The Gothic genre is generally thought to adhere to the title statement of all men being monsters, Manfred in ‘The Castle of Otranto’, Frankenstein and his monster in ‘Frankenstein’, and Ambrosio in ‘The Monk’ being merely some examples. Yet Bram Stoker’s novel ‘Dracula’ actually challenges this assumption. Dracula himself is an unmitigated monster, an unequaled, tyrannous abomination, but he proves to be the only one of his gender, in this novel, that is so. Quincey Morris, Arthur Holmwood, John Seward, Jonathan Harker and Van Helsing are presented as being sent by God to battle evil, and this indeed what they do. It is in fact the women of the novel, in the form of Lucy Westenra, the three lamias, and even Mina Harker for a while, that are monstrous.
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