Dracula and Women

I am going to go off of what someone else in the class has written for their blog because I am in complete agreement and had alot of the same ideas. This blog can be found here... http://samjanssen.blogspot.com/ ... When I was reading Dracula by Bram Stoker I was also noticing how he only seems to prey on women. The first time I noticed was when the three women vampires showed up. There is obviously a reason for the use of the number three in the novel as well because it comes up many times. Everything seems to be three or five. i am not quite sure why this yet though. Anyway back to the women. Sam says in their blog, "He is obviously attracted to all these women, since they are all described as beautiful, but is a beautiful woman the only thing he is looking for?" I think that he is looking for more than just beauty, but I think beauty is definitely part of it. Dracula does say, "Yes, I too can love; you yourselves can tell from the past." (pg 43) Dracula says this in response to the three women vampires because they are laughing and saying he can't love. This statement from Dracula seems to suggest that he has been in love before. This makes me think that maybe he is only preying on beautiful women because he wants more than their beauty. He wants their love. The footnote on page 43 suggests that this statement means that Dracula can only have "erotic contact" with humans, not other vampires. This makes me wonder if both Sam and I are wrong in thinking that Dracula is attracted to these women that he changes. If this were true and he can only have erotic contact with human women, why would he change them? Why make Lucy into a vampire if he is attracted to her? I do think that he preys only on women because of sexuality mostly because of the example Sam used about Lucy before and after her change. "She goes from being girlish to voluptuous, a woman to a slut. The men fear her and want to return her to a pure state." I completely agree here. Lucy was seen as being a beautiful, innocent women. Now she is the opposite. "Lucy's eyes in form and colour; but Lucy's eyes unclean and full of hell-fire, instead of the pure, gentle orbs we knew." (pg. 188) There is definitely a reason for Dracula only preying on women. Maybe he wants to show his power over these beautiful women; maybe he wants them; maybe they remind him of the one he once loved and so he thinks they need to lose all humanity. It is hard to say.