Category: Dracula

A continuous theme in Dracula is marriage and the gaining of status following it, starting with letters between Mina and Lucy. Their correspondence takes the reader back to the novel’s starting moment, giving us another angle into the lives of these characters, then tangled together with the main Gothic storyline through the plot’s development (McCrea 254). But even before these plotlines started to connect, Mina’s and Lucy’s journey in courting and marriage consciously mirrored Jonathan’s experience in Dracula’s castle. As remarked above, his life reflects the expected lifestyle of married Victorian women as Mina mentioned in her letters, but the similarity doesn’t end there. Lucy starts with three men who seek her hand in marriage, mirrored by Jonathan being sexually pursued by the three vampire women. They’re both the object of desire for the other sex that’s superior to them in crucial aspects and both desire pleasures that were queer from Western society’s standard. But while Jonathan escaped the threat of vampirism thanks to Dracula (technically his fourth pursuer) saving him, Lucy’s four ‘saviors’ were unable to combat the transformation wrought by Dracula’s infectious Otherness. Going back to Mina’s assault where she was forced to drink Dracula’s blood, Jonathan acted (or not) as the voyeuristic party, whose wife was being taken by another man. His “face flushed and breathing heavily”(c.21) while watching, a striking semblance of Lucy’s “long, heavy gasps” after being bitten. The differing factor that decided these two’s fate lies in the act of consummation, acting as the seal for marriage in the Empire’s law. Harker retains his ‘virginity’ as he never exchanges bodily fluids with any vampires, therefore his blood is still pure from the Other’s contamination. But Lucy has been bitten several times: she’s heavily contaminated and must be punished becoming “a temptress, as beautiful and irresistible as Dracula’s wife” (Yu 9). She now poses a threat against the men in her life, against the purity of the English bloodline, and the traditional structure of heterosexual sex inside marriage.

Dracula’s power expands the undesirable parts of his victim’s personality to a monstrous magnitude, which causes some kind of social ostracisation thus making them more vulnerable to his next attack. Lucy’s initial desire for polygamy and Mina’s aptitude for working mark them as different versions of the New Woman, another anxiety against traditional Victorians’ values. Mina carries the outward signs of the New Woman, earning her living being a schoolmistress and having out-of-the-house skills such as shorthand and typing, but inwardly she holds the traditional values of heterosexual marriage. Mina is entirely devoted to her future husband and only hopes her expertise can be useful to him, without any desire to make a career on her own. Further in the story, her skills and extreme dedication to creating a chronological flow of information were of acute usefulness to keep the vampire-fighting crew up-to-date. Even Van Helsing had to comment on her work drive: “She has man’s brain, a brain that a man should have were he much gifted”(c.18) But this power only comes after her fusion with Dracula, meaning she’s also contaminated like Lucy. Instead of heightening her sexuality, Mina is made masculine in her drive for work that’s, turning her monstrous in the eyes of Western civilization.

Au contraire, Lucy’s outward appearance is the perfect picture of Victorian womanhood, young and vivacious with eyes only for romantic prospects. However, her inner inclination for polygamy aligns with the New Woman’s position in accepting and experiencing sexual freedom. Despite their mentioned deviancy, both these women are virtually flawless before their exposure to the Count. Dracula’s influence brings out what’s already inside these women that is unacceptable and unwomanly, and amplifies it through mixing his Other blood with them, i.e. claiming their sexuality and turning them into one of his own. These two women who were the “epitome of Victorian womanhood” have the seeds for monstrosity alone, and exposure to Dracula is their booster to being unhinged. Alongside children and the mentally ill (including homosexuals), women were considered easily disturbed and vulnerable by Victorian society. Any exposure to unclean material can unbalance these groups, like being in contact with ‘primitive’ foreigners.

The Crew of Light’s endeavor to cleanse Lucy’s vein of Dracula’s blood shows the lengths that British society will go to to protect the pureness of its bloodline. Her body is a metaphorical battlefield between the heterosexual, traditional Western values against Dracula’s queer, exotic Eastern invasion, as her last name Western-a suggested. War and sex’s goal is the same: to guarantee the continuation of their race in the future. Whoever wins gains the right to reproduce (whether through forced or willing copulation) and the means to keep reproducing. The Crew of Light’s first attempt to save Lucy is assisted by Van Helsing’s knowledge, reminiscent of the binary between the advanced Occidental and primitive Oriental. To place their trust in technology is to trust in the supposed superiority of the West’s civilization. But by mixing their blood with Lucy they create a sort of polygamous marriage, admitted by Van Helsing himself: “Then this so sweet maid is a polyandrist, and me, with my poor wife dead to me, but alive by Church’s law, though no wits, all gone, even I, who am faithful husband to this now-no-wife, am bigamist.”(c.13) However, Helsing and all the men who transmitted their blood failed to consider the fact that their blood is also mixing with the other men, insinuating a queer circumstance, not unlike an orgy. It makes them more similar to the Other they’re fighting against in terms of the marriage model. The crew’s failure to reclaim Lucy then symbolizes their inferior sexual prowess to Dracula, who is Lucy’s first husband by blood. Considering the vampire as a foreign threat to the British Empire, this defeat means it’s impossible to save a bloodline that has been made impure by foreign contaminants even with progressive knowledge. On the assumption that vampirism is a substitution for his own homosexual identity, Stoker could be showing how one’s natural desires can not be suppressed or fixed no matter how advanced the method is.

Either way, this failed ritual of war and sex signals drives the men to kill Lucy for good. They attacked her when she’s most vulnerable: “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[…] Arthur[…] driving deeper and deeper the mercy-bearing stake, whilst the blood from the pierced heart welled and spurted up around it.”(c.16) At first glance, Lucy’s final death scene appeared with extreme violence, her corpse shook in exaggerated pain while being mutilated heartlessly. Yet the actual signs she displayed show an orgasm of the highest pleasure, while she was penetrated repeatedly by her husband with a hard, phallic-shaped object. Again war and sex are presented as two sides of the same coin. The climax of the struggle is a battle and a rape where the land as Lucy’s sexuality is reclaimed by force. The brute strength given by the Other Dracula was inferior to Arthur’s; the phallic teeth of vampires are no match in size for an authentic English stake. If penetration by Dracula causes her to “[breathe] in long, heavy gasps, as though striving to get her lungs full at every breath”, then the excessive twisting of Lucy’s corpse proves the superior prowess of the Western man.

Dracula’s death corresponded to Lucy’s by cause of stabbing, where “the sweep and flash of Jonathan’s great knife[…] shear through the throat; whilst at the same moment Mr. Morris’s bowie knife plunged into the heart.”(c.27) Although Stoker probably could not display the violent and erotic contortions of Dracula’s corpse-like Lucy’s in fear of crumbling to the same fate as Wilde’s, the subtext from being forcefully inserted with phallic objects by two men still comes through perfectly. It’s a reenacting of Lucy’s rape as an act of war, this time right in the enemy’s heart. Returning to Dracula’s declaration of keeping these men as his ‘jackals’ (c.23), it’s also a reversal scene of his threat where they’re vampirized and made into slaves. This final fight not only re-established the superiority of Western land but also effectively ended any chance of future invasion, as the enemy was no longer able to generate offspring. The death of Dracula returns him to the original Orientalism mode for Eastern men: impotence, inclined to homosexuality, and naturally inferior.

Transgression of any kind brings disturbance to whatever regulations it inhabits, and queerness is not an exception. Ultimately the Crew of Light’s goal is to restore and protect the traditional institution of Western marriage, and through that reinvigorate the declining English race. But to achieve that they resort to methods that symbolized rape, polygamy, and homosexuality; all of those actions defy the marriage model that they all upheld and are morally corrupted under the eye of their law. By fighting Dracula and being in his proximity they’ve been infected by his Otherness. The source might be destroyed, but the contamination continues to spread out in bits and pieces. Let us remember that at the very end of Dracula, little Quincy Harker carries Mina’s, Jonathan’s, and Dracula’s bloodline in his supposedly legitimate veins(Arata 643). Is it a warning of the Other’s unstoppable spreading, or is it a continuous fear of the collapsing British nation even after all the evasions to subsidize its society?

Dracula, a novel by Bram Stroker, is currently still known for being one of the most successful novels in literary history. No other novels have been subjected to the popularity of transforming into a movie as much as Dracula (1897). The book Dracula has been made into various film productions that remain to serve justice to the author of the original work.

Because of the expense, it takes to create a film, it creates difficult for a novel to be reproduced into a movie. The length of a book must be compacted into a reasonable time limit, typically one to two hours. Because the novel needs to be compacted, there are factors missing from the movie that are essential to the storyline, such as important characters or events. But one true issue of a novel-based motion picture is a fabrication. The producers either add or eliminate an event or character which would change the actual storyline to conserve the visual appeal, which changes the author’s work.

In 1922 the first motion picture based off Bram Stoker’s Dracula is Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s Nosferatu: Eine Symphonie des Grauens (The Symphony of Horror) was released. Nosfratu is known as the first novel-based movie of Bram Stoker’s vampire story Dracula. Film historians of the genre consider it to be the father film and Holy Grail of all Dracula reproductions. Nosferatu is seen as the most influential but most unfortunate at the same time, because of legal restrictions the film was released but taken from the public for about 50 years. The producer of Prana Films used content straight from the novel without using any copyright authorization from Bram Stoker. This caused a lawsuit in which the court was on Bram Stoker’s side, therefore, causing the takedown of the classic film.

Prana Films argued that the film was different from the novel because the movie altered the setting, plot, and names of all the main characters. As opposed to the novel’s plot of the destruction of Dracula, the film focused its plot to problems all caused over a woman.

The setting and the characters of the novel are additionally changed by the substance of the first content. The timeframe slides from the late 1890s to the late 1830s, in this manner killing the whole thought of the significance of the Industrial Revolution. The film is set in Germany and Bremen rather than London and Transylvania. The names of the heroes are additionally manufactured. Dracula is marvelously played by Max Schreck. Murnau’s Orlock is the main screen rendition of Dracula that catches the basic awfulness that Stoker planned. As depicted by David Skal in his book, The Monster Show: ‘without precedent for the film, obtusely superimposed the human and the creature to make a picture of overpowering fear’ (Skal 48). Mina who is currently Ellen (Nina is used in certain translations) is played by Greda Schroder, the Professor depicted by John Gottowt is a subordinate of Van Helsing, Harker is played by Gustav Von Wagenheim and is presently known as Hutter, lastly, the tally’s accessory is currently alluded to as Knock, which is a bending of Renfield, is played by Alexander Granach.

The victim of the first assault in Murnau’s film is Hutter. Dracula never assaults Harker in the novel, rather Dracula’s vampire ladies coordinate the underlying assault on Harker. The assault comes after Hutter slashes his finger on a blade while endeavoring to cut himself a bit of bread. Hutter is the check’s first injured individual and Ellen, his better half, is the last. The vampire’s assault on Lucy, who is available in the film yet effectively wedded and of no genuine noteworthiness, is killed from Murnau’s rendition.

These real contrasts from the novel to the film simply depicted exceed the similarities in the 1922 film. In spite of the fact that the similitudes are not many, they are exact. Similarly as depicted in the content, the carriage driver that vehicles Hutter from the Borgo Pass to the château is the check. While looking through the substance of the manor, Hutter finds the vampire in the pine box. The transportation of Orlock and his earth boxes (despite the fact that the quantity of boxes reduces in amount) on the Demeter is likewise precise.

The second adjustment to Stoker’s novel is Universal Picture’s Dracula. The executive, Tod Browning, and the screenplay producer, Garret Fort, put together this realistic adjustment with respect to Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston’s stage adjustment of Bram Stoker’s novel. Discharged in 1931, Tod Browning’s Dracula is the primary vampire sound film and the most acclaimed of the class. The prominence of the film is due to Bela Lugosi’s elucidation of Count Dracula. With his valid Balkan pronunciation and his evil appearance, Lugosi’s Dracula caught pop culture’s creative energy of what a bona fide vampire is. The iconography of Dracula’s physical appearance and character is an immediate consequence of Lugosi’s depiction of the vampire.

In 1930, Universal Pictures purchased the rights to Dracula from Florence Stoker, Stoker’s widow, for the quantity of $40,000. The business enterprise’s producer, Carl Laemmle Jr., initially meant Dracula to be a huge financial film after witnessing the fulfillment of the theatrical production. Due to economic regulations, in large part because of the stock market crash, Laemmle became cautious of overspending and decided to base the movie on the Deane/Balderston play rather than direct content material from the radical. Except for the elaborate stage units built for the movie, the relaxation of production changed into finished under very tight budget restrictions. The entire forge became set, including Helen Chandler (Mina), David Manners (Harker), Dwight Frye (Renfeild), Edward Von Sloan (Van Helsing), and Francis Dade (Lucy), except the most essential player in the movie, Dracula.

After numerous contemplations and following the passing of Carmelizing’s first decision for the film, Lon Chaney Jr., General gotten the obscure Bela Lugosi, in the job he appeared to be bound to play, for a small amount of the cost paid to the less significant characters ($500 a week contrasted with the $3,500 they paid Manner in a progressively subordinate job). As flawlessly expressed by David Skal in Hollywood Gothic, ‘Lugosi marked, in ink, not understanding he had made an agreement in blood’ (Skal 125). This is valid because of the way that subsequent to the beginning as Dracula, Lugosi was pigeonholed and stereotyped as just having the capacity to play Dracula. Lugosi would play Dracula till his passing and was really covered in one of his capes. Dracula was an amazing achievement and increased global recognition with the reflected accomplishment of the Spanish rendition recorded at the same time with the Sautéing form. All inclusive’s benefits expanded significantly because of the staggering accomplishment of the film and as per James Holte, creator of Dracula In obscurity, ‘Dracula may have spared Widespread Pictures from chapter 11’ (Holte 38).

