| dc.description.abstract | Anglo-Irish author, Bram Stoker, traveled the American landscape in the late nineteenth century. These travels would have lasting impacts on his novels insofar as he encountered a refreshing creative landscape in America that he could not find in England. His tours of America occurred directly after a period of westward movement, which included arduous journeys for men and women alike. In this Frontier landscape, men and women experienced fluid gender roles, but this freedom only last for a brief time. Influenced by this period and popular culture surrounding the American West, Stoker enabled his American characters to be more flexible in their gender roles. However, the American characters, like Quincey Morris from Dracula, who exist in novels set in an English landscape are severely punished, while the American characters, like Esse from The Shoulder of Shasta, who remain in the American landscape can enjoy their flexible gender roles freely. Stoker allows his characters to exist in a narrow space insofar as overt femininity or masculinity quickly becomes insidious. Although Stoker experiments with allowing his American characters fluidity with their gender roles, he ultimately relegates all of his characters back into their traditional norms, and they are confined in their own gendered boxes. | |
