Lucy Westenra is a fictional character in the 1897 novel Dracula by Bram Stoker. She is the 19-year-old daughter of a wealthy family and is Mina Murray's best friend. Early in the story, Arthur Holmwood, John Seward, and Quincey Morris, propose to Lucy on the same day. Despite deep affection for them all, she turns down the latter two and accepts the proposal of her true love, Arthur. Before Lucy can marry, Count Dracula attacks her while she is sleepwalking outside. Her health declines, and Seward enlists the help of his friend and mentor Abraham Van Helsing. Their efforts to cure her fail, and Lucy dies. She returns after her death as a vampire and attacks children, who dub her the "Bloofer Lady". The suitors and Van Helsing eventually corner her into her crypt and destroy her, putting her soul to rest.
Lucy has appeared in most adaptations of Stoker's novel, although they change many aspects of her character. For example, the 1927 stage play swaps her and Mina's names.
Contents
Character history
A 19-year-old "dark-haired woman", Lucy Westenra writes to her friend Mina that she would like to marry all of three of her suitors, so none of them will feel sad. They propose to her on the same day—Arthur Holmwood, the wealthy heir of Lord Godalming; Quincey Morris, a Texan adventurer; and Dr John Seward, a psychiatrist—and she chooses Holmwood. Lucy falls ill, and much to the men's dismay no explanation can be found. Seward summons Dr Abraham Van Helsing from the Netherlands, who deduces that a vampire has been feeding on her. Van Helsing attempts to thwart Dracula by securing the house with garlic blossoms but is unsuccessful when Lucy's mother, whom everyone else has kept ignorant to avoid worrying her, removes it. Their secrecy is in vain for she dies of fright when a large wolf (implied to be controlled by Dracula or the vampire himself in a different shape) attacks her and Lucy while Van Helsing and Seward are absent. Lucy herself is close to death when Van Helsing and Seward visit her with Arthur and Quincy the next morning. However, under the vampire's influence, she becomes even more prone to sleepwalking and is drawn outside, where the Count fatally drains her of blood. In her final moments, her vampiric side emerges and tries to bite Arthur, but Lucy regains her human senses and before dying asks Van Helsing to "guard [Holmwood], and give me peace".
A week after her burial, Lucy rises from the grave as a vampire and attacks children. Van Helsing makes some inferences by the telltale bite marks on their necks, the timing of her death and the start of the attacks. While visiting her tomb after dark, the men encounter her undead corpse feeding on a child. Far from the pure, kind-hearted young woman she was in life, she appears as a predatory temptress. Seward notes this corruption: "Lucy Westenra, but yet how changed. The sweetness was turned to adamantine, heartless cruelty, and the purity to voluptuous wantonness".
Van Helsing repels her attempts to seduce her former fiancé with a crucifix. Her vampire form flees into her tomb as the sun rises. Van Helsing and her suitors open her coffin and drive a wooden stake through her heart, destroying the vampire form and allowing Lucy to rest in peace. To ensure that Dracula will not reclaim her, they fill her mouth with garlic before decapitating her and soldering the lid to her coffin. Lucy's death motivates her suitors and Mina to join forces with Van Helsing and Jonathan Harker in hunting and destroying Dracula.
Historical background
According to Sally Ledger, Lucy "is at first sight an archetype of Victorian femininity" but later shares characteristics with the then-feminist ideal of the New Woman.
Leslie Ann Minot pointed out, in a 2017 essay on Lucy Westenra and other 19th century female characters, that if Dracula is an overt portrayal of a sexualized monster then her attacks on children would then equate to "the sweet Lucy sexually molesting toddlers"; Minot sees this as one reason why the character has received less attention than others. She historicizes the character (and the novel) by placing it against a backdrop of a number of well-publicized cases of molestation and abuse of children by mother figures, particularly in the context of baby farming, citing the case of Margaret Waters. Victorian society had begun to take an interest in the welfare of children, resulting in the Factory and Workshop Act 1891 (54 & 55 Vict. c. 75) and the foundation of the SPCC, which would become the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.
Stoker was well aware of these developments and was close friends with W. T. Stead, the newspaper editor who supported the SPCC, published lurid accounts of child abuse and was himself jailed for the abduction of a 13-year old girl, which he organized as a demonstration. Stoker used newspaper clippings in the novel that are pastiches of the sensationalist writings of Stead and others about child prostitution, in particular Stead's "The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon", and he describes the lower-class victims in much the same way. Their childish talk leads to "bloofer lady" as a child's way of saying "beautiful lady". This "bloofer lady" talks to children and lures them with the promise of riches and games, and after returning, bearing bite marks, they become emaciated and weak and wish to return to the "bloofer lady". All this is described in language similar to that of newspaper reports on procuresses seducing children into prostitution. Minot also called Lucy "a demonic mother-parody, taking nourishment from children instead of giving it".
Her surname is derived from the Westenra family of Ireland, descended from Dutch Protestant settlers of the Van Wassenaer family; Derrick Westenra, 5th Baron Rossmore was a notable figure at the time Dracula was written.