After many considerations and following the death of Browning’s first choice for the film, Lon Chaney Jr., Universal contracted the unknown Bela Lugosi, in the role he seemed destined to play, for a fraction of the cost paid to the less important characters ($500 a week compared to the $3,500 they paid Manners in a more subordinate role). As perfectly stated by David Skal in Hollywood Gothic, “Lugosi signed, in ink, not realizing he had made a pact in blood” (Skal 125). This is true due to the fact that after starting as Dracula, Lugosi was typecast and stereotyped as only being able to play Dracula. Lugosi would play Dracula till his death and be actually buried in one of his capes. Dracula was a phenomenal success and gained international praise with the mirrored success of the Spanish version filmed simultaneously with the Browning version. Universal’s profits increased dramatically due to the overwhelming success of the film and according to James Holte, author of Dracula in the Dark, “Dracula may have saved Universal Pictures from bankruptcy” (Holte 38).

Tod Browning’s Dracula opens just as it does in the novel. Stoker’s initial plot is respected with a young, ambitious solicitor traveling from London to Transylvania to finalize the purchase of Carfax Abbey to an aristocratic count named Dracula. But unlike the contents of the novel, the young solicitor is substituted. In Browning’s version, it is R.M. Renfield, not Jonathan Harker that is picked up at the Borgo Pass. The initial introduction of Renfield to Count Dracula is slightly varied but accurate. They exchange dialogue similar to the novel during which, in one instance, Dracula utters one of his most famous lines, “Listen to them- the children of the night. What music they make!” (Stoker 19). As Dracula leads Renfield to his quarters, Dracula walks through a giant spider web leaving his guest paralyzed with disbelief. This is one of the few examples in which Browning depicts Dracula’s Supernatural powers.

After reviewing the documents concerning his real estate purchase, Dracula offers his guest nourishment to replenish the energy lost during his journey. Then in a scene reminiscent of Murnau’s film, Renfield suffers a paper cut at the table. Upon seeing the abrasion, Dracula advances toward Renfield but is repelled by his guest’s crucifix. The crucifix was given to Renfield by a native woman at the inn to which she accompanies with, “for your mother’s sake” (Stoker 5), as is described in Stoker’s tale. After drinking the wine offered to him by his host, our protagonist falls unconscious and is approached by Dracula’s brides. As the women advance, Dracula appears and prevents their intentions with a slight hand gesture, this eliminating the dialogue exchange in Stoker’s novel. Browning takes the sequence of events described above, which occur throughout several entries in Harker’s journal, but Murnau compacts them all into one night.

Upon reaching London, Browning deviates from Stoker’s text and continues the film utilizing the Deane/ Balderston play script. Unlike the novel, Dracula’s first victim in London is a flower girl in the streets, not Lucy. Dracula then enters the theatre and introduces himself to Dr. Seward, who in turn, introduces the count to his daughter, Mina, Lucy Weston, and Mina’s fiancé, Harker. This interaction thus eliminates Dr. Seward as one of Lucy’s potential suitors along with the other two, Holmwood and Morris, which are completely stricken from the script. Again we witness the restrictions that Browning suffered as described in The Celluloid Vampires: “Characters have been eliminated, apparently for the sole purpose of holding down expenses”(Murphy 18). Turning Dr. Seward into Mina’s father in the film is also a perversion of Stoker’s dialogue.

Dracula’s introduction and incorporation at the theatre prove costly as Lucy pays with her life. He next sets his intentions on Mina after insinuating himself as a frequent visitor in the Seward estate. Baffled by the occurrences and ailments surrounding his daughter, Dr. Seward seeks the experience of his colleague, Prof. Van Helsing. As quickly as he is introduced, Van Helsing attributes the occurrences to the malicious work of a vampire. The sage professor exposes Dracula’s identity after utilizing a mirrored box, to which Dracula casts no reflection. Mina at this point is coming into the final stages of her transformation and is abducted by Dracula. The vampire flees but is followed by Van Helsing, Harker, and also Renfield. Unlike Stoker’s novel, Browning’s climatic conclusion is set in Carfax Abbey, not in Dracula’s Transylvanian castle. After kidnapping Mina, he murders Renfield for transgressing against him and seeks refuge in his coffin as the sun rises. Van Helsing discovers Dracula’s resting place and impales the vampire with a stake through the heart. This action completely eradicates Harker’s participation in the destruction of the vampire as described in Mina’s last entry in her journal. She writes, “But, on the instant, came a sweep and flash of Jonathan’s great knife. I shrieked as I saw it shear through the throat” (Stoker 378). Browning takes an unorthodox approach and portrays Dracula’s destruction off-screen. The final scene of Universal Picture’s Dracula is Mina and Harker, nested in each other’s embrace, ascending the grand steps of Carfax Abbey.

The final installment of the Dracula Trilogy based on Bram Stoker’s novel is Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Coppola’s film actually was set to be released with an alternate title, in The Vampire Film: From Nosferatu to Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the two authors add: “ Originally entitled Dracula: The Untold Story ” (Silver, Ursini 155). With a screenplay by James V. Hart, the film was released in 1992 and was the winner of three Academy Awards for best make-up, best sound effects editing, and best costume design. Coppola’s film is supported by an all-star cast that includes Gary Oldman (Dracula), Winona Ryder (Mina), Anthony Hopkins (Van Helsing), and Keanu Reeves (Harker). It is the most expensive vampire movie ever produced and also the most loyal in elements of literary accuracy.

Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula is considered the most important interpretation of Stoker’s novel since the late 1970s. The film was highly successful and grossed more than $ 32 million dollars. When asked by the producer why remake Dracula when its be done countless times, Hart responded, “Because the real Dracula has never been done before. Anyone who has read Bram Stoker’s brilliant, erotic Gothic novel can understand that my answer was not meant to be arrogant, but rather reverent of Stoker’s literary classic”(Holte 82). Columbia Pictures decided to produce the film, which resulted in the most expensive, and most spectacular Dracula screen version ever produced.

Although Coppola’s introduction and conclusion are completely fabricated, his version is the most authentic in terms of a literary text. Coppola’s storyline is reduced and occurrences of events are mixed in order of sequence but extremely accurate when compared to the contents of the novel. Although the introductory scenes are greatly influenced by the discoveries of Dracula scholars Raymond McNally and Radu Florescu, Coppola incorporates two key elements overlooked by his predecessors. Coppola’s version is the only film that includes every single character that appears in the novel. Earlier versions eliminate or downsize the participation and important contributions that Lucy, Seward, Holmwood, Morris, Dracula’s brides, and even Berserker play in Stoker’s novel. Also, it is the only version that depicts the technological advances produced during the Industrial Revolution. These elements and others are the reason why some film critics believe Coppola’s version to be superior, as John Tibbets and James Welsh describe in their book Novels into Films: “to date, the most faithful adaptation of the book is Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula” (Tibbetts, Welsh 67).

Unlike the previous reproductions of Dracula, as described by Leonard Wolf’s introduction in the Signet Classics edition, “The film starts in the 15th century and directly identifies Dracula as the historical Vlad Tepes” (Stoker XV). Dracula is represented as a feudal warlord that defends the Catholic Church against the invasion of the Muslim Turks, which he later briefly explains to Harker. Coppola uses direct and accurate dialogue in the film that comes unmolested directly from the book. I’d say about 80% of Coppola’s film is direct dialogue from Stoker. For example, in the novel between pages 29 to 31 of Dracula, the count explains to Harker his lineage and his hereditary participation in the Order of the Dracul (Dragon in Romanian) and their demise. In the film, this dialogue is exchanged during the completion of the purchase of the Count’s new London estate. Harked notices a portrait of a gentleman behind the Count and inquires as to his identity due to the striking resemblance. Harker is oblivious that the portrait is of the Count before his vampirism. Dracula says, “The warlike days are over. Blood is too precious a thing in these days of Dishonorable peace, and the glories of the great races are but a tale that is told” (Stoker 31). This interaction is depicted word for word in the film.

While murdering masses in the name of the church on his campaign against the Turks, his wife, Elizabeta receives false news that Vlad has been killed in battle. Overcome with grief she commits suicide. Upon his return from a victorious campaign, he finds his deceased wife on the floor of his chapel and is informed by the priests that due to her suicide her soul cannot be saved and she cannot be buried on consecrated ground. Vlad’s overwhelming grief transforms into an uncontrollable rage. Dracula screams words of sacrilege and heresy as he curses God. He then turns to the priest (who many do not recognize, but is Anthony Hopkins) and asks if this is his reward for defending God’s church. He draws his sword and thrusts it into the cross, which overflows with enormous amounts of blood. He takes a chalice and fills it with the blood flowing from the crucifix. As he drinks from the chalice, he utters the words, “the blood is the life”, a phrase frequently repeated by Renfield, thus completing his vampirism.

The film then shifts to 19th-century London. Jonathan Harker is sent by his firm to finalize the purchase of Carfax Abbey by a certain Count Dracula. This is the outset of complete and direct dialogue from the novel. Just as in the novel, Coppola’s film is divided into several sections that consist of the journal, diary, phonograph, and telegram entries and is the only film version that utilizes these media as narratives as in the case of the novel. Coppola’s interpretation is the only version that portrays the advances of technology during the Industrial Revolution. These inventions are displayed in the novel and help evolve the progression of the characters. They aid in the destruction of Dracula and in the communication and organization amongst themselves. The author of Vampire Legends in Contemporary American Culture sums it up best. He states, “ through the scenes in the cinematograph, Coppola shows us in our continuity with as well as our distance from the Victorians; they were the end of an era but the beginning of our own” (Day 77). For this reason, Coppola incorporates them into the film. Coppola’s masterpiece reduces the storyline, although the central plot remains unmolested, and occurrences of events are mixed in order of continuity but precise and accurate. The dialogue, which is directly transferred from the novel, is integrated in parts of the film where the scene and dialogue are not compatible to the format of the novel due to time restrictions but a spoken word for word.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula is the only adaptation that includes every single character that appears in the novel without any deviation of personality or participation in occurrences. The only character that suffers any real creative interference is Dracula himself. Coppola does not portray Dracula as a monstrous, malicious entity as Stoker does; rather Dracula becomes a tragic, romantic soul in a quest for true love. After losing his wife to the church, Vlad believes she has been reincarnated in the person of Harker’s wife, Mina Murray. In a scene reminiscent of Murnau’s Nosferatu, Dracula sees a picture of Mina while finalizing the real estate documents with Harker. Dracula believes that he has been given a second chance with the love life that was violently taken away from him as he describes to his demon brides when he interrupts their seduction of Harker. The vampire bride tells him that he has never loved, to which Dracula responds, “Yes, I, too can love; you yourselves can tell it from the past” (Stoker 40). To justify this response more clearly Hart adds at the end of the sentence, “and I shall love again”. Not only does he lose his earthy love but also God’s love in a deeper sense. Due to this fabrication, Coppola’s Dracula transforms from a Victorian horror tale to a dark romance.

The fact that Coppola’s version is so authentic regarding the text and its dialogue, does not mean that this film version does not suffer its own set of fabrications. The major deviation from Stoker’s novel is the fabricated conclusion substituting the literary ending. In the novel, Dracula is destroyed by being impaled in the heart with a bowie knife and having his jugular lacerated, compliments of Quincy Morris and Jonathan Harker. The film portrays the identical events as described in Mina’s last journal entry, but that is not where the vampire perishes. Bleeding to death, Dracula is escorted into castle Dracula by Mina, due to having fallen in love and believing that she is the reincarnation of Elizabeta.

Their destination is the chapel, which is the initial scene of the film where Vlad discovers his deceased wife and the location of his damnation to vampirism. Realizing that he had been defeated, he asks Mina to give him peace. At Vlad’s request, Mina thrusts Morris’ knife completely through Dracula’s heart. A celestial light penetrates from the chapel window, symbolizing Vlad’s return to God’s grave and love. Once dead, Mina removes the knife and decapitates Vlad, thus ending the dark reign of Count Dracula. As the scene fades, there appears a fresco of Vlad and Elizabeta reunited, surrounded by clouds. This provides the viewer with the notion that both are in God’s kingdom, never to be separated again

In conclusion, although many prestigious directors and skillful actors have attempted to recreate Stoker’s horror classic, not one has been completely successful. F.W. Murnau is successful in capturing Stoker’s aspect of horror and darkness, like the other German expressionist films of the early 1920s such as The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari. His illusional use of shadows and the grotesque appearance of Count Orlock cements the eerie and cold feeling that Stoker’s novel intended. Tod Browning’s Version is successful in portraying the aristocratic personality that Count Dracula displays to Harker in their initial encounters. Browning’s film is also responsible for the iconography associated with Dracula in popular culture. Finally, Francis Ford Coppola manages to incorporate the historical aspect behind Stoker’s novel with the person of Vlad Tepes. He also grasps the eroticism and sexuality hidden between the lines of Victorian novels; he incorporates the real world surrounding the literary characters. Coppola is the only director to provide a sense of authenticity through direct and accurate incorporation of the text’s plot, themes, and dialogue. Even if there were a method of combining Murnau’s, Browning’s, and Coppola’s versions, this conjunction would still fall short. Each version is loyal to Stoker’s novel in it’s own unique way but subordinate when compared.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula is considered one of the greatest Victorian classics ever committed to paper. Dracula has become the most important reoccurring literary manifestation in film. Even though he is destroyed in the pages of the novel, he has managed to immortalize himself in cinema for more than a century. Dracula’s legacy can never be entirely reproduced, no matter what media is utilized. The Count has survived decades of reproduction and with Hollywood’s obvious obsession with the legendary vampire, it appears he will endure additional decades to come. Whoever would have imagined that the character Stoker invented to symbolize death, fear, and evil would become the world’s most beloved monster.

