Dracula: Situational Irony 1 key example

The irony of Lucy's extreme beauty, even in death, is not lost on Van Helsing, who later remarks on it. The beauty of Lucy's corpse is almost unearthly, marking her as one of the Un-Dead: much later, when Van Helsing arrives at Castle Dracula to destroy the Count's resting place, he sets his eyes on the bodies of three Un-Dead females, similarly beautiful in death—to a dangerous and seductive degree. Though feminine beauty and purity are portrayed as admirable qualities in both Mina and Lucy (while she was still alive), the beauty of the Un-Dead is neither pure nor admirable. At the heart of this situational irony is the juxtaposition of sexuality and chastity, representative of cultural attitudes towards women in England at the time Dracula was written. Lucy cannot be simultaneously virtuous and overtly sexual, for her morality as a woman is connected to her sexual purity. Vampire Lucy is inhuman, immoral, and sexual; human Lucy is portrayed as pretty, but not for the purposes of sexual provocation.