Appearances
On screen
In 1970's Count Yorga, Vampire, a modern retelling of the Dracula story, a woman named Erica Landers (played by Judy Lang) plays a role similar to Lucy, being a good friend to the co-female lead, Donna (who resembles Mina's role), likewise being kind and perky before she is targeted by Yorga and bitten. She experiences erratic behavior after becoming stoic, feeding on her pet kitten, acting violent then seductive to her boyfriend, Paul, and becoming afraid of what she is becoming. Yorga ultimately feeds on Erica a second time, which kills her and transforms her into a vampire and one of his undead brides. Unlike Lucy, however, she survives to the end of the story even after her master is killed.
In Mina and the Count series, Lucy Harper, protagonist's (Mina Harper) sister is based on Lucy.
In Dracula 2000, singer Vitamin C played Lucy Westerman, one of Dracula's vampire victims then brides in 2000 New Orleans. The character shows no similarity to the original character from the book though and is not a modern adaptation of the character since the plot of the movie serves as sequel to original events, which happened in 1897 in London.
In Michael Oblowitz's 2001 movie The Breed, Lucy Westenra, played by Bai Ling, is a wealthy beautiful vampire artist and has a human detective boyfriend.
The 2019 mobile game Castlevania: Grimoire of Souls features the character Lucy Westenra, from the game's plot, who doesn't become a vampire. Instead, she remains untouched by the forces of darkness throughout her goal to aid the player in defeating Dracula. Coincidentally, she ends up associating with Dracula, albeit unknowingly.
Ana Ilic portrayed Lucy in Dracula: The Original Living Vampire (2022). Here, Lucy is an eroticized character who only has a few scenes in the film, such as her being bitten and turned by Dracula. She is just some random victim of Dracula and has no personal connections with any of the main characters of the story.
In the 2022 film The Invitation (loosely based on the novel), Lucy is portrayed by Alana Boden. Here she is portrayed as one of the brides at the wedding and already a vampire. She forms a bond with the protagonist, Evie, and ultimately sacrifices herself so she can escape.
On stage
The first stage production was an adaptation by Stoker himself, performed only once, at the Lyceum Theatre on 18 May 1897 under the title Dracula, or The Undead; Miss Foster played the part of Lucy Westenra.
In the 1924 play Dracula by Hamilton Deane the character is named Lucy Westera and she is already dead in the beginning of the play. In 1927 John L. Balderston revised the play for American audiences and the names of female characters were swapped. What was Lucy character is now named Mina Weston and she is also already dead at the beginning of the play. The Mina character is now named Lucy Seward, Dr Seward's daughter, who falls under Dracula's power but is saved from death at the end of the play. Dorothy Peterson originated the role of Lucy Seward in the Broadway production of the play.
In the Argentinian Drácula, el musical, by Pepe Cibrián and Angel Mahler, Lucy was played by Paola Krum (1991 and 1992), Alejandra Radano (1994), Karina K (1997), Romina Groppo (2000), Georgina Frere (2003), Florencia Benítez (2007), Georgina Reynaldi (2007), Luna Perez Lening (2011).
In The Transylvanian Clockworks by Don Nigro, Lucy was portrayed by Kate Twa.
In Drácula Siglo XXI (2011) by Argentinian composer Pablo Flores Torres, she is played by Gabriela Moya Grgic
In Dracula, The Musical, which opened on Broadway in 2004, Lucy Westenra was played by Kelli O'Hara.
In 2006, Gabrielle Destroismaisons portrayed Lucy in a French Canadian musical production Dracula - Entre l'amour et la mort.
In 2011, Anaïs Delva played the role of Lucy Westenra in the French musical Dracula – L'amour plus fort que la mort.
In 2023, Ailsa Davidson played the role of Lucy Westenra in the National Theatre of Scotland production of Dracula: Mina's Reckoning
In novels
In December, 2010, Simon and Schuster (Gallery Books) released "The Secret History of Elizabeth Tudor, Vampire Slayer" purportedly as told to Lucy Weston.
In comics
Lucy Westenra has several appearances in the Marvel Comics - mostly in retellings of the Dracula story, as compiled by Bram Stoker - and has (with her name occasionally misspelled) an entry in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe.
Lucy is a central character in the WildStorm (later DC) comic, Victorian Undead 2: Sherlock Holmes vs Dracula. In the story, her human fate is the same as in the novel but the story deviates as her betrothed, Arthur Holmwood, helps spirit her body away before Van Helsing, Quincy Morris and Dr Seward can stake her, allowing her to become a vampire. Lucy allies with Dracula and attacks the heroes while overseeing a plague engineered by the Count. Holmes manages to wound her severely in the face with a flare, scarring her. To recover, Lucy betrays Arthur, feeds on and kills him to recover her features. When the hunters arrive at Dracula's hideout, she leads Dracula's Brides to attack the group. However, when two of the brides are killed, she offers a trade by killing the final bride for them in exchange for her life. She flees, but not before apologizing to Johnathan Harker about Mina's death (who, in this rendition, was bitten by Dracula and took her own life by sunlight to avoid becoming a vampire), claiming "she doesn't know what she's missing". The book ends with the vampiric Lucy still at large as the hunters focus on stopping Dracula from murdering the Queen of England.
Radio
In 1938, the CBS radio series The Mercury Theatre on the Air made its debut with Dracula. Lucy appears in the middle of the broadcast as the ill fiancée of Arthur Seward, and it is only later established that she is a victim of Dracula. Elizabeth Farrell performed as Lucy, opposite Orson Welles.