Sexuality & Inversion in Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Stoker’s serialized novel, Dracula, was written and published in the Victorian period. It was an age dominated by societal constraints and restrictions of expressing individual and sexual desires. Dracula emphasizes the lust and sexuality that was suppressed by most Victorians; their fear of feminine sexuality, the Victorian’s stereotypical attitudes toward sexuality, becomes a prominent theme within the novel as the literary critic, Judith Weissman, suggests (Weissman 69). Stoker created the figure of the vampire as a creature capable of unleashing the characters’ repressed sexual desires. According to Phyllis Roth, author of “Suddenly Sexual Women in Bram Stoker’s Dracula”, Stoker uses vampirism
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as a disguise for the characters to show their “greatly desired and equally strongly feared fantasies” (Roth 59). He imagined Dracula, the villain, as a being who is able to expose the sexual desires and lustful actions that lie dormant within the characters. These erotic and sensual acts presented by the women and confronted by the men of the novel reveal the Victorian fear of sexuality. Before beginning this investigation, one must have a basic understanding of the Victorian era in order to fully grasp the significance of Dracula and the monster persona it has created. There existed a prejudiced view in regards to women and their sexuality in the Victorian era. A common male attitude perceived women as sexless beings. Women were believed to have no sexual appetite that needed to be fulfilled; instead, their only type of desire was to satisfy the male’s needs. According to Dr. William Acton, an influential Victorian doctor whose essays discussed women’s sexuality, “There are many females who never feel any sexual excitement whatsoever. Others, again immediately after each period, do become, to a limited degree, capable of experiencing it; but this capacity is often temporary, and will cease entirely till the next menstrual period. The best mothers, wives, and managers of households, know little or nothing of sexual indulgences. Love of the home, children, and domestic duties are the only passions they feel.” (Acton 180) Essentially, Acton believed that women had little to no sexual desire. They were very simple in terms of sex since they “are not very much troubled by sexual feeling” (Acton 179). However, Acton acknowledged the idea that some women were lustful and contained an appetite for sex, but he saw these as unusual sexual desires that “surpass those of men, and shock public feeling by their exhibition” (Acton 179). Therefore, Acton’s expert opinion states that women did not exercise an interest in their own sexuality, and if they did it would then be a “shock” to the public and their male partner. Many Victorian women were stereotyped. It was believed that they only desired the role of mother, wife, and daughter. Acton’s attitude to women greatly influenced the Victorian’s belief that women possessed no need for sexual gratification. As stated previously, women only sought the role of wife, mother, and daughter.
Lucy is the perfect embodiment of this ideal Victorian persona, though it only lasts for a few pages in the novel. Just as quick as she’s introduced to the reader, Lucy is proposed to by two different men, later a third, and she becomes so ecstatic that she states an unaccepted idea in Victorian society. “Why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble? But this is heresy, and I must not say it” (Stoker 67). “Women in Victorian culture were expected to marry only one man and stay faithful to him as it’s the proper way a woman should behave,” states Juan Daniel in regards to Lucy’s desire (Daniel 1). Essentially, Lucy is stating that she wants to have sex with three different men and for it to be accepted. Instantly, she calls this “heresy,” a belief that is opposite of Christian religion, and retracts her statement because it is not accepted (Stoker 67). Lucy realizes the weight of her words, and so in order to continue the pretense as the “proper” Victorian woman she denies her desire because it is not acceptable. As Hatlen notes, Lucy is admitting to a need for a more sexual state that differs greatly from her virginal state. “But to Stoker’s credit it should be pointed out that he also reveals an awareness that the sexuality which this society has denied will, in some form, return” (Hatlen …show more content…
123). Surprisingly, Lucy’s repressed desire is granted through Dracula and his manipulation of dreams.