Works cited

1. Stoker, Bram. Dracula. New York: Signet Classics, 1992.
2. Murphay, Michael J. The Celluloid Vampires: A History and Filmography, 1897-1979.
3. Ann Arbor: Pierian Press, 1979.
4. Skal, David J. Hollywood Gothic: The Tangled Web of Dracula from Novel to Stage to Screen. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1990.
5. Day, William Patrick. Vampire Legends in Contemporary American Culture: What Becomes a Legend Most. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2002.
6. Stuart, Roxana. Stage Blood: Vampires of the 19th Century Stage. Bowling Green: Popular Press, 1994.
7. Holte, James Craig. Dracula in the Dark: The Dracula Film Adaptations. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1997.
8. Skal, David J. The Monster Show: A Culture History of Horror. New York: W.W.Norton & Co., 1993.
9. Silver, Alain, and James Ursini. The Vampire Film: From Nosferatu to Bram Stoker’s Dracula. New York: Limelight Editions, 1994.
10. Tibbetts, John C., and James M. Welsh. Novels into Films: The Encyclopedia of Movie Adapted from Books. New York: Checkmark Books, 1999.

Filmography

1. Browning, T. (Director), & Fort, G. (Screenplay). (1931). Dracula [Motion Picture]. United States: Universal Studios
2. Murnau, F.W. (Director). (1922). Nosferatu: Eine Symphonie des Grauens [Motion Picture] Germany: Prana Films
3. Coppola, Francis F. (Director), & Hart, James V. (Screenplay). (1992). Bram Stoker’s Dracula [Motion Picture]. United States: Columbia Pictures

“Yet even that enemy of God and man had friends and associates in his desolation; I am alone.” Compare and contrast the presentation of Frankenstein’s monster and Dracula as outcasts in society in light of this statement.

In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), Frankenstein’s creature and Dracula are both presented as outcasts in society. They are both presented as outcasts in very different ways, but also in some similar ways too. Frankenstein’s creature is able to see himself as an outcast because of his appearance when he looks into the puddle and seems to scare himself. But it is not necessarily Dracula’s appearance that scares people away from him, it seems to be his blood-red eyes. Both gothic novels were written at a time of scientific advances and an interest in the supernatural.

In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, there are many ways that Victor Frankenstein’s monster is seen as an outcast. Frankenstein’s creation is presented to the reader as intelligent because he able to realize that he is an outcast. “I was in reality the monster that I am.” He has come to the realization that he is a monster in which makes him unaesthetically pleasing to everyone he comes into contact with. Victor Frankenstein did not name his creation, although he did use some negative terms to call him, such as “devil,” “ogre” and “thing”. Therefore, this shows the monster’s lack of identity and shows further his isolation from society and the people around him. The creation’s birthplace was also isolated. He was created in a laboratory using chemistry and alchemy. “Workshop of filthy creation.” The birth of a child is usually positively welcomed, which is quite the opposite of how Frankenstein’s creation was treated, “unable to endure the aspect of the being he had created,” which further shows how Victor rejected his creation, as he left him. Frankenstein’s creation was gruesome. “Odious and loathsome person.” While he was human, he was very unappealing to Frankenstein. Even though Frankenstein did not like the look of his own creation, the creature knows too that he looks hideous. He thought that his creation’s appearance was going to frighten everyone, so he would have been treated as an outcast by the rest of humanity. He wishes to “extinguish that life which” he has “so thoughtlessly bestowed.” Frankenstein knew after the creation was alive that no one was going to accept it, so he tried to distance himself from his creation.

Frankenstein abandoned his creation because he did not like it after he brought it to life. He described it as a miserable monster and his horrible features, because of the gruesome look he was immediately rejected by everyone that he crossed paths with. The creature’s first bond with a human was broken, which forced him to be an outcast. The rest of the creation’s interactions with humans were received badly, which then forced him to avoid all human interaction. Victor never even gave his creation a chance. “He might have spoken, but I did not hear; one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped and rushed downstairs.” He spent years creating what he refers to as a human and is very aware of what it will look like, but still, as soon as it is alive he runs from it. This could also show that perhaps while creating the creature he knew all along what it was going to look like but perhaps he always had the intention of leaving it.

Victor Frankenstein is ashamed of what he has done and fears what the consequences would be if he tells anyone about his creation. “Nearly in the light of my own vampire.” He feels really guilty about what he has released out into the world. The creature expresses the way he feels towards Frankenstein. “You have made me wretched beyond expression.” He is making the creature feel even more isolated by ignoring that he exists. This could be because all the creature really wants is to be friends with Frankenstein as he sees him as some kind of God. It isn’t just the creature that is isolated from Frankenstein’s obsession with science, Frankenstein isolated himself from a lot of people and the outside. This is probably why he doesn’t realize how badly society are going to react to his creation. “I felt as I was placed under a ban.” Victor is feeling trapped in his new job, he becomes isolated in his own mind. It is clear to the reader that if Victor has to create another creature for his first monster, then he is going to have to isolate himself from everyone again. Frankenstein was written at a time of social unrest, when the Luddites were around, which could be why Frankenstein was able to create a monster out of old body parts.

After being shut out from the world the creature had to learn everything for himself. “I found a fire … I thrust my hand into the live embers, but quickly drew it out again with a cry of pain.” He is learning through the senses which is how a baby learns. But he wouldn’t have to learn this way if Frankenstein hadn’t abandoned him. Nature could also be seen as trying to isolate Frankenstein’s creature, as he is faced with rain and snow, so he tries to hide from nature. The setting of nature and being away from everything and everyone links to the sense of him being an outcast. The creature is always outside which could symbolize him being outside of society.

At the start of the monster’s life, he is presented to the reader as innocent, which is then followed by Victor’s rejection. “Instinctively, finding myself so desolate.” The creature is showing a lot of human emotions when he is first brought to life. But the more and more that he is rejected by the humans around him he becomes angrier, and when he finds out what his creator really thinks of him he feels the need to get revenge on Frankenstein. It could suggest to the reader that the more anyone is rejected the more they start to distance themselves from other people and not interact with them anymore. Every time the creature interacts with a human he is greeted with the fear of rejection that he originally got from Victor. All that the creature really wants is to be friends with someone so that he isn’t alone anymore. “I longed to join them, but I dared not.” He wants to approach someone but thinks better not to as all he gets is rejection, so he has to think of a way to become friends before they see his appearance. He refuses to accept his isolation.

Society rejects him further when he ventures into the village. He meets the De Lacey family, he learns how to read and write from them just by watching them. He helped them out, he helped by clearing the snow, which could be why it hurt him so much when they rejected him. He used to feel the same emotions that they did, so he begins to feel like they may accept him, so he wouldn’t be an outcast any longer. When he meets the old man, he doesn’t reject the creature because he is blind, so he cannot see him. “I am full of tears, for if I fail there, I am an outcast in the world forever.” The creature is becoming more educated, owing all the thanks to the villagers, but is still trying to escape his isolation. He tries to meet with the blind old man first, to see if he will reject him too. This makes the reader sympathize with the creature as all he wants is to have friends and the only way he’s going to accomplish that is if they are blind. The isolation from humanity is starting to become too much for the creature. After failing to become friends with the De Lacey’s his isolation is increased and he is forced to leave the comfort of living near the family that he has connected with, the people he refers to as his ‘protectors’.

All of the rejection he gets from humanity could be the reason that the monster then ends up committing evil acts later on in the novel. “My protectors had departed and had broken the only link that held me to the world.” The creature’s isolation begins to turn into anger after finding out that the De Lacey family flee the village because of his presence. He is now complete with no connection to anyone. Frankenstein’s creature is now blaming Victor for everyone rejecting him. This begins to make the reader feel bad for the creature as he has no one there for him. But it could also be seen that it is the creature’s own fault for being isolated as he is the one that killed people. The creature’s first victim is William, Frankenstein’s younger brother, at first, he tried to befriend the child, but when he learns that he is related to Victor he proceeds to murder the young child and puts the blame on Justine. Her name is sort of ironic in the sense that she is punished and killed for the death of young William, but she never gets the justice that she deserved as clearly, she did not kill the young boy. By the creature murdering William, it could suggest to the reader that the creature never really cared about Frankenstein from the beginning, as if he did care he wouldn’t have murdered someone close to his creator, but also by killing him it shows to Frankenstein what he’s capable of because he rejected his creation. The monster not only wanted to get revenge on Victor he also wanted to get revenge on mankind for rejecting him. The murder of William then leads to the deaths of Justine, Clerval, and Elizabeth. This is showing the reader that the creature wants to get Frankenstein’s attention, and the only way he sees to do that is to commit crimes, which is sort of fitting as Frankenstein committed a crime to create his creature. “I had unchained my enemy among them whose joy it was to shed their blood.” After Victor becomes aware of Henry Clerval’s death he is joined by his father and his forced to re-join society. It could be seen that Victor’s isolation was created by himself when he retreated from humanity to please his creation.

These murders are further isolating him from society as he has broken many moral and religious laws. Elizabeth’s death came after the creature watched Victor rip to pieces the make that Victor was creating for him.

At the end of the novel when Victor is dying the monster then starts to feel guilt and remorse, he realizes after his creator is gone that he will truly be lost and isolated from all of society. So, he decides to kill himself too. Even in death, he’ll be separated from the rest of humanity as he committed suicide and many other crimes and so he will go to hell.

In Bram Stoker’s Dracula, his monster is presented in the first journal entries written, but this begins to change as the novel goes on, which is similar to Frankenstein’s monster. Through my research and exploration of several Dracula essays, it’s clear that Bram Stoker’s depiction of the monster shares similarities with Frankenstein’s creation. They are both corrupted by rejection.

The darkness represents how Dracula is an outcast from society. This could be seen as unusual because it isn’t really expected in the first instance of the novel. Dracula is an outcast because he is a vampire. “I was not able to light on the map.” Castle Dracula is far away from everything. It is not on the map, and therefore this could possibly be because he doesn’t belong anywhere, as he is a monster. As Castle Dracula is not on the map it could be suggested that he doesn’t belong anywhere. It could also suggest to the reader that Bram Stoker didn’t think his monster was worthy of living near other things, especially people. Dracula is nowhere near anyone else which is where he chooses to be, and he can control the wolves, “the howling of the wolves had ceased altogether”, which is different to Frankenstein’s monster as he hates the separation from humans. The castle had “tall black windows” in which no light came through. This could suggest that Dracula may be trying to isolate himself from humanity and nature as if light isn’t coming through into the castle he is being disconnected from the rest of the world.

At the beginning of the novel, Harker starts to realize that Dracula is slightly unusual compared to any other human. This is represented in the way he describes Dracula, “red eyes”, “unbelievably strong” and “protuberant teeth”. Also, by Dracula having no servants could suggest to the audience that he is so much of an outcast to society that he can’t have servants, this is unusual to Harker as any castle is bound to have servants. Harker’s suspicions of Dracula being strange and an outcast when Dracula throws Harker’s shaving glass out of the window, “he flung out the glass, which was shattered into a thousand pieces on the stones.” In this instance though, Harker seems to be a bit more annoyed at the fact that he does not have a mirror than that Dracula did not appear in the said mirror.

Frankenstein’s monster and Dracula are quite different in the sense that Dracula has many forms whereas Frankenstein’s monster only has one, but it could be argued that as Frankenstein’s monster was made up of multiple different bodies he also has different forms. The first appearance of Dracula is the coach driver, and then he changes for when he meets Harker at the front of Castle Dracula. Dracula’s appearance separates him from society, his red eyes, “red light of triumph of light in his eyes”, which symbolizes evil and blood. Both monsters were firstly presented as monsters at the beginning of Frankenstein’s creatures’ life and the beginning of Dracula’s novel. The driver in Dracula seemed to “hide his face” from Harker. This could suggest to the reader that he doesn’t want Harker, who is coming to stay at his castle, to see what he really looks like, so he uses one of his other identities. This could also suggest that by the driver hiding his face from Harker it could mean that he is trying to hide something more secretive. One could be that he is Dracula and Harker was warned that dangerous things happen at night around Dracula’s castle.

One instance in which Dracula could be displayed to the reader as an outcast could be when he disappears a lot and all the doors are locked so Harker cannot go looking through all his belongings. “Doors, doors, doors everywhere, and all locked and bolted.” This could suggest to the reader that he is trying to hide things and being secretive about what he has in his castle.

Dracula was influenced by Vlad the Impaler. He was known for his defeat against the Turks and was known in Europe for his war success and cruelty. Vlad the Impaler is further referenced in the novel through Dracula’s constant evil nature.

The way in which Dracula makes the wolves listen to shows the reader his demanding character. This relates to Frankenstein’s creature, in which his physical differences from humans separate him from humanity. Dracula treats humans badly as he sees them just as food, Frankenstein’s monster also murders innocent people, and it seems he enjoys causing pain on Victor but feels remorse at the end of the novel when Victor is dying. Dracula doesn’t show any remorse as he was born a vampire and is constantly killing people for their blood. Another difference between Dracula and Frankenstein’s creature is that Dracula kills people for their blood, whereas Frankenstein’s creature kills people for revenge on the people that have rejected him, especially Victor. “A louder and a sharper howling – that of wolves.” The sound moves from the howling of wolves, from domestic to wild, from safety to danger. This reflects the journey that Harker is making.

