The three female vampires who inhabit the remotest regions of Count Dracula’s castle are of great importance to the narrative. Stoker’s depiction of them could be seen as embodying Victorian worst nightmares regarding femininity. Jonathan Harker’s reactions after his encounter with them also convey the anxieties of the late nineteenth century regarding the feminization of men.

Female gender identities were narrowly defined in Victorian society. Women were generally considered to be of two types, either the loving wife and mother, or the fallen woman. The female vampires, or ‘strange sisters’ as Harker calls them, referring to the three witches of macbeth – could be considered an exaggerated literary equivalent of these fallen women. With their “gleaming white teeth” (p.37) and “voluptuous lips” (p.37), they are portrayed as overtly sexual beings. Her appearance and demeanor contrast sharply with that of Jonathan’s fiancée, the virtuous Mina, whom he describes as having “nothing in common” (p.53) with female vampires.

During their seduction, Jonathan’s reactions to the strange sisters are decidedly ambivalent: “There was a deliberate voluptuousness that was both exciting and repulsive” (p. 38). He finds them in a faraway chamber of Dracula’s castle while in an ambiguous state of consciousness, a common motif in Gothic literature: “I guess I must have fallen asleep; I hope so, but I’m afraid, because everything that followed was surprisingly real” (p. 37). Viewed from within a Victorian context, Harker is portrayed in a somewhat feminized position, with gender roles reversed, in that he is a man seduced by women, when in 19th century society men were expected to assume the role of seducer.

It is arguable that the actions of the female vampires in their seduction of Harker represent new anxieties about the rise of the New Woman. The New Woman was a type of woman who challenged prevailing Victorian notions of femininity. Although Mina could be considered a New Woman, with the financial independence she gained from her having a career before marriage, she speaks disparagingly of this class of women. Regarding her attitudes toward marriage, she states that “I guess the New Woman won’t deign to accept it in the future; she’ll propose it herself” (p. 89). It would seem that in Harker’s seduction of her, vampire women could be considered New Women in light of Mina’s comments.

In the context of Gothic literature, Stoker confronts various conventions, one of them through the role of Jonathan Harker in Dracula’s castle. In the gothic novels of the eighteenth century, such as the influence of Ann Radcliffe The mysteries of Udolph, is a young woman, of a ‘trembling sensibility’ and very prone to fainting, who finds herself trapped in a remote castle and at the mercy of male predators. In dracula Stoker has subverted convention by having a male character in this role, a detail cemented by Harker’s reaction to his grisly encounter with female vampires: “horror seized me and I fell unconscious” (p. 39). He is a man who assumes the role typically occupied by women in gothic narrative.

Mina’s role as a new woman is further supported during her encounter with the strange sisters much later in the story. Female vampires are shown beckoning to Mina, referring to her as “sister” in her invitation to join her ranks.

Jonathan’s “agony of delicious anticipation” (p. 38) when seduced by vampires is echoed in Van Helsing’s own anxieties when staking undead women. He also notes the sexual appeal of women in similar tones to Harker: “She was so beautiful to look at, so radiantly beautiful, so exquisitely voluptuous” (p. 370). If Victorian masculinity could be undermined by the threat posed by sexually attractive women, then Van Helsing’s bet on female vampires could be seen as a reaffirmation of male patriarchy.