Later in the novel, it is made obvious that Dracula is constantly feeding on Lucy, which in turn causes her to lose a significant amount of blood. Van Helsing notices this and performs a blood transfusion on Lucy from three different men, Arthur Holmwood, John Seward, and Van Helsing himself. Van Helsing notices the sexual implication of the blood transfusion stating, “Said he not that the transfusion of his blood to her veins had made her truly his bride…But there was a difficulty, friend John. If so that, then what about the others? Ho, ho! Then this so sweet maid is a polyandrist” (Stoker 158). Van Helsing implies that Lucy is a woman married to more than one man at one time, and he tries to hide this secret from Lucy for it is seen as unacceptable. Previously, Lucy admits to wanting more than one man, but instantaneously disregards such a preposterous idea. And yet, her slow transformation into a vampire and her interaction with Dracula enables her desire to be acted upon in reality. Through Lucy’s sleep and dreams Dracula consumes her blood, and in doing so she is able to make her repressed desire of having more than one man a reality through the blood transfusions. The blood is a substitute for semen because of the penetration. By giving blood to Lucy, the men are penetrating her and forcing their own bodily fluids into her. This allows her to experience multiple sexual
identities as her blood is mixed with blood from three different men, none of whom are her husband, as she remains single. Lucy’s evolution into vampirism further enhances her repressed sexual desires and acts. As a vampire, Lucy’s darkened beauty is constantly remarked within the novel and even by the characters as it is learned that she is feasting on children who refer to her as the “bloofer lady,” the beautiful lady, and whom the children “wanted to play with” (Stoker 209). Through this “bloofer lady” persona, she is regressing from her acceptable desires of matrimony and motherhood that she expressed as a human. In her new vampire form she attacks the children by sucking their blood and has blood transfusions with three different men. Dracula enables Lucy to act upon her repress desires through her alternate vampire form. She is now a more sexually deviant woman capable of satisfying her desire of multiple lovers and want for children. She enacts her sexuality to such an extent that the male protagonists must destroy her, as they cannot face such abrupt versions of sexuality. This is shown in one of the most intensely erotic scenes in the novel. The scene where Lucy is finally captured and killed sexualizes her to the greatest degree. Here, there are four men in her tomb while she is sleeping. Van Helsing, Quincey Morris, and Doctor Seward chant as Arthur Holmwood takes “the stake and hammer” and drives it into Lucy’s heart, another form of penetration (Stoker 230). Holmwood penetrates Lucy repeatedly which alludes to sex. “The body shook and quivered and twisted in wild contortions; the sharp white teeth champed together till the lips were cut, and the mouth was smeared with a crimson foam. But Arthur never faltered” (Stoker 230). The description of Lucy’s body contorting and screaming suggests that she is having an orgasm through Holmwood’s penetration. Even when Holmwood hears her screams and notices the wild movement of her body, he is described as Thor, the god of thunder, as he drives the stake “deeper and deeper” into Lucy (Stoker 230). Again, this presents the image that he is having intercourse with Lucy as he continues to thrust the “stake” into her. The peak of this sexual activity is “the blood from the pierced heart welled and spurted up around it” (Stoker 230). The spurting of Lucy’s blood symbolizes the ejaculation of a man during sex. Once Lucy is dead, Arthur is described as physically exhausted. “The great drops of sweat sprang out on his forehead, and his breath came in broken gasps” (Stoker 231). Again, this description alludes to the impression that Holmwood has had intercourse with Lucy due to his sweaty demeanor and gasps of air. As noted by Christopher Craft in his essay, the “violence against the sexual woman here is intense, sensually imagined, ferocious in its detail” (Craft 182). For becoming a sexual woman, Lucy must be punished by sexual means. Thus, her immediate death is caused by a sexual act of penetration by the man she was to marry before her transformation. Ultimately, Lucy invokes multiple sexual identities as she played the role as pure Victorian woman in her human state, but, as a vampire, she is explicitly sexual and craves for sexuality that is finally fulfilled by Arthur upon her death. Unlike Lucy who transforms from a Victorian woman into a voluptuous vampire, the three vampire sisters are sexual throughout the novel. Rather than experiencing the unconscious dream-like states that Lucy and Mina do, the vampire sisters are conscious and indulge in sex and sexuality. Ultimately, the sisters unleash the dormant sexual desires in the male characters. Jonathan Harker exposes his sexual desires through his interaction with the vampire sisters. For Harker, the vampire sisters represent a surge of female sexuality that the Victorians tried to repress. Instead of becoming disgusted with their overt sexuality, he is excited and yearns to experience pleasure with them. “The fair girl went on her knees, and bent over me, fairly gloating. There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive … Lower and lower went her head as the lips went below the range of my mouth and chin and seemed about to fasten on my throat” (Stoker 45). The first impression of the fair vampire’s actions to Harker is that she is about to perform oral sex. Before her lips fasten on his throat, Harker notes that there was a sense of voluptuousness that he described as “thrilling and repulsive” (Stoker 45). He was both intrigued and disgusted by her sexuality. Yet, he did not stir or show that he was conscious during her physical contact with him; instead he sits there anticipating her next move. “Instead of getting up from the ground… Craft illustrates that Harker’s desire to be penetrated by these women gives him the image of a passive female, that of which is abnormal to Victorian gender codes in which a male is the dominant to the female,” says Joy Mai in her summary of the Craft article (Mai 1). After this sentence, he continues to describe how her head went “lower and lower” which again presents an allusion of oral sex until she suddenly secures her lips on his throat (Stoker 45). Harker does not show disgust or an urge to move away from the touch of the vampire, but rather he stresses a longing for it. His skin is “supersensitive” and his flesh tingles by her touch (Stoker 46). Most importantly, his eyes are closed “in a languorous ecstasy and waited-waited with beating heart” (Stoker 46). Thus, Harker’s unconscious desire to experience a dominant sexual woman overrides his desire to conform to the Victorian culture and be faithful to Mina. He permits the fair vampire woman to continue her sensual acts even though he is aware of his sexual pleasure. He has no desire to stop her. Most interestingly, the fair woman and not the dark vampire women stir up these repressed desires. In essence, the fair woman can symbolize another side or version of the virginal Mina, the sexual Mina that he desires. Though Dracula is classified as a traditional horror text, it is a tale that directly confronts sex and sexuality. Bram Stoker intentionally created this novel to confront the notion that sexuality should not be “watered down” or disguised. It is imperative to discuss the sexual symbolism weaved into this tale to fully understand how sex is tastefully written by Stoker. As his characters are forced to do, sex and sexuality must be confronted head on.
At first glance, Joss Whedon's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," the hour-long TV series which premiered in 1997 and is now in its third season, bears little resemblance to the book which started the vampire craze -- Bram Stoker's Dracula, published a century earlier. And yet, looks can be deceiving. Although the trendy -- and often skimpy -- clothing and bandied about pop-culture references of "Buffy" clearly mark the series as a product of a far different culture than that of the Victorian England of Dracula, the underlying tensions of the two texts are far similar than one might think. Beneath the surface differences in the treatment of their heroines, the two texts converge in similarly problematic anxieties about gender and sexuality.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula includes themes of death, love, and sex. Stoker’s use of empiricism utilizes the idea that everything is happening “now”. The book offers clear insight into who is evil without explicitly saying it. Stoker’s interest in empiricism uses British womanhood as a way to distinguish between good and evil.
Lucy Westerna is the obtuse, innocent, fragile, yet sultry siren of male desire; her aggressive sexual power threatens the Victorian man, making her not quite pure enough of mind or strong enough of will to be saved. On the other hand, Mina Murray Harker is a clever, unadulterated, strong, yet motherly woman, the kind of woman all women should strive to be. Therefore, she is deemed superlative and worthy of salvage. Stoker illustrates Victorian women in what is possibly his own view and most likely the view of most men of his time. There are those women who are to be vehemently desired, yet never acquired, and those who are to be acquired with practical desire.
The passage depicts the unnatural occurrence of the female’s sexual advances, and establishes the link between vampirism and sex that is seen throughout the novel: unlike Mina and Lucy, who are idyllically virtuous and pure, these un-dead women are insatiable and dominant. Stoker takes the fantastic image of the sexual woman to its most extreme manifestation, and suggests that Harker would not only lose his reputation by indulging in these sexual acts, but also his life. The three vampires that Harker encounters in Dracula’s castle are embodiments of the ‘beautiful nightmare’ of the male Victorians; they are representations of everything that the Victorian society states that women should not be – they are sexually aggressive, ‘voluptuous’, and seductive. This sexual proficiency, though appealing, is rebuked and seen to undermine the male dominancy within the patriarchal society, and therefore must be destroyed. The notion that a woman can be both attractive and repulsive is also presented by Angela Carter in The Lady of the House of Love. The character of the countess is presented as both the predator and the prey – the victim and the vixen. Just as the female vampire in Dracula is described as “thrilling and repulsive”, the countess is described as “beautiful and ghastly”. Despite her beauty and “fragility”, the countess
“Dracula, in one aspect, is a novel about the types of Victorian women and the representation of them in Victorian English society” (Humphrey). Through Mina, Lucy and the daughters of Dracula, Stoker symbolizes three different types of woman: the pure, the tempted and the impure. “Although Mina and Lucy possess similar qualities there is striking difference between the two” (Humphrey). Mina is the ideal 19th century Victorian woman; she is chaste, loyal and intelligent. On the other hand, Lucy’s ideal Victorian characteristics began to fade as she transformed from human to vampire and eventually those characteristics disappeared altogether. Lucy no longer embodied the Victorian woman and instead, “the swe...
In Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, Stoker’s use of inverted gender roles allows readers to grasp the sense of obscureness throughout, eventually leading to the reader’s realization that these characters are rather similar to the “monster” which they call Dracula. Despite being in the Victorian era, Stoker’s use of sexuality in the novel contributes to the reasoning of obscureness going against the Victorian morals and values. Throughout the novel the stereotypical roles of the Victorian man and woman are inverted to draw attention to the similarities between Dracula and the characters. Vague to a majority of readers, Bram Stoker uses Dracula as a negative connotation on society being that the values of the Victorian culture are inverted amongst the sexes of characters, thus pointing out the similarities of the characters and the so called “monster” which they call Dracula.
To “be a lady” in Victorian times, women had to repress their “instincts,” meaning that they must not have sex. Lead by the “cult of true womanhood,” which dictated piety, purity and submissiveness in women, females were directed to become almost asexual. Women went into sexuality thinking that it was something not to be talked about, that women were not supposed to have a libido, and that the act of sexual intercourse was not something that they should enjoy.
His main victims, Lucy and Mina, are the best examples of how he expresses these desires. Lucy Westenra is the first victim and the first point of emphasis for Dracula's desire to create in the novel. Once Dracula arrives in Whitby a mysteriousness comes about Lucy. She is sleep walking and seems like she has someplace to go or someone to get to. Mina observes this unusual sleepwalking “Strangely enough, Lucy did not wake; but she got up twice and dressed herself” (Stoker 74). The notion of sleepwalking describes the fact that Dracula is somehow trying to draw Lucy to give in and execute his creative desires. Eventually, Lucy escapes from her room, not seen by Mina and is later found in the middle of a graveyard. This is where Dracula executes his desires and makes Lucy his victim: “There was undoubtedly something, long and black, bending over the half-reclining white figure….I could see a white face and red, gleaming eyes” (79). This mysterious figure is Dracula and his making of vampire Lucy was marked with two hole punctures in her neck. These punctures are made from a bite. This action of biting someone's neck is both aggressive and sexual. A pleasure spot on a human beings body is the neck, it is sensitive to the touch of fingers/lips. It is an arousal technique and it just so happens that this is the common method for Dracula to create his vampires. This is a direct evidence to the unleashing of Dracula`s sexual repressions. Dracula’s desire to create and releasing of sexual repressions is also evident when he victimizes Mina. After Lucy’s death, Dracula goes after Mina and the first major event evident to this is when he makes her drink his blood through his chest. “Her white nightdress was smeared with blood, and a thin stream trickled down the man’s bare breast which was shown by his torn open dress” (242). The notion of blood and Mina being victimized by having to suck
Dracula accentuates the lust for sexuality through the main characters by contrasting it with the fears of the feminine sexuality during the Victorian period. In Victorian society, according to Dr.William Acton, a doctor during the Victorian period argued that a woman was either labelled as innocent and pure, or a wife and mother. If a woman was unable to fit in these precincts, consequently as a result she would be disdained and unfit for society and be classified as a whore (Acton, 180). The categorizing of woman is projected through the “uses the characters of Lucy and Mina as examples of the Victorian ideal of a proper woman, and the “weird sisters” as an example of women who are as bold as to ignore cultural boundaries of sexuality and societal constraints” according to Andrew Crockett from the UC Santa Barbara department of English (Andrew Cro...