Another huge difference between Frankenstein’s creature and Dracula is that Frankenstein made his creature out of different body parts from different dead bodies, which possibly makes any modern reader uncomfortable, we are not told much about Dracula’s background, but it is obvious to the reader that he was not created like Frankenstein’s creature.

Both writers use images to present their monsters as outcasts. Frankenstein’s monster is slightly misunderstood, who gains sympathy from the reader but is rejected by humanity, he isn’t a part of society. Even in his death, he is isolated from humans. Dracula has isolated himself from society as he put his castle far away from everyone and everything else.

In the 1872 novella Carmilla and the 1897 novel Dracula, both Le Fanu and Stoker bestow the treatment of women as a catalyst for exposing the dangers of gender stereotypes, to illuminate social concerns and injustices for the reader that were occurring at the time in Victorian. These injustices are mirrored in the above statement. Both authors allude to the idea that attitudes towards women reveal unwelcome aspects of human behavior, causing the reader to become weary of extreme gender stereotypes and in some ways the development of the New Woman. This is manifested through literary critic Karan Volans Waters who states that ‘the new Women’s sexual independence made her particularly troublesome to the patriarchal society’. It is the characterization of Laura as poor, helpless, and the property of her father in Carmilla that causes the reader to become aware of the unfair stereotypes put upon women. However, in Dracula, it is in the setting, that Stoker alludes the reader to these unjust stereotypes by making them more believable and accessible. Ultimately, the treatment of women is utilized by both readers as an allegory for the corruption of society and the stereotypes it implements on women.

Stoker and Le Fanu both bestow the corruption of society through the growing sexualization of women in Dracula and Carmilla through overly sexualized and descriptive character foils. In the Victorian Era, a time of intense sexual repression, it was common for vampire stories to reflect the fear of feminine sexuality that was rampant in society. In Dracula, chapter three, the vampire sisters seduce Jonathan Harker in an attempt to feed off him. Here the sexualization of women is illuminated through Stoker’s description of the three sisters’ appearance,’ brilliant white teeth’ and ‘voluptuous lips’. Stoker uses these promiscuous positive adjectives to emphasize the idea that female vampires are perhaps more dangerous than Dracula in the way that they retain the facade of traditional feminity, an idea also present in Carmilla. In addition to this, Dracula’s breath is described as ‘rancid’ whereas the fair vampires are ‘sweet in one sense, honey-sweet’. Stoker’s use of the adjective ‘sweet’ further emphasizes this sexualization because of their ‘pleasurable’ appearance and Jonathan Harker’s reaction to it which causes him to question whether he is dreaming or not, a theme which is also present in Carmilla. Furthermore, Stoker creates a semantic field of awe through his commentary upon Harker’s fixed state. The female vampires are zoomorphic in their presentation, providing them with stereotypically masculine qualities. Their ‘sharp white teeth’ could be viewed as phallically, penetrating human flesh, whilst Lucy’s on the other hand ‘adamantine, heartless cruelty’ is an attribute that, out of context, would likely be associated with male gothic villains’.Stoker creates these female vampires as aggressive, domineering, and embracive of their sexuality to terrify a contemporary reader and warn them of the consequences of women attaining too much power; ‘there was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive, and as she arched her neck, she licked her lips like an animal’. The simile Stoker implements compares the female vampire to a predator and Harker to her prey. In addition to this, Harker’s description of the vampire ‘arching her neck’ echoes this animalistic, subhuman gothic creature which torments people and therefore frightens the reader through the supernatural, a theme also common in Carmilla. This also causes the sisters to appear radically different from the feminine ideal that the character of Mina Harker embodies. The Victorians did hold a high stance on the nurture of children but the sisters do the opposite and devour them, this aggressive behavior causes a contemporary reader to feel frightened and threatened. These attacks blur the line between supernatural and reality and this too is seen in Carmilla and Laura’s attacks. Stoker does this to emphasize the rebellion going on during the Fin De siècle whilst also creating quite a disturbing image of children being eaten and inevitably causing Dracula to be of Gothic Literature. Stoker disagrees that women should be given more freedom arguing that ‘such pivotal change would be the downfall of society’, therefore both a contemporary reader and a 21st-century reader can see that the character foil of the three vampire sisters was utilized to mirror Stoker’s views on the dangers of ‘confident women’ at the time in Victorian. Stoker’s depiction of the sisters could be considered to embody the very worst Victorian nightmares regarding womanhood and Harker’s reaction after encountering them could also convey late nineteenth-century anxieties concerning the feminization of men. Therefore, both Stoker and Le Fanu may have used the sexualization of women to criticize the corruption of society during the Decadence Era. However, Stoker may also be criticizing the ideal of the New Woman and encouraging the Victorian reader to rethink the power dynamics between men and women. Whereas, Le Fanu encourages the reader to move with the time and the changes that come with it. Stoker intends to shock a Victorian reader with his creation of the three sisters because, in the Victorian, any behavior by women that was not virtuous and chaste was seen as profoundly bad.

Arguably, in antithesis to this, in ‘Carmilla’ Le Fanu portrays Carmilla as a symbol of female power through the sexualization of her behavior towards Laura. In Chapter One, Carmilla appears to Laura in a ‘dream’ and attacks her, this dreamlike state is also present in Chapter Three of Dracula with the three vampires. Le Fanu disturbingly constructs an oxymoron through the deliberate rassemblement of Laura’s awe, ‘her murmured words sounded like a lullaby’ compared to the brutal and painful attack which Carmilla commits, ‘she then awoke once more with two stabbing pains in her breast’. the simile mirrors society’s expectations of women to be ‘seen and not heard’ as well as to act natively, pleasantly, and childishly. Originally, lullabies have been singing to young children to help them sleep and feel safe. Ironically, Le Fanu constructs Carmilla’s words to ‘sound like a lullaby’ and ultimately causes Laura to feel safe when in reality she is not safe as Carmilla is preparing to kill her. Le Fanu’s representation of the female vampire in Carmilla was the first of its kind and represented the female same-sex relationship. Both the tyrant and victim within his novella are of the female sex, which subverts the common female victim; male tyrant stereotype. This therefore represented growing concerns over the growing independence of women within the development of the women’s movement. On the one hand, Carmilla’s vampiric lesbianism implies that female sexuality is dangerous and pathological, but on the other hand, Laura doesn’t wholly reject Carmilla, and she seems even grow from the experience together. Literary Critic Fox puts forward this view as he argues that ‘Laura is far from a docile victim’ but actively embraces the other within herself’.Furthermore, Le Fanu creates irony when he has Laura’s father disregard the supernatural when Carmilla is a true form of it. One literary critic argues that ‘Stoker responds to Le Fanu’s narrative of female empowerment by reinstating male control in the exchange of women’.While there are moments in the book in which it seems as if Carmilla genuinely does love Laura, the erotic nature of her bites makes her love for Laura inseparable from her desire to kill her. The vampire figure within Carmilla also embodies characteristics of homosexual desire. Botting claims ‘Carmilla’s unnatural desires are signaled by her choice of females as her victims’, however, this homosexual desire is further emphasized when Laura narrates how, in her company, Carmilla is ‘gazing in my face with languid and burning eyes, and breathing so hard that her dress rose and fell with the tumultuous respiration. It was like the ardor of a lover…her hot lips traveled along my cheek in kisses’ (34). This open show of deviant sexuality transcends the boundary of socially acceptable norms.

Whilst it is apparent that both ‘Dracula’ and ‘Carmilla’ can be read as allegories of social constraint, it is also clear that both Le Fanu and Stoker demonstrate the corruption of society through the gothic device of gender transgression as a way in which to further illuminate conflicting ideas about women’s perceived sexuality and status and the stereotypes implemented on them. In Dracula, Stoker constructs a juxtaposition between Lucy and Mina, in an attempt to expose the hidden workings of the New Woman in the Victorian as well as ultimately emphasizes his disapproval of the growing development of feminism. Stoker presents the character arc of Mina Harker as the perfect ideal of a Victorian Woman, ‘the perfect wife’. Mina is constructed by Stoker to illustrate his version of what an exemplary Victorian woman is like. Van Helsing describes Mina in the novel as ‘one of God’s women, fashioned by His hand to show us men and other women that there is a heaven where we can enter and that its light can be here on earth. So true, so sweet, so noble, so little an egoist. Stoker’s deliberate use of the religious language ‘God’ emphasizes how highly he thinks of such women. Perhaps, Mina is the ideal of the virgin mother Mary, and her attained virginity and dedication to her husband make her so well-liked. Mina’s speech in the novel constructed by Stoker emphasizes her dedication: ‘I have been working very hard lately, because I want to keep up with Jonathan’s studies, and I have been practicing shorthand very assiduously’.she would ‘be useful to Jonathan’ because she is ideal. She is also seen thinking very highly of men in general and their independence from women: a brave man’s hand can speak for itself; it does not even need a woman’s love to hear its music. Whereas, Lucy is not seen committed physically and emotionally to one man alone throughout the novel. She is described as a voluptuous, beautiful woman who is approached with three proposals from three different suitors. Lucy complains to Mina asking her: ‘Why can’t they let a girl marry three men or as many as want her, and save all this trouble?’ (Stoker 96). Although she would do this if she were allowed to, she recognizes that she has uttered words of heresy after saying them. This shows that although such a thought is seen as utterly promiscuous, immoral, and forbidden in Victorian culture, it does not stop her from mentally crossing the boundaries set up by the social conventions of society.

She is not seen committed physically and emotionally to one man alone throughout the novel. She is described as a voluptuous, beautiful woman who is approached with three proposals from three different suitors. Lucy complains to Mina asking her: ‘Why can’t they let a girl marry three men or as many as want her, and save all this trouble?’ (Stoker 96). Although she would do this if she were allowed to, she recognizes that she has uttered words of heresy after saying them. This shows that although such a thought is seen as utterly promiscuous, immoral, and forbidden in Victorian culture, it does not stop her from mentally crossing the boundaries set up by the social conventions of society. Lucy is portrayed as someone who is driven by her sexual openness and flirtatious, tempting nature. Her physical beauty holds the interest of all her suitors and she enjoys the attention she would not get otherwise from the men of her society. This, in a way, helps Lucy to equalize herself to the same male gender that is claimed to be superior to females. Conversely, Mina is shown to be content with her monogamous status in society and does not feel the need to use her feminine sensuality to prove anything. Mina’s sexual desires, if any, remain unknown throughout the novel. By presenting Mina in this way, Stoker provides a stark contrast between the sexuality of Lucy and Mina. Mina’s perspective on the subject is left untold to illustrate that it shouldn’t be a woman’s concern to think about such things and that all a Victorian woman’s role entails is succumbing to a man’s sexual needs and desires. Stoker uses Mina and Lucy to confirm his sexist Victorian beliefs about the roles of men and women in society. The social construct of the time involved women being inferior to men in all areas of life, except childbearing and child upbringing. Their value was only seen in their maternal qualities and their submissiveness to men. Through Mina’s character, Stoker exhibits the ideal, virtuous, Victorian woman and shows, through her survival, what the benefits of following this model are. He also goes to show what happens to women when they feel that they should be seen as equals to men. Women who attempt to use their sexuality to attain power and break free from the patriarchal boundaries of Victorian society will end up ruined, just like Lucy.

In parallel to this, Le Fanu in Carmilla constructs a juxtaposition through the character arcs of Laura and Carmilla. Carmilla is a classic vampire, a complex, evil, bloodthirsty being. Whereas Laura is an example of the ideologies of the fallen women. Thus, Carmilla particularly could be read as a criticism of the way women were forced to live their lives. his scene could be interpreted as one between lovers – which could be used as a plot device to shock the readers, as Le Fanu tried to provide an escape for his readers by freeing them from the sexual repression that society forced on them, and he did so by bringing attention to a controversial topic such as lesbianism. But it did not seem to be enough for Le Fanu who pushed his criticism even further by dealing with the topic of vampirism as well in the character of Carmilla. By having a female vampire in his story, the writer also managed to defy the usual stereotypes from the few stories dealing with vampires before Carmilla.

Dracula which was written by Bram Stoker in 1897, is known and considered as the origin and birthplace of vampires. The horror classic, Dracula has been adapted book-to-screen since the day it was written. But this Dracula essay example will be mainly about Bram Stoker’s Dracula directed by Francis Ford Coppola in 1992. Coppola’s version of the movie is widely prestigious as being the closest and most ‘accurate” to the novel. Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula and the Dracula by Bram Stoker will be examined in terms of the major changes in character developments and the storyline along with female agency and position.

