlanan Drakula, Viktorya dönemindeki cinsellik, cinsiyet rolleri ve hızlı toplumsal değişim nedeniyle değişen güç dengelerini ele almaktadır. Metne gömülü bazı gotik mecazi figürler arasında vampirler, korkunç kadınlar ve perili kaleler vardır. Bunlar, ataerkil kontrol ve modernite hakkındaki daha derin endişeleri sembolize etmek açısından önem taşır. Bu çalışma, Stoker'ın geleneksel kadınlık ideallerinden nasıl uzaklaştığını ve geleneksel normları yıkan kadınları nasıl tasvir ettiğini gösteren Mina Harker ve Lucy Westenra gibi kitaptaki bazı önemli karakterlere odaklanır. Ayrıca Drakula'nın yalnızca fiziksel sınırları bozmakla kalmayıp aynı zamanda kadın/erkek veya zengin/fakir hakkındaki katı ikili düşünceye meydan okuyan anarşiyi nasıl temsil ettiğini de göstermektedir. Buna ek olarak, çağdaş kültürel teorileri uygulayarak metinleri okumaya ilişkin feminist teorileri araştırmaktadır. Böyle bir yaklaşım, Drakula'nın sadece bir korku hikayesinden daha fazlası olduğunu anlamamıza yardımcı olacaktır. Mevcut çalışma, bu türün, devam eden popülaritesine ışık tutarken, her zaman insanın baştan çıkarıcı derecede korkutucu bir deneyim arzusuna nasıl erişebildiğini göstermektedir.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• İngiliz edebiyatı
• gotik
• cinsiyet dinamikleri
• güç yapıları
• Viktorya dönemi kaygıları

Exploring Gender and Power Dynamics in Bram Stroker’s Dracula

Abstract

Bram Stoker’s Dracula, as is examined in this article, reveals a lot about gender and power dynamics through a new way of looking at Gothic literature using socio-cultural perspectives. Published in 1897, Dracula captures Victorian fears on the subject of sexuality, gender roles, and the power that shifts due to rapid social change. There are several gothic tropes embedded within the text such as vampires, monstrous females, and haunted castles which can be taken to symbolize deeper concerns about patriarchal control as well as modernity. This article focuses on some key characters in the book such as Mina Harker and Lucy Westenra who illustrate how Stoker departs from traditional ideals of womanhood and depicts women who break with conventional norms. It also shows how Dracula represents anarchy that not only disrupts physical boundaries but also challenges rigid binary thinking about female/male or rich/poor. In addition to that, it explores feminist theories of reading texts by applying contemporary cultural theories. Such an approach would help us understand why it becomes clear that Dracula is more than just a horror story. The current study shows how this genre has always been able to tap into the human desire for an enticingly frightful experience while still casting light on its continuing popularity.

Keywords

• English literature
• gothic
• gender dynamics
• power structures
• Victorian anxieties

References

1. Arata, S. D. (1990). The occidental tourist: Dracula and the anxiety of reverse colonization. Victorian Studies, 33(4), 621–645. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137272621_1
2. Auerbach, N. (1995). Our vampires, ourselves. University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.1086/495379
3. Cardillo, M. (2022). The legacy of Frankenstein’s creature: Monstrosity and the female grotesque in Mary Shelley, Angela Carter, and Jeanette Winterson.
4. Craft, C. (1984). “Kiss me with those red lips”: Gender and inversion in Dracula. Representations, 8, 107–133. https://doi.org/10.2307/2928560
5. Creed, B. (1993). The monstrous feminine: Film, feminism, psychoanalysis (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203820513
6. Creed, B. (2005). Phallic panic: Film, horror, and the primal uncanny. Melbourne University Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/31.2.125
7. Creed, B. (2019). The monstrous feminine, then and now: Barbara Creed in conversation with Nicholas Chare. In N. Chare (Ed.), Re reading The Monstrous Feminine (pp. 95–105). Routledge.
8. Creed, B., & Chare, N. (2020). The monstrous feminine then and now. Re reading The Monstrous Feminine: Art, film, feminism and psychoanalysis, 95–104.

9. Freud, S. (2003). The uncanny (D. McLintock, Trans.). Penguin. (Original work published 1919). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-19754-5_1
10. Green, S. (2022). Violence and the “Gothic New Woman” in Penny Dreadful. Flinders University Languages Group Online Review, 6(3).
11. Halberstam, J. (1995). Skin shows: Gothic horror and the technology of monsters. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822398073
12. Hurley, K. (1996). The gothic body: Sexuality, materialism, and degeneration at the fin de siècle. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511519161
13. Kostopoulos, S. (2010). Repressive bodies, transgressive bodies: Dracula and the feminine.
14. Moretti, F. (1983). Signs taken for wonders: On the sociology of literary forms. Verso.
15. Owen, L., & Elizabeth, S. (2017). Dracula’s inky shadows: The vampire gothic of writing (Doctoral dissertation, Durham University).
16. Posada, T. (2020). Old monsters, old curses: The new hysterical woman and Penny Dreadful. In Neo Victorian Madness: Rediagnosing Nineteenth Century Mental Illness in Literature and Other Media (pp. 229–251).
17. Pulliam, J. (2010). Monstrous bodies: Femininity and agency in young adult horror fiction (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Louisiana State Univ.
18. Ruiz Rodríguez, M. D. L. O. (2024). Representations of lesbian vampires in Anglophone Gothic narratives: The gaze from the Victorian era to contemporary queer literature.
19. Şentürk, B. S. (2019). A study of monstrous abjection in relation to two Gothic novels (Master’s thesis, Middle East Technical Univ.).
20. Slyter, R. S. (2021). “Mirrors can give us space to imagine…”: Representations of gender and sexuality in BBC’s
21. Dracula (2020) (Master’s thesis, Univ. of Wisconsin–Milwaukee).
22. Smith, A. (2013). Gothic literature. Edinburgh University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780748647439
23. Snoddy, S. (2016). “Man is not truly one, but truly two”: Victorian repression of feminine monsters in the Gothic closet (Doctoral dissertation, Univ. Honors College, Middle Tennessee State Univ.).
24. Souza, V. H. (2020). The terrifying lover: Hammer Films’ Dracula and the implications of its gender relations.
25. Starre, F. S. V. D. (2020). The real world is where the monsters are: The monstrous body in the Victorian fin de siècle Gothic (Master’s thesis).
26. Stoker, B. (1897). Dracula. Archibald Constable and Company.
27. Walden, S. J. (2022). Dracula on film: A psychohistoricist study (Doctoral dissertation, Brunel Univ. London).