In Bram Stoker's Dracula, the most blatant and powerful symbol is blood. He takes the blood that means so much to the believers of this legend and has it represent more than even they could imagine. Blood is the main object associated with vampires and vampirism. From a mythical standpoint, it is the basis of life for the vampires as they feed off of the blood of young, vibrant souls. From a more scientific standpoint blood is what would drip out of the corpse's mouth when family members would dig up their dead kin to check for the dreaded disease. Stoker takes the significance of this symbol and puts his own unique twist to the meaning of blood. He combines the traditional folklore of vampirism and the immense sexual undertones of the Victorian era to create a simply horrific tale which completely confuses the emotions of his readers. Stoker knew bloods importance in vampire history and used the overwhelming symbolism to convey his own personal lust and sexual obsessions. The scenes where Lucy is receiving transfusions; first from Holmwood, then from Seward, and the unforgettable vampire baptism between Dracula and Mina all have these very erotic, sexual feelings associated with them. What makes these so powerful is the combination of violence and sex. As a reader, you know that what Dracula is doing are horrific and wrong, but because they are so sexually described and associated you think you should enjoy them, but you can't. This is the confusion which stoker implements into his readers minds, especially ones of the Victorian era. This is why stoker used blood as the most important symbol in the novel; to create an intense horror that was not just in the words of the book, but in the minds of the reader.
...ny other novels of the time, Stoker’s Dracula purposely highlights the superiority of men, while simultaneously belittling women. After only a few pages of this novel, the reader should understand just how helpless the females become. No matter what the issue or controversy, they are unable to find any sort of solution, successful or not, without the help of the male characters. Stoker even goes as far as almost teasing Mina, by allowing her to aid in the hunt for Dracula, yet giving her trivial duties. Lucy on the other hand creates the novel’s most blatant case for male superiority. She is forced to constantly depend on four men for her survival. All blood transfusions she received were from men and even that could not save her life. Stoker manages to make a bold statement by pinpointing the inferiority of the two female main characters in the novel.
First, readers can tell that Lucy Westenra’s position as a feminine character in this novel is there to support the masculine society. This can be seen through the text and Lucy’s thoughts and by her descriptions of the other characters who are also in the novel. While Lucy is writing letters back and forth with Mina, Lucy starts to represent her womanhood by writing to Mina, “You and I, Mina dear, who are engaged and going to settle down soon soberly into old married women, can despise vanity” (Stoker 78). The expectations of a woman during this time would be for them to settle down, start a family, and to take care of the family and their house. Next, Lucy is very willing and goes out of her way in order to please her husband, Arthur Holmwood. Lucy wrote “I do not know myself if I shall ever speak slang; I do not know if Arthur likes it; as I have never heard him use any as yet” (Stoker 78). In this quote, Lucy is saying that if her husband does not like it that she wil...
Lucy is the Medusa archetype. She is physically attractive, and wins the heart of any man who comes near her (e.g. Arthur, Quincey, Jack, and Van Helsing). Her chief quality is sensual beauty, but her sexual desire is repressed and not allowed to communicate. And yet both the spiritual side and the sexual side are in her, and when the long repressed sexuality finds a vent, it explodes and takes over completely. In other words, she is transformed into the completely voluptuous female vampire precisely because her sexual side of personality had been completely buried by her Victorian education. Her repressed self needs such expression that when Dracula came along, she went out to greet him, and then invited him into the house (by opening her window to the bat). He is her vent for sexual expression.
The “Otherness” Dracula possesses reinforces our own norms and beliefs through his transgression that separates him from society and the polarity to Western norms and ideals makes him an effective device for extorting revulsion and horror. Stoker’s novel employs Gothic tradition, providing “the principle embodiments and evocations of cultural anxieties” from which the very Gothic mood and horror is produced, establishing the baseline used to distinguish the modern vampires, as part of vampire mythology within the Gothic (Botting Aftergothic 280). Differences Between Dracula and Twilight The similarities between the two novels are namely Gothic imagery and theme, but the Gothic mood predominates in Dracula over Twilight and it is this difference that makes Twilight not belong in the vampire canon. Horror is the element that Dracula possesses that Edward does not, and it is crucial in the interplay between transgression and limit.
From the whispers of townsfolk spreading legends and tales of what goes bump in the night to the successful novels, plays and film adaptations, the story of the vampire has remained timeless and admired. One of the main writers responsible for this fame and glory is Bram Stoker with his rendition Dracula, written in 1897. Dracula follows the accounts of Jonathan Harker, Mina Murray, Dr. John Seward, Lucy Westenra, and Dr. Van Helsing, through their journal entries and letters, newspaper articles, and memos. Bram’s vision for Dracula is both terrifying and captivating as the reader follows a small group of men and women led by Dr. Van Helsing through their attempt to retaliate against Count Dracula’s efforts to spread his undead chaos and blood