When it comes to the comparison I would like to start off with an apparent structural difference; Bram Stoker’s novel is a collection of letters, quotes from diaries, and as is the case with Dracula newspaper clippings, ship logs and even a recorded diary on wax cylinders. The opening chapter of the novel gives information about the region, its people and superstitions. Stoker’s novel starts with Jonathon Hawker’s journal as he travels to Transylvania in order to finalize a property transaction for a client who actually is Count Dracula. Stoker portrays Dracula as a ‘monster’ who is feeding upon and horrifying his victims without showing any mercy. In contrast to the novel, Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula starts out in 1452 with the tragic story of Vlad the Impaler (In the novel neither there’s a mention of Dracula’s centuries-old heartbreak nor any clear parallels are drawn between Dracula and Vlad the Impaler), who leaves his home to fight the Crusades and returns to find that his beloved wife, hearing she was dead, had killed herself. He loses his faith because he feels that there is no justice for his fate; he goes further and curses God. The loss of Elisabetta changes him; a noble and religious man turns to an evil and villain creature. Thus, once more they put all the blame on women and accuse them of being a ’cause”. As Margaret Montalbano once stated in her article Bram Stoker’s Dracula to Bram stoker’s Dracula, “In the opening segment the hero is turned to villain through the action of woman and dividing the line between good and evil(388) ‘this prologue of Brom Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ simultaneously posits ‘woman’ as the metaphysical ’cause’ of vampirism'(387)

Coppola creates a difference between the novel and film by adding this kind of background story and setting up the romance that is seen later in the movie. Hence in the movie version, we see Dracula’s human-like feelings (his obsession with Mina) rather than only a cold crucial monster. This kind of character change that we encounter with Dracula also applies for other characters such as Lucy and Mina; two Victorian women are present quite differently throughout Coppola’s movie. For instance; Lucy is presented as a naive and proper Victorian lady in Stoker’s novel who obeys the strict moral codes of Victorian society. But in Coppola’s version, some of the concealed female agency and sexuality are highlighted and applied in an exaggerated way; Lucy is depicted as a debased, sexually unquenchable young lady who kisses all her suitors and even Mina.

Another big difference between the movie and the film is that in Coppola’s version Mina is shown as Dracula’s reincarnated Elisabetta and she regains her memories from her past and slowly falls back in love with Dracula. Thus, the dynamic of the work changes at the end of it. In Stoker’s novel, there is no such a thing as reincarnation and Mina hates and despises Dracula because of what he did to her best friend Lucy and for ruining her life, she is willing to give her everything to fight him off and stays loyal to her husband and the others. On the other hand, Dracula himself is not in love with Mina, either. The atmosphere which was created by Coppola is way different from what was written in the novel. One of them is the part where Mina’s process of turning into a vampire, in the novel, Dracula forces Mina to drink his blood from the cut on his chest.

In Coppola’s movie, Dracula leaves the choice to her, indeed he loves her so much and does not want her dear love to be a monster like him but Mina insists on becoming a vampire. She utters that she wants to be what he is, to see what he sees and be with him in eternity. Additionally, Coppola gives freedom to Mina by allowing her to be able to choose to have an affair with the villain and drink his blood willingly to join him in eternal life. The Victorian readers would not have approved of such a woman because of their strict moral codes and they would have judged her for not being faithful and pure but in Coppola’s version, he assists the contemporary viewers to see her as a woman who acts at her own will.

Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula differs from the novel through the ending of it due to the love story between Dracula and Mina. In the movie, Dracula uses Mina to cast a spell to help the sun go down quicker while being chased by Jonathan Harker and Quincy Morris. They chase him right up to the gates of Castel Dracula. The mechanics of the scenes are pretty consistent with the novel, right down to Quincy getting mortally wounded in the final part before stabbing Dracula in the heart. Mina and Dracula manage to enter the castle. In the novel though, as soon as Dracula was stabbed in his heart, he turns in dust, and finally, Mina gets rid of Dracula’s curse.

There is one last prologue to Jonathan’s journal dated seven years later which indicates that they are happy and even have a child. Thus, the end of the novel complies with the norms of Victorian society. Coppola’s version, however, ends back where it started and Mina and Dracula bid farewell to each other on the steps in the chapel, and then Mina chops off Dracula’s head and kills him to set both of them free. In the last scene of the movie Coppola gives permission and power to Mina as a woman to kill Dracula unlike the Stoker’s novel (in the novel Jonathon leaves Mina behind while chasing Dracula in order to keep her safe because, for him and The Victorian Society, women are not as strong as men to deal with a monster like Dracula) Thus, the curse that began four hundred years ago, no longer remains.

Lastly, the overall tone and premise of the novel are still alive and well, even if Coppola puts creative liberties in his work such as giving an active role to women and showing their free will. Moreover, knowing that there is a hundred years between the novel and the movie, Coppola manages to produce the finest adaptation of Stoker’s novel to date by overcoming the difficulties of moving from one medium to another.

The empowerment of women has been problematic within male-dominated societies throughout history, leaving women oppressed and bound by rigid social expectations. Whilst Stoker fails to challenge this confinement in ‘Dracula’, Carter opts to demonstrate the power of female sexual expression in ‘The Bloody Chamber’.

In ‘Dracula’, Stoker presents the ‘New Woman’ as a threat that must be detained and brought back into subjugation. During the Victorian era, the typical ‘New Woman’ rejected the traditional position prescribed for them, opting to possess a more active role and explore sexual independence. As a result, “the New Woman’s sexual independence made her particularly troublesome to patriarchal order” (Waters, 1999). This threat is embodied in the three vampire women in ‘Dracula’: the combination of their aggressively domineering sexuality and rejection of traditional femininity establishes the women as a menace to the traditional Victorian male. This is highlighted in their ability to render Harker powerless against their sexual advances, leaving him submissive as he “lay quiet” in an “agony of delightful anticipation”. The oxymoronic phrase demonstrates the ease by which he was overpowered by seduction, challenging his status as a respectable Victorian male who would have been expected to be repulsed by their sexual advances. This subversion of traditional Victorian ideals represents the supposed secret fantasy of men, by which they find the idea of women granting them sexual gratification as “both thrilling and repulsive”. This reversal of the traditional power dynamic alludes to the justification of male carnal urges as not being their responsibility, insinuating that women who are seductively appealing are deliberately tempting men. As Harker is enticed by the vampire women, his attraction would have been a consequence of female defiance of social expectations where “a woman could not show her legs or even say ‘leg’. Even pianos had limbs, and those wore fluffy coverings so as not to be seen”[footnoteRef:3] (Levin, 1996). Women were expected to suppress and constantly refrain from expressing their sexuality; it was unheard of for a woman to be sexually assertive in any way, the concept is especially disturbing in a conservative society. The vampire women “represent all the qualities of how a woman should not be; voluptuous and sexually aggressive” (Pektas, 2005), displayed through Stoker reducing them to “animal[s]”, the simile reflecting how society dehumanizes sexually liberated women. Similarly to Stoker, Carter utilizes the stereotypical vampire as a symbol of transgressive sexuality through the protagonist of ‘The Lady of the House of Love’. However, unlike the vampire women in ‘Dracula’ who entirely reject conventional femininity, the protagonist subverts two diametrically opposed stereotypes of femininity by being both “death and the maiden”. Carter demonstrates societal constraints on sexual women via the Countess’ isolation and “beast of prey” nature, the metaphor reflecting patriarchal attitudes demonizing sexually liberated women. This is emphasized through the protagonist’s lack of “imperfection of the human condition” suggesting that she is socially constructed as a fallen woman. Despite her villainous features, the Countess illustrates a degree of the ‘Damsel-in-Distress’ syndrome. Unlike Stoker, who marginalizes the foreign vampire women, Carter evokes a level of pathos for the Countess through instances of first-person narration. This provides the reader with a closer identification with the woman whose predominant emotion is “sadness”, the noun associating her with vulnerability. The Countess appears to feel trapped within her role as the aggressor, having a “horrible reluctance for the role”, the alliteration demonstrating the pure functionality. This is reinforced through her iteration “I do not mean to hurt you”, the regular, monotonous rhythm highlighting the difficulty in escaping the role society has enforced upon her as a ‘whore’.

Stoker, unlike Carter, wrote at a time of sexual repression where women were confined in rigid gender roles; they were deemed to be either wife or they were regarded as ‘whores’ who were expendable in all circumstances. This ‘Madonna-Whore’ complex, by which men, in a means to minimize anxiety, categorize women as those they admire and those they find sexually attractive, is manifested in Mina and Lucy in ‘Dracula’. Mina is constructed as the perfect embodiment of womanhood: “so true, so sweet, so noble” the adjectives coupled with the repetition in the triadic emphasize her purity and position as a respected, obedient woman. Mina also aspires to fulfill her destiny in fitting into the traditional role of a mother, demonstrating her maternal instincts and “woman’s heart” when comforting Arthur like the “baby that someday may lie on my bosom”. Despite this, Mina possesses qualities reflecting those of the ‘New Woman’; her “man’s brain” provides her with the masculine principle of objective rationality. Yet, Mina mocks the ‘New Women’, being amused by the notion that they “will do the proposing” themselves. In comparison, Carter depicts the idealized female in the allegory of ‘The Snow Child’ as the embodiment of male desire and whim. The Count expresses his longing for a girl as “white as snow” and “red as blood”, the juxtaposition implying male “desire” for both a ‘Madonna’ and a ‘whore’. The monosyllabic adjectives demonstrate the way in which men ironically desire an innocent, promiscuous woman. The deep sexual connotations when she is “prick[ed]”, “bleeds; screams; falls” reflects the execution of Lucy in ‘Dracula’, the undertones of rape leaving the reader unsettled. The loss of autonomy is a poignancy in the story, by which her fate “depend[s] entirely on the Count’s words” (Bacchilega, 1997). This is emphasized by the lack of speech from the victim, whose ultimate purpose is to please the Count. It is interesting that despite foregrounding female voices in her stories to subtly critique patriarchal attitudes, the ‘Male Gaze’ (the phenomenon by which heterosexual males are the intended audience, causing the objectification of women) arises frequently in the novel. In fact, Duncker (1984) claims that “Carter envisages women’s sensuality simply as a response to male arousal”, suggesting that her stories are not inherently feminist. However, Carter “can’t see what’s wrong with finding out about what the great male fantasies about women are” (Simpson 2006), using the indirection and metaphor of fantasy to critique such phallocentric discourse.

Lucy, like the Snow Child, fulfills a specific function in ‘Dracula’; the tragic victim. Initially, Lucy is depicted as pure and innocent as Mina, frequently described as wearing “white”, establishing her virtue. She appears to perceive herself as subordinate to men, questioning “why are men so noble” whilst women are “little worthy” of them, demonstrating her compliance within the patriarchy. Despite this, she appears to exude a level of carnal energy typically associated with males. The erotic imagery of her ‘la petite mort’ expressed through her “long, heavy gasps” and “moan[ing]” reflects this. As a result of this, and the rhetorical question “why can’t they let a girl marry three men?”, some modern readers take the stance that, with her quiet sexual expression, Lucy possesses a hidden desire to infringe on societal constraints. Others tend to construe Lucy as a promiscuous woman who takes pleasure in the power and control granted to her by her sexual allure. However, this view is, arguably, false. She expresses her devotion to Arthur in her letters to Mina, adhering to his idea of domestic bliss and considering eradicating slang from her speech, fearing his disapproval. Carter implicitly suggests that this idealized version of women (as dependent and prudent) lacks the ability to maneuver difficult situations imposed by men. In ‘The Company of Wolves’ the protagonist is described as an “unbroken egg”, the metaphor not only connotes her virginity but also her susceptibility to corruption. This inclination becomes evident through her “dawdl[ing]” to ensure the stranger “win[s]” her kiss, the verb demonstrating her latent sexuality. Carter exploits the protagonist to subtly criticize female dependence on men for “protect[ion]”; giving the stranger her knife leaves the protagonist vulnerable. This flawed presentation of women operates in direct contrast with the protagonist utilizing her sexuality, recognizing that “fear did her no good”. The ritual undressing of the man ensures her control, allowing her to recognize that she is “nobody’s meat”. By claiming her bestial desire, the protagonist is able to render the wolf “tender”, the adjective demonstrating female wit when outsmarting men, suggesting that passivity is not an intrinsically virtuous state.

The signs of autonomy associated with the ‘New Woman’ are what make Mina and Lucy susceptible to Dracula’s attack, which awakens their latent sexual power. Lucy’s metamorphosis from a subordinate female into a sexually liberated woman renders her “tainted”, “lusty” and “unclean”, the adjectives creating a semantic field of impurity and disgust. Lucy is provided with vices in direct opposition to the virtues she possessed prior to being turned, becoming a “devilish mockery of Lucy’s sweet purity”. Like the Countess in ‘The Lady of the House of Love’, Lucy is described as predatory, with her “voluptuous wantonness” and exclamation for Arthur to “kiss me!” demonstrating how she has become a ‘femme fatale’. Lucy veers away from her maternal instincts, “growling over [the child] as a dog growls over a bone”. The simile suggests that motherhood is not necessarily an innate desire for women; it is forced upon them by society, as they are deemed callous if they are not nurturing. Lucy’s transformation at the hands of a foreign figure is correlated in ‘The Bloody Chamber, in which the idealized female embraces her sexuality. Initially, the protagonist portrays herself as the perfect female, aiming to appease her husband. She defines her self-worth by the notion that “he must want me!” the short exclamatory sentence highlighting her pleasure in male recognition. Carter interestingly contorts the ‘Male Gaze’ as beneficial to women, enabling the protagonist to see herself “as he saw me” which “awake[ns]” her dormant sexuality. During the ceremonial undressing, the protagonist implicitly recognizes her refusal to take pleasure in sexual acts due to societal constraints, the short exclamatory sentence “enough! No more” symbolizing the shedding of traditional expectations. Her ability to shatter the Marquis’ “deathly composure” reveals the power of female sexuality that enables women to see men as vulnerable. The protagonist recognizes this, utilizing it as a tool to distract; she saw how he “almost failed to resist” her. It is interesting to note that despite the Marquis releasing her latent sexuality, his presence “always subtly oppressed me”, the assonance reinforcing that regardless of their ability to provoke sexuality, men continue to ironically marginalize women.

