Sexuality In Literature Essay

Explore the manner in which vampires are used as a guise to discuss sexuality.

Vampires have been a popular figure in literary works for almost 200 years; from John Polidori’s The Vampyre (1819) to Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight (2005), the figure of the vampire has changed and developed over time but still remains popular and recognisable throughout literary history. The figure of the vampire is often used to represent ‘the other’, or as a manifestation of social anxieties at the time of writing. This is why it is interesting to study the how the tropes found within vampire fiction differ between texts, and the reasons behind these differences or transformations in the figure of the vampire. I will look at a range of texts to study how sexuality

is used within vampire literature to attempt to understand how it is used to discuss or criticise society at the time. I will look at sexuality in a broad sense, not only explicit sexuality but apparent lack of sexuality, homosexuality and the subversion of gender roles to try to relate this to the figure of the vampire, and more importantly, how vampires are used to transmit sexual and moral anxieties which are still relevant 200 years on.

Firstly I will look at sexuality and sexual deviancy in vampire literature; vampires are often representative of the manifestation of ‘evil’ in society, they are ‘the other’ and are used to portray undesirable moral characteristics. It is not a surprise, then, that vampires are often written as being sexually deviant- especially female vampires. Women living in Britain in the Victorian era were forced to comply with the ideals of society at the time for their gender, they were supposed to be submissive to their husbands, meek and domesticated, this was known as ‘the angel in the house’, a popular term coined to describe the ‘ideal’ Victorian woman. In gothic literature, women are usually portrayed in one of two ways, as ‘the angel in the house’ or a ‘femme fatale’. Female sexuality was seen as being very deviant and scandalous at the time, women were supposed to be virtuous and virginal, it is obvious, then, that female vampires should be sexual. Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) was written at a very important time, both in the midst of the Victorian era and also at a time of an emergence of a new role for women, the ‘new woman’. The ‘new woman’ was educated, more openly sexual, and sought autonomy from her male counterparts

who had, up until now, constricted her to only one worthwhile role, the role of the mother or ‘the angel in the house’. All of the female characters in Stoker’s novel reflect these three roles. Mina Murray/Harker and Lucy Westenra are examples of the Victorian ideal of the time, both women are virtuous and wish for a domesticated life. They both have elements of the ‘new woman’ about themselves, Mina is an assistant schoolmistress which suggests some financial independence gained through employment, she is also intelligent and Lucy’s beauty is sexualised and there are also hints to her character having sexual desire. We see this in a letter from Lucy to Mina, ‘Why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many want her, and save all this trouble? But this is heresy, and I must not say it.’ (Stoker: 2007: 65). Although she reprimands herself directly afterward, the reader can see that she has sexual desire and not only that but that she feels ashamed of it. Lucy is transformed into a vampire in the novel, and perhaps Mina is spared the same fate as her friend as she is not sexualised in the same way, which is therefore the main threat to the concept of ‘the angel in the house’. Once Lucy is transformed into a vampire, perhaps symbolic of a sexual awakening, she must be destroyed; a metaphor for women in Victorian Britain, a sexually aware woman is worthless, to exist they must be virtuous, once a woman becomes sexually aware she loses her sense of ‘self’. This is comparable to the sexual dynamic that Stephenie Meyer portrays in her novel, Twilight (2005). Edward Cullen, a vampire, falls in love with a human girl, Isabella Swan and the sexual relationship, or lack of, between the two characters has been one of controversy. In Bite Me! (Or Don’t) (2008) Christine Siefert questions whether the series has created a new genre: abstinence porn. Siefert writes, ‘The Twilight books conflate Bella losing her virginity with the loss of other things, including her sense of self and her very life.’ (2008) Edward constantly reminds Bella of the danger she is in when she is around him, ‘“I could kill you quite easily, Bella, simply by accident.”’(Meyer: 2007: 271) Meyer creates a sense of loss or danger around sex, even though this sex would be consensual it is still something that could destroy not only their love, but Bella’s life. Meyer is a Mormon with strict religious beliefs, there are obvious religious undertones from the beginning of the novel as the novel opens with a quote from Genesis, ‘But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.’ (Genesis 2:17) Sex is the temptation, or the apple from the tree of knowledge (which is also alluded to throughout the novel) which Meyer threatens can tear apart their love. Meyer transmits her own ideology throughout the text, about abstinence before marriage in a similar way to Stoker does, but more specifically female sexuality.
Dracula’s three sisters act as a direct representation of female sexuality, we hear from Jonathan Harker on the sisters:
‘All three had brilliant white teeth, that shone like pearls against the ruby of their voluptuous lips. There was something about them that made me uneasy, some longing and at the same time some deadly fear. I felt in my heart a wicked, burning desire that they would kiss me with those red lips.’ (Stoker: 2007: 41)
They are overtly sexualised, ‘pearls’ and ‘ruby’, precious, rare materials are used to describe their beauty. They have bright, white teeth which evoke a sense of fear from Harker, but the sexuality of their red lips creates desire. They are the undesirable women of Victorian society; sexually aware and therefore dangerous to the Victorian ideal. It is interesting that the only women that display power, or pose a real threat to the male characters within this novel are vampires, perhaps what is so terrifying about the emergence of the concept of the ‘new woman’ and female sexual awareness is that it goes hand in hand with emancipation for women, less dependency on men would lead to autonomous self-reliant beings which are here hyperbolised by attributing to them an animal ferocity that could cost Harker not only his power, but his life. The sisters lips are also described as voluptuous, a word that cleverly describes both sexual appeal and a curvaceous figure, a figure that is often attributed to being fertile, and with that motherhood. Sex leads to the conception of a child however this maternal instinct is not felt by the sisters. Here, Stoker suggests to the reader that the sisters do not create children, but they consume them:
‘“Are we to have nothing to-night?” said one of them, with a low laugh, as she pointed to the bag which he had thrown upon the floor, and which moved as though there were some living thing within it. […] If my ears did not deceive me there was a gasp and a low wail, as of a half-smothered child.’ (Stoker: 43)
This is a complete rejection of the Victorian ideal, women’s only role or function in society was to produce children, and with that, be maternal. The sisters reject this ideal, infanticide is the antithesis to ‘the angel in the house’.
In "Kiss Me with those Red Lips": Gender and Inversion in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1984), Christopher Craft writes:
‘Immobilized by the competing imperatives of "wicked desire" and "deadly fear," Harker awaits an erotic fulfilment that entails both the dissolution of the boundaries of the self and the thorough subversion of conventional Victorian gender codes, which constrained the mobility of sexual desire and varieties of genital behaviour by according to the more active male the right and responsibility of vigorous appetite, while requiring the more passive female to "suffer and be still."’ (1984: 108)
In this scene, the women are the pursuer, the active participant, the threat is that they will bite him, a penetration of the skin which also he is sexually excited to receive, yet fearful of at the same time. The women here take on the masculine role, through their transformation they can perform an act of dominance which cannot be achieved in a woman’s natural state as they are constrained by their genitalia to always be the submissive receiver of penetration. They not only embody sexuality, but power- both of which were not permitted for a woman of Victorian Britain.