Mina’s encounter with Dracula, where “some leaden lethargy” appears to affect her “will”, suggests a level of complicity in the exchanging of bodily fluids, which was “associated with intercourse” (Pektas, 2005). This coupled with her “white” clothing “smeared in blood” symbolizes Mina’s status as a fallen woman. The fact that both Mina and Lucy succumbed to Dracula’s advances implies their desire to be emancipated, leaving the ideal woman under threat. However, unlike Lucy, Mina consciously rejects the activation of her sexuality, exclaiming “unclean! Unclean!”, the repetition demonstrates her desire to remain within her submissive role, opting to enter a conventional domestic marriage at the end of the novel. This is a result of Lucy’s transformation functioning as a cautionary tale, alerting Mina that such transgressions must be brutally brought back under control. Commentators assert that the transition from chaste to sexually aggressive should be considered a commentary on attitudes towards female sexuality in Victorian society, where “The worst nightmare […] of the Victorian male: the pure girl turned sexually ravenous” (Griffin, 1980). The transformation from the idealized female, as created by men, into a liberated woman is reflected in ‘The Tiger’s Bride’. Similarly to Lucy, the protagonist is initially presented as “pretty”, passive and virginal whilst possessing a level of autonomy as she quietly criticizes the restraints of society and the authority of her father, referring to him as a “self-deluding fool”. Beauty appears to be aware of the flawed male-dominated society, but lacks the power to unshackle herself from its restraints; she is “force[d] to remain silent” as her father gambles her life away, objectifying her. Like Mina and Lucy, Beauty is sexually liberated by a foreign figure who allows her to recognize that she hides behind a “mask” of gender expectations, by which “the lion lies down with the lamb”. The metaphor reflects the conventional inequality within society, the juxtaposition of nouns symbolizing typical female vulnerability. The Beast encourages Beauty to shed these traditional expectations, exciting her passion and autonomy. This is achieved through the reversal of the ‘Male Gaze’ where The Beast tells Beauty to “prepare to see me naked”, placing her within a position of power. Like Lucy, Beauty sheds her perfect femininity embodied in the mechanical maid, where she lived an “imitative life”. However, she is rewarded for her liberation, being free of societal expectations as “each stroke of his tongue ripped off skin after successive skin”. The repetition of the noun connotes the many layers of restraints placed upon women, which left her “so unused to my own skin”.

Commentators have asserted that the real threat in ‘Dracula’ is not the evil of vampirism, but the loss of female innocence, a trait extremely valuable and important to men. It is argued that Stoker’s viewpoint aligns with the patriarchal mode of thinking where the threatening power of sexual liberation needs to be eradicated and conventional gender roles re-established in order for Victorian society to survive. This danger of female sexual liberty is conveyed through Van Helsing’s hesitation prior to staking the three vampire women; their “radiantly beautiful” appearance causes his head “whirl with new emotion”. The realignment of traditional values is achieved in ‘Dracula’ through the gruesome executions of the vampire women and Lucy. The driving of the stake into Lucy connotes deeply sexual meaning, the repetition of the stake being plunged “deeper and deeper” into Lucy as blood “welled and spurted” being “reminiscent of sexual intercourse and orgasm” (Bentley, 1972). Feminists, however, regard this as “nothing so much as the combined group rape of an unconscious woman” (Senf, 1988), the stake is a phallic object that is forced into her. This possibly symbolizes the involuntary consecration of Arthur’s and Lucy’s union, suggesting that he has placed Lucy back into a position of monogamy and passivity. The decapitation of women is also a frequent occurrence in male ‘fin de siècle’ writing; they “control the ‘New Woman’ by separating the mind from the body” (Showalter, 1990). Killing Lucy effectively punishes her for her sexual liberation; she was a threat to male willpower and judgment. Her death maintains the sanctity of womanhood, ensuring the restoration of the patriarchy, and reassuring male readers. This demonstrates the typical Victorian male stance that a woman is “better dead than sexual” (Craft, 1984). It is interesting to note that Stoker’s inspiration for Count Dracula was a sadist who punished sexual transgressions using enigmatic approaches to sustain control over the minds of his people. Vlad the Impaler punished maidens who did not remain virgins until marriage by having “nipples cut from [the] woman’s breasts or a red hot iron shoved through the vagina until the instrument emerged from the mouth” (Bohn, 2008). Vlad’s emphasis on chastity is ironic considering Dracula’s role in releasing the latent sexuality of women in the novel. This idea is paralleled in ‘The Lady of the House of Love’, where the soldier is a semi-satirical reimagining of the masculine Gothic heroes presented in ‘Dracula’. Regarding himself as a conventional hero, and the Countess as a hapless victim, he plans to treat her for “nervous hysteria” and “put her teeth into better shape”, aiming to completely strip her of her power to ensure her integration into oppressive society. The belief that a sexually forward woman is suffering from hysteria was common during the early 19th century, suggesting that female sexual desire is unnatural. Therefore, the soldier does not offer the Countess an escape from seclusion, but, instead, represents another form of incarceration.

The authors of both novels tackle societal preconceptions towards female sexuality, exploring the way in which it is a threat to male dominance. Whilst Stoker’s anti-woman text depicts the expression of sexuality as villainous, Carter attempts to provoke the reader to acknowledge gender inequalities and see the oppression of women as problematic. The ‘Second Wave of Feminism’ arose as a result of discontent from women who were expected to remain in the subordinate role of the housewife, which Carter critiques in her novel through the distortion of the idealized female created by the patriarchy. Stoker, however, constructs the threat of female liberation only to dismantle it, possibly as a means to reassure readers that the contemporary social structure is secure, regardless of the uprising of the ‘New Woman’.

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The various representations of vampires that have been imagined throughout the history of Gothic fiction have developed considerably over time, to a point where one could argue that the vampires depicted in Postmodern Gothic texts are a virtually unrecognizable incarnation of their Victorian Gothic counterparts. Though vampires from both eras tend to share the same key, a fundamental characteristic of the need or desire to feed on human blood that has come to define them, their very nature, and consequently the way that audiences are provoked to respond to them, has undergone significant evolution. This essay will explore this very evolution with reference to Bram Stoker’s depiction of the vampire Dracula (1897) in his horror novel of the same name (which, by many accounts, is considered to be the quintessential depiction of a vampire during the Victorian Gothic era), and the depictions of the vampires’ Angel and Spike in the television series Buffy The Vampire Slayer (1997 – 2003), which are highly emblematic of the way that vampires are conceptualized in postmodern Gothic texts. Upon close examination of how these particular representations of vampires differ, not only does it become much easier to understand this evolution, but in many ways, the very reasons that it has taken place, as well as what implications it makes about the general changes that have occurred in the desires, beliefs, and interests of readers and audiences over time.

Firstly, it is useful to specify and explore the origins of vampire legends themselves, as Stoker naturally would have been aware of and influenced by the representations of vampires within such legends and folklore, and identifying his inspiration for the character of Dracula can help us to fully realize the nature of his depiction of the vampire. While it is likely impossible to determine the exact origins of these legends, evidence locates and indicates the earliest known presence of myths about bloodsucking monsters in Ancient Greek society and folklore (Guru, 2015). In simple terms, these creatures were generally defined as being undead and unholy (in other words, supernatural and evil). These legends persisted throughout the centuries and though they gradually morphed between different societies and cultures, for the most part, they maintained this general definition. Hence, when Victorian Gothic fiction was being written, they were widely perceived, conceptualized, and consequently represented as being demonic, deadly, terrifying, otherworldly, and perhaps most importantly, inhuman creatures, as highlighted by Stroker’s physical description of Dracula. In this description, Stroker described Dracula’s mouth as being “fixed and rather cruel-looking, with particularly sharp teeth” which “profoundly protruded over [his] lips” (pg. 23), and stated that “the general effect [of his skin] was one of extreme pallor” (pg. 24), indicating a menacing, unhealthy, sickly, and inhuman appearance. Furthermore, Dracula is susceptible to the presence of the Christian cross, further solidifying his unholiness, and this very connotation contributes to his image of being intrinsically evil. This is backed up by Jules Zanger, who writes that Dracula is “unredeemable”, and that for “Stoker and [his] readers, [Dracula represents] the antichrist” and the “embodiment of supernatural evil” (1997, pg. 18).

In contrast, a highly noteworthy feature of the vampires in Buffy’s The Vampire Slayer is their apparent sense of morality and capability to reflect on the ethics of their own actions and behaviors, as demonstrated by Angel and Spike, who feel tremendous regret for some of their misdeeds. Angel even admits that he “did a lot of unconscionable things when [he] was a vampire”, clearly highlighting his sense of self-awareness and the presence of some kind of moral compass within him. This characterization of vampires in Buffy The Vampire Slayer as somewhat ethical beings (at least in comparison with Dracula and other Victorian-era vampires) is emphasized by the fact that the vampires in the series have the ability to regain their souls, which both Angel and Spike eventually do on their own accord (thereby rejecting their beast status), showing that they have a conscience. This is a quality that vampires very rarely, if ever at all, exhibited in Victorian Gothic texts such as Dracula. In fact, the vampires in Buffy are not presented as beasts at all, but rather as contaminated humans; they are not purely sadistic creatures whose existences revolve around deriving pleasure from killing humans. These vampires feel all the same emotions as humans, and in many other postmodern representations of vampires (such as in the film Twilight), they only ever kill out of necessity as a means to sustain their being and are actually victimized and depicted as persecuted minorities (i.e. outcasts). In these depictions, they are sometimes even oppressed by humans themselves, which further disassociates them from the unredeemable, innately evil, and inhuman image of Victorian-era vampires, which in turn ultimately allows for audiences to identify with them to a greater extent.

In Buffy, the resemblance of vampires to regular humans even provokes the more “otherworldly” monsters and demons present in their universe to consider them tainted beasts (i.e. not purely monstrous/demonic and therefore too human), prompting them to refer to vampires as “blood rats”. Additionally, while the vampires in Buffy are indeed represented as undead, it is worth noting that they assume the same characteristics, personality traits, memories, quirks, and attributes of the humans whose bodies they inhabit, which even further humanizes them, as they essentially assume the exact form, psyche, and personality of a human who once existed. Speaking of this, the vampire Darla even states that “what we were informed what we become”, and informs Angel that whatever hatred and malice he inflicted upon others was always within him, even prior to his transformation into a vampire. In a similar way, the vampires in Buffy, unlike Dracula, are unable to shapeshift into other creatures such as bats, which quite literally humanizes them by stripping them of their capacity to assume other forms.

Marxism is a method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist explanation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict as well as a dialectical perspective to view social transformation. It originates from the works of 19th-century German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxism is presented throughout the 1897 Gothic novel ‘Dracula’ by Bram Stoker, which displays Count Dracula, who is attempting to move from Transylvania to so that he may find new blood and spread the undead curse. Within the novel it could feasibly be argued that Dracula is a capitalist, who manipulates and thrives upon the laborers. Therefore, it could be investigated through a Marxist perspective despite it originally being written as a Gothic text.

Bram Stoker symbolizes the Count as a lifeless and pale entity shown through the quote “I bent over him, and tried to find any sign of life, but in vain”. Which here clearly portrays the Count as a being without life, which could suggest that capitalists do not have an idea of the harsh circumstances they embed onto the lower class, as they themselves are without life from their continuous exploitation of their laborers. Due to Dracula being a symbol as a capitalist, then it clearly highlights that capitalism is ruining society and all of the miserly capitalists are unaware of the true aspects of living, also it clearly highlights how Stoker is showing Karl Marx’s representation of Marxism by criticizing capitalism in the way by portraying the capitalists as lifeless and dead inside, due to their harsh and malicious mistreatment of the lower classes in society. Here, Stoker is showing the reader that capitalism is only benefitting the bourgeoisie, and the majority of society, which is the lower class, is being significantly being taken advantage of by the capitalist society by contributing mainly by manual labor and being hardly paid enough to live, by the not understanding capitalists that have no ‘sign of life’. Stoker himself was socially conservative. Social conservatism is a political philosophy and variety of conservatism which places an emphasis on traditional power structures over social pluralism. They also engaged with the economic insecurity of lower-class and benefitting their economic instability. The working class hardly feature in the novel, and those that do are essentially caricatures of reality. Yet it is a narrative about exploitation, and the use and abuse of power, as much as a tale about vampires which could possibly show that Stoker may have believed that capitalism was an exploitive system where the people involved were lifeless due to their mistreatment of others for their own gain.

Marxists believe that within society, people think and behave according to basic economic factors. Those factors are derived from the dominant class imposing their beliefs upon the lower class in order to conform to the standards and beliefs the more dominant class and make them believe, by working for them, that that they can achieve these standards, but in fact they cannot. Dracula represents a class struggle between the capitalist bourgeois and the character of Dracula as a monopolist who controls a significant portion of the market, and Dracula worked in relation to the bourgeois fears of domination from above from the monopolistic Dracula shown through the quote: “I don’t want to talk to you: you don’t count now; the Master is at hand”. This clearly shows that Stoker is showing that the Count, being an exploitative capitalist, has influence and power over others even within conversations backing up the theory that, “minds are not free at all, they only think they are”, highlighting to the reader that capitalists are arrogant due to the control and supremacy they hold upon others as they are controlling and higher in society than anyone else in the average, standard classes.

Marx himself had used the vampire metaphor to discuss the workings of the capital and how it drains the life out of those who are in the lower classes: “Capital is dead labor which vampire like, lives only by sucking the living labor and lives the more, the more labor it sucks”. The Count is as Marx describes a form of capital which sucks the life from the working class. Dracula has no life himself, but he maintains living off the others like capitalism and due to this Stoker could have portrayed Dracula as the form of capitalism Marx describes shown through the quote “I am here to do Your bidding, Master. I am Your slave…”, which shows that once Dracula has taken life from those, they become his willing slaves, like how capitalists make the working proletariat class their slaves through the harsh form of difficult and painful manual labor. As the Marxist critic Franco Moretti explained, “Dracula is a true monopolist; solitary and despotic, he will not brook competition”. Dracula expressed the fears of the bourgeois and the petty bourgeois who fear domination from the unchallenged power of big business, and with the Count himself, being a ‘true monopolist’, shows that there is always a bigger power within a capitalist society, and with Dracula being one of the biggest it shows how capitalists show no mercy and will make others their slaves to gain in anticompetitive power.

The whole movement of region in the gothic novel as the Count travels from Transylvania – modern day Romania, to Britain, shows that capitalist move from one region to another to capitalize that region and exploit the workers in order to benefit from their demise as the Count says “Not so! Alas! Not so. It is only the beginning!”, which showcases that when a capitalist moves onto a region, they will exploit it with all its benefits, and they will simply move onto another in order to gain as much equity as possible, whilst degrading the working class, leaving them lifeless, like the capitalists seem lifeless, but aren’t as they seem lifeless but are actually feeding off the working class to maintain their wealthy lifestyle.

Stoker also presents the working-class as ineffectual and inferior to the capitalist society. This is shown after the death of Lucy, Steward and Van Helsing, Quincey, and Arthur, all seem to have less of a purpose, although they still do have a desire to avenge Lucy, the matter seems to have diminished in purpose and put aside, as well as Mina’s role has lessened as well at this point, as the men had ‘released’ her from their circle and un-wanting her participation in the hunt anymore. The general course of events sets up the class standings of the characters, as Marx writes that “the entire society must fall into two classes: those with property and those property-less souls who labor”. The men in this instance represent the labor category hunting the Count of his killing of Lucy, but they seem less capable to act against him, never seeming any closer into killing him. Here, Stoker is clearly emphasizing how the laborers actually wield no physical power over the capitalists as they are replaceable and are less significant in comparison to the bourgeoise. This could infer that Stoker shared the view that capitalism is a wasteful, irrational system, a system which controls us when we should be controlling it. This view is expressed as the Count is presented as powerful and the laborers actually wield no power over him due to how the capitalist society controls the laborers rather than the other way around.

Marx also comments, “The laborer becomes the poorer the more wealth he produces, indeed the more powerful and wide ranging his production becomes. The laborer becomes a cheap commodity, the more commodities he creates”. Stoker clearly emphasizes this point in Dracula through the quote “The blood is the life!”. Throughout the novel blood could possibly be viewed that Stoker used blood as an extended metaphor for money, and by having the Count suck blood out of the deprived, it shows how capitalists see money as the only true point to life and it should be obtained at all costs, even if it does drain the life out of others and exploit society at the expenses of the working class, and it evidently shows how capitalism is only benefiting the most powerful members of society, as it degrades those who aren’t without anyway for them to escape from the poverty circle, hence being a slave to the bourgeoisie in order to get standard living needs ,which is in fact a push to say that their style of living is a worse fate than death.

In summary, Marxism is seen evidently strong throughout Bram Stoker’s novel, and it is almost like we are living the world of Dracula’s hierarchy. As readers we become enticed to feel empathy for the oppressed and anger towards the aristocrat. His novel may possibly depict the world of 1897 and allow us to live it through the gothic genre and witness the class struggle. Marx himself once stated: “Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workingmen of all countries, unite!”. Marx knew that the proletarians had nothing to lose not even dignity, they had to stand up for themselves and show society what it could truly be, which clearly shows that from a Marxist lens Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ criticizes the harsh reality of capitalism and how it thrives on exploiting its laborers.

On one hand, Bram Stoker’s Dracula features a villainous vampire who wishes to impose his demonic way of living on the people of England. Before setting foot in London, he researches England’s language, culture, and geography and while in London, he converts the locals into beings like himself. On the other hand, while entering Dracula’s castle Jonathan Harker describes it as ‘leaving the west and entering the east (Stoker 2008). The figure of Dracula thus represents a paradox wherein he is both the oriental dealing with mystic arts unfamiliar to the scientific and rational west, as well as the inversion of the very trope of imperialism by being the conqueror who transforms the indigenous populace into creatures like himself in what could be considered a parallel of the civilizing burden of the white man. Stoker’s Dracula finds echoes in Robert Druce’s genre of ‘mutiny gothic’ because it concerns thematically to the Indian rebellion of 1857 in depicting the orient as a bloodthirsty, mysteriously powerful enemy who must be defeated in a self–righteous war (Druce 1993). This war between the East and the West is also a war between the occult and the scientific. Here Dracula represents the secret spiritual wisdom of the East which is a mystery to the rational scientific developments of the west represented by the men hunting the vampire. Moreover, Dracula is the embodiment of the state of half–death, especially in relation to Indian spiritualism of detachment of the astral soul from the body. Therefore, it finds resonance with the vetal of Indian mythology. In the seventies and eighties, Stoker discussed these legends and myths with Burton. Here it is interesting to note that Richard Burton’s retelling of the tales of Vikram and Vetal turns this figure into a vampire. Such a misappropriation allows for an easy understanding of the mysterious character for the western readers familiar with the vampire.

The term vetal does not offer easy translatability for its western translators or audience because there is no complete equivalent for the concept. Various works enlist the being as genie, djinn, phantom, demon, or ghost.1 However, one particularly misleading translation of the term would be a vampire, especially considering the popularity of the folklore surrounding the same. Unlike a vampire, a vetal does not bite the neck of its victims to suck their blood. Instead, vetals devour magicians who try to control them to gather boons from them. On the other hand, accomplished magicians manage to overpower a vetal using their occult powers (sidhis). Vetal is related to alchemy and can inanimate a corpse but may not always have ill intentions. Unlike Dracula who is described as pure evil, the vetal in the tale ends up helping King Vikram. Burton’s Vikram and the Vampire is chosen for the present study primarily to draw a connection between the two beings – Dracula and Vetal but also because unlike other translations, Burton chooses not to remove the supernatural element and in fact focuses on the occult practices2. In calling the vetal a vampire, there is an erasure of the concept of vetal itself through its merging into another being called vampire. Burton does not attempt to explain the nature and origin of the vetal, further conflating the two categories of supernatural beings.

Burton’s aim in translating Vetal Panchavimshati was to teach the ways of the east to the west so as to be able to govern the colonized better. Interestingly, Stoker’s Count Dracula also partakes in this imperialist exercise of learning the ways of the colonized. He studies extensively the history and geography of the place he seeks to conquer. He comes to a major English city (London) with the sole purpose of controlling her people and assimilating them into his own identity. Rather than being uncannily Other, Dracula for its Victorian readers is unnervingly familiar. Even though he confronts western rationalism with oriental magic, he uses this magic to obtain imperialistic gains and to colonize the colonizers. Hence, he questions the culture’s sense of itself by showing it in the mirror. Interestingly, Stoker conflates the image of its protagonist Jonathan Harker and its villain Dracula when Harker sees only himself in the mirror:

This time there could be no error, for the man was close to me, and I could see him over my shoulder. But there was no reflection of him in the mirror! The whole room behind me was displayed; but there was no sign of a man in it, except myself. (Stoker 2008)

It is possible that Harker only sees himself in the mirror because the goals of both Harker and Dracula are similar. It is not one man or the other but the empire’s monstrosity reflecting back at Harker. Both men intend to dominate a different race so as to establish themselves as superior and control the racial, cultural, and social identities of the other, both sap vitality from the other to profit in their enterprise of greed.

Dracula himself admits that his homeland has been through a perpetual exercise of invasion. He says, ‘…there is hardly a foot of soil in all this region that has not been enriched by the blood of men, patriots or invaders’ (Stoker 2008). In his pride about invading and conquering, Dracula links vampires to military conquests and the rise and fall of empires. Dracula is both a vampire and an invader. However, as a vampire, he is able to colonize his victims’ bodies. He functions as a threat to their personal identities as well as their cultural, political, and racial selves. Dracula has the ability to colonize by turning his victims into beings like himself. He doesn’t so much as destroy bodies but transforms and thus appropriates them much like his counterpart vetal who takes over a human corpse of the oilman’s son and changes its shape and appearance. Dracula then is by all means an occident who seeks to colonize the other and transform it into a being like himself. However, he is often associated with the east and the orient. Both Dracula and Vetal possess shape-shifting abilities. While Dracula can transform into a bat (amongst other things) Vetal is often described as having a bat-like appearance.

…Scarcely, however, had the words passed the royal lips, when the Vampire slipped through the fingers like a worm, and uttering a loud shout of laughter, rose in the air with its legs uppermost, and as before suspended itself by its toes to another bough. And there it swung to and fro… (Burton 1893)

On his way to Castle Dracula, Jonathan Harker notes how he feels like he is entering the east. He says, ‘it seems to me that the further east you go the more unpunctual are the trains’ (ibid). Throughout his journey, he exercises an imperial gaze in noting the peculiarities of the places he visits. He comments on the dress, food, and mannerisms of the natives. His imperial eyes3 travel through the landscape and its people whom he calls ‘oriental bands of brigands’ (ibid). Kaplan defines the imperial gaze as ‘gaze structures specific to representing ethnic Others’ (Kaplan 1997). This representation is situated within an unequal nexus of power where the one who controls the gaze also controls the view of the reader. That is to say, the gaze becomes a tool to mislead or educate the reader about the Other who is being looked at. For instance, Burton’s whole exercise in translation is a work of imperial gaze which turns the colonized into objects to be studied by the more rational colonizing subjects. It isn’t just the vetal who serves as an equivalent to a vampire but Goddess Kali too is described in a manner that portrays her as a blood-sucking vampire.

There stood Smashana-Kali, the goddess, in her most horrid form. She was a naked and very black woman, with a half-severed head, partly cut and partly painted, resting on her shoulder; and her tongue lolled out from her wide yawning mouth; her eyes were red like those of a drunkard, and her eyebrows were of the same color: her thick coarse hair hung like a mantle to her heels. (Burton 1893)

Kali’s bloodshot eyes, her wide mouth with the tongue lolling out, these physical features describe her as a bloodthirsty vampire4. But the whole paranoia and dread of the gaze is inverted by Stoker in his anti-British oriental villain Count Dracula who serves as both the orient dealing with eastern occult as well as the conqueror who transforms (conquers) people into beings like himself. He simultaneously represents oriental mysticism and British imperialism. He embodies the west’s worst fears about what the orient was capable of. Through his mysticism, he represents the dread of the eastern occult but through his enterprise of turning the others into creatures like himself, he is the guilty projection of Britain’s own imperial practices.

Jill Galvan notes how the battle between Dracula and the humans is a contest between eastern and western technology, ‘telegram vs. telepathy’ (Galvan 2015). Indeed, Dracula’s occult means of communication (mind control, telepathy) and the Londoners’ technological modes like memos and telegrams are foils of each other, perpetually competing to either spread vampirism or defend the British nation against the imperialism of the mind and body. The text can be read as a competition between the occult and scientific means of communication where triumph means control of the land and the body while losing the battle also means losing one’s very own identity and personhood, much akin to the enterprise of colonialism.

The reception of Dracula for the British audience included their fascination for mesmerism and hypnotism and its association with the east. It also intersected with the British interest in theosophy during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries which popularised the image of the mystical east and its spiritual wisdom. Dracula constructs this eastern mysticism as a western lack, as concepts, notions and knowledge missing amongst the civilized. Blavatsky connects vampirism with astral projection5. She introduces this concept as rooted in Indian belief (Blavatsky 2010). Interestingly, Burton too writes in his tales about astral projection and similar bodily experiences in the form of dream sequences. These often serve as deus ex machina and propel the action forward.

Helsing, who himself is a student of the occult tries to convince Seward that there are phenomena that science and technology cannot explain. He then gives a reference of the vampiric behavior of an Indian fakir:

Can you tell me how the Indian fakir can make himself to die and have been buried, and his grave sealed and corn sowed on it, and the corn reaped and be cut and sown and reaped and cut again, and then men come and take away the unbroken seal, and that there lie the Indian fakir, not dead, but that rise up and walk amongst them as before? (ibid)

Helsing compares the bloodthirsty and mysteriously powerful Dracula to an Indian fakir. This fakir needs no explaining, finds a direct correlation with the vetal who is a powerful being. Stoker here may be hinting at the latent power of control over the mind and the body through trance or meditation, a practice he surely derived from India due to its Victorian reputation of dabbling with magic and occult. Burton too forms the frame tale of a yogi’s sadhna6 to fulfill his revenge on King Vikram. Moreover, Stoker had at the time of writing his treatise met Richard Burton several times and in fact admired him. Christina Artenie discusses the theory that Dracula might be modeled after Burton and comes to the conclusion that ‘Despite the possible comparison between Burton’s teeth-baring tic and Count Dracula’s iconic representation, one should note that the famous traveler is shown as an example of Western mettle in “savage places” and “supremely of all the East,” where the adventurer must kill or be killed. Rather than an inspiration for the vampire, Burton’s figure seems to be a model of fortitude and resoluteness for Dracula’s vampire hunters’ (Artenie 2015). Said calls Burton a master of societal rules and codes who could easily assimilate the values of a culture without ever feeling any real sense or alliance with that culture (Said 2006). However, if Burton truly did understand the rules and codes of other societies, he did not venture to defend them against the British imperialist cultural hegemony. His translation of Vikram and the Vampire in no way challenges the ethnocentric or racist ideas, nor is it in any manner subversive but rather confirms and at times adds to the stereotypes that the British readers had about Indian culture.

Stephen Arata talks about reverse colonization in Dracula where the imperialist practices of Britain are mirrored by the eastern orient that in turn colonizes the British populace thus serving them a taste of their own medicine. Moreover, he says that Dracula is the response to the cultural guilt of the colonizers and their fear of turning into the Other.

Both Dracula and Vetal express a certain epistemophilia where each either controls or seeks to control knowledge and knowledge systems that govern the world around them. Vetal is privy not just to the greater knowledge of the plot against Vikram, which Vikram only suspects, but as the narrator of the stories and asker of questions to which he knows the answer, he is also part of a larger network of dissemination of knowledge where he, as the disseminator, has the upper hand. Before invading the bodies of his victims, Dracula first invades the spaces of their knowledge through his extensive study of Britain’s customs which he pursues via his books. His victory is dependent on his successful juggling of the occidental study of the British society as well as his oriental knowledge of that which this very same British society considers as primitive. The means of knowledge acquisition however are different in each case indicating the differences of the same means within the lives of the translator and author respectively. While Burton traveled extensively throughout the eastern regions of the world, his travels under the guise of an Arab gained much popularity7; Stoker’s research of the different folklores surrounding vampires was based mostly on his reading of various treatises and tracts that he does not fail to mention in his notes8. Moreover, knowledge becomes a tool of dominance in the hands of the colonizer who seeks to prove his hegemonic superiority on the basis of superior knowledge. Macaulay’s minute on education details how ‘…lakh of rupees [was] set apart not only for reviving literature in India,…for the introduction and promotion of a knowledge of the sciences among the inhabitants of the British territories’ (Macaulay 1835). This scientific knowledge that needs revival is obviously the one deemed necessary by the ‘British territories’ and hence posits itself in contradiction to the oriental knowledge which is considered primitive. However, in Dracula, the western scientific technology in the hands of the Londoners is heavily inadequate compared to Dracula’s mystical knowledge and networks of information gathering. He must in the end be defeated by means of an amalgamation of the two knowledge systems, the scientific and the occult. Dracula’s end is only possible using the eastern weapon of a kukri knife and by utilizing the means of hypnotism. This hypnotism is couched in scientific terminology developed by the neurologist Dr. Charcot whom Helsing mentions. The purpose of mentioning Dr. Charcot and the western scientific discourse is to seamlessly blend the eastern and western knowledge systems such that the task of defeating Dracula can only be accomplished by the merger of the two. Valente proposes that the novel posits a certain level of ‘metrocoloniality’ which exceeds the demands of simplistic reductions like east/west and Self/Other (Valente 2000). Helsing finds the flaw in modern science for not being open to newer concepts:

…it is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all; and if it explains not, then it says there is nothing to explain. But yet we see around us every day the growth of new beliefs, which think themselves new, and which are yet but the old, which pretend to be young (ibid)

The novel does not follow any binary patterns of the west as progressive and advanced in technology and the east as primitively constituting of crude practices and systems of superstitious beliefs because Dracula embodies both the notions of the self and the other, the occident and the orient. On the other hand, Burton’s translation offers a peak into the world of the orient but neither does it laud nor does it criticize the As mentioned earlier, the translation offers nothing in way of explanation for certain misconceptions in the minds of its British readers nor does it downplay the aspects of mystical or occult within the narrative.

Introduction

In spite of being fiction-based writings, Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, among many other related stories, have been critically acclaimed as some of the best books that give a clear representation of sex and sexuality in the society—especially in the classical times like the Victorian era.

In essence, different authors ascribe to different ideologies in regard to the intricacies of sex and sexuality among men and women. However, in most of the writings like Dracula and The Bloody Chamber, women are mostly represented as the weaker gender that is bound to obey the rules and regulations of a male chauvinist society.

Any effort to break free into a balanced society where women are able to express their sexuality in a free way is met with huge criticisms and occasional punishments. An explication of how these stories represent men and women in regard to sex and sexuality is expressively given in the discussions below.

Representation of Sex and Sexuality in the Stories

As was earlier mentioned, different authors represent sex and sexuality variably. In analyzing and exemplifying the representation of sex and sexuality in these stories, various subtopics will be used—as is typified below.

Gender Balance (Masculinity Vs Femininity)

In as much as the classical societies are reported to having stringent social expectation and standards for both genders (sexes), Stoker asserts that in the Victorian society, men were allowed to engage in more freedoms, pleasures and enjoyment endeavors than their female counterparts (Stoker, 2011).

In addition, these patriarchal views of the Victorian era ensured that men enjoyed dominance over the women in terms of engaging in sexual endeavors (Waters, 1997). Resultantly, men were able to engage and satiate their sexual urges—even weird ones like homosexuality—without facing a lot of condemnation or punishment.

On the flip side, women were not permitted to express their sexual desires openly—unless it was being done to please the men (Podonsky, 2010). A good example here is way Stoker portrays Lucy as a sexually aggressive lady and the criticisms and punishments she had to receive for her aggression.

On the other hand, Mina, who is portrayed as the typical modest and moral woman in the Victorian era, ends up being spared of criticisms and punishments in spite of her involvement with the Dracula just in the same way as Lucy.

It is worth mentioning that despite the portrayal of men as being the stronger of the two sexes; they are occasionally represented as being feminaphobic (afraid of being feminine) and gynephobic (afraid of women in general). Based on their flirtatious nature and the general sexual attraction of men to women, both Dracula and the Bloody Chambers tend to limit and oppose the strength of women.

Even with their inferiority in the society, women like the three weird sisters in Dracula are able to seduce and convince men to almost do anything just to get sex from them (Podonsky, 2010). More power and freedom by these women would probably translate into more control over men no wander their strength, dominance and control is hugely opposed.

Again, despite the fact that both women and men are equally depicted as engaging in unethical or irresponsible sexual behaviors, the stories largely show that women get more punished or face dire consequences than men. All these point to the argument that the classical era tended to favor masculinity (Stoker, 2011).

Objectification of Women

To a great extent, women in these classical stories are objectified as “instruments of male pleasure”. In fact, in most cases, the pleasure being referenced in these stories is the element of sex (Craft, 1997). Of course characteristics and traits of women such as obedience, submissiveness and modesty were considered important. However, most emphasis was made on aspects that had strong sexuality connotations such as beauty and voluptuousness (Carter, 1979).

This objectification of women is, probably, the reason gender roles among women in Dracula were divided into two broad categories; those who were virginal and pure (the modest type who did everything in accordance to the rules and regulations of the Victorian era) and the sexually aggressive type who were otherwise regarded as whores (Podonsky, 2010).

In Dracula, these two categories are represented by the key female characters Mina and Lucy. Despite both ladies being inexplicably feminine in terms of their naivety, purity and dependence on their husbands; Mina was more conserved to fulfilling a woman’s duties to her husband while Lucy had three suitors—which is interpreted as her desire for attaining freedom through promiscuity.

As the story of Lucy and Mina develops and the threat of these ladies being transformed by the Dracula; the men in the story are apparently more afraid these ladies losing their sexual innocence and turning into sexually aggressive women rather than the eminent threat of their vampiric and blood-thirsty tendencies. In the Bloody Chamber, the Marquis makes the heroine into a pornographic image by undressing her and always forcing her to wear her collar of rubies (Carter, 2009).

Furthermore, the Marquis not only goes as far as killing his wives for his weird pleasures but he even goes ahead to make displays of their dead bodies as if they are some trophies or collectibles (Simpson, 2006). Even more blatantly, Carter objectifies Beauty when her father uses her as payment for the debt owed to the beast.

Only in very rare occasions do we find men being objectified. A good example of men being objectified is in the Bloody Chamber through the character known as the Countess. In the Bloody Chamber, the countess can never be happy with men because she has an insatiable hunger for men which only makes her see them as in a lusty way rather than the fulfilling love that she craves for. Here, men are the typified as the objects and we get an insight of how objectification gets to harm the object as well as the person who does the objectification (Simpson, 2006).

Violence, Sex and Love

In many ways, the theme of violence and sexuality run concurrently in both the Bloody Chambers and Dracula. In the Bloody Chamber for instance, Marquis seduces the ladies into being with him then ends up killing them once they have become his wives.

In other words, he seduces the ladies, tells them he loves them, then marries them so that he can satiate his sexual needs and once he is tired of his victims (wives); he kills them and moves to the next one. Here, ladies are depicted as being gullible and emotionally susceptible to men’s lies. As a result, they end up paying the ultimate price of being killed (Simpson, 2006).

Contrastingly, Dracula also portrays the theme of violence but in this case, men are the ones who are depicted as being gullible to the seduction and flirtation from women like Lucy and the three weird sisters. Before Lucy became a vampire, Lucy was portrayed as having quiet sexual aggression in spite of occasionally complaining about the limited freedom of expression by women.

However, once she is transformed by Dracula, her thirst for blood and sex is heightened and her human nature is corroded as we see her stalking and feeding on children—something which normal mothers would never engage in (Warner, 1995; and Wright, 1989).

The powerlessness of the Victorian men, in terms of resisting sexual advancements from the ladies, is again exemplified when Harker becomes easily overpowered by the three sisters just by merely being seduced. In spite of wanting to fight the three weird sisters, his body is aroused as he craves with a “burning desire” that the ladies would kiss him with their red lips. In the end, not even Harker’s respect for his wife Mina is able to save him.

The difficulty in resisting the three weird sisters is further explained by the number 3, which, according to ancient mythologies, signifies a strong bond. This is probably the reason witches in the Greek myth of Perseus as well as the witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth or even the biblical trio (God the father, son and Holy Spirit) were three in numbers.

Even Van Helsing, who is depicted as a strong-willed warrior fighting against the oppression brought by the Dracula and the vampires, is reported to have hesitated from killing the vampires when he saw that the radiant beauty of the vampires. It can thus be said that the high level of seduction and prowess in sex by women is a huge threat to men and their moral principles (Richards, 2008).

For most believers in the Victorian era, unnatural sexual behaviors came by as a result of some evil or satanic forces. In order to fight these ills, religious and violent intervention were both necessary (Norton, 2000). This, essentially, explains the use of cross-shaped wood by Van Helsing and the vampire warriors in daggering the vampires. To this regard, the liberation of women’s sexuality can be seen as having been encouraged by Christian endeavors (Masters, 1972).

Remarkably, topics like homosexuality and ritualistic practices like orgy sex were immensely controversial in the Victorian era (Day, 2002). According to the Dracula, people found guilty of engaging in homoerotic behaviors was punishable in court with up to two years in jail and hard labor, among many other punishments. For this reason, great emphasis was put upon responsible and modest sexual behaviors (Roemer & Bacchilega, 2001).

However, as time went on and books like Dracula expressed these behaviors by curtailing them as being part of vampiric practices; the public became somewhat less concerned about them in entirety but rather in terms of inhibiting women from engaging from them (Dworkin, 1974).

It is for this reason that, whereas men would go as far as being polygamous or having many women sexual partners in the Victorian era, females like Lucy thinking of polyandry such that women could marry more than one man at the same time, was considered as being promiscuous and whore-like.

As a final note, it is worth stating that most of these stories view love as a means to an end. For majority of the men like Marquis (in The Bloody Chamber) and Harker (in Dracula); marriage and having women is mainly for the purpose of fulfilling sexual needs. This is the reason characters like Marquis easily seduces, has sex then kills his wives.

Knowing that men have a weakness for their charm and sexual advances, the women also used sex and love as leverage to making men do whatever they want. This is the reason characters like Lucy (in Dracula) easily manipulates his three suitors. From these discussions, it can thus be said that violence, sex and love are, in one way or another, interrelated to each other.

This, partially, explains the concurrent engagement in sex, love and violence (murder) inseparably by Marquis. Under the section of “Puss in Boots” in the Bloody Chamber, the violence against Signor Panteleone is viewed as a necessary action to secure the opportunity to engage in sex with the young woman.

Many other instances such as in “the company of wolves” in the Bloody Chamber whereby the werewolf seduces the girl before eating her or when Puss’s master in “Puss in Boots” had sex with the young girl on the floor while a corpse lay in the bed which was just a few meters from them (Carter 2009).

Conclusion

In summary, these discussions underline the important influence of sex and sexuality in the classical times; just the same way it is today. In fact, the permissiveness in some of today’s societies in regard to practices such as homosexuality would have not come about had the idea not been proliferated by scholars such as Carter (Day, 2002).

Also, the symbolism and projection of ancient mythologies in regard to creatures like vampires, Dracula and werewolves and their sexual mannerisms has contributed greatly to the world of horrors and horror movies, both in positive and negative ways. For instance, based on the need to prevent women from sexual aggressiveness, religions like Christianity were propagated.

On the flipside, the liberation of women in terms of their freedom of expression not just in sexual ways, but a myriad of other arenas, contributed to some controversial sexual orientations such as lesbianism.

In spite of all these, these literary works went a long way in serving the literary need at that regarding the balance of sexual occurrences at that time. For instance, the death of Lucy and the sparing of Mina symbolically signify the triumph in silencing of the aggressive lady and the continuity of the submissive Victorian woman—as required.

List of References

Carter, A 2009, The Bloody Chamber and other stories, Vintage: London.

Carter, A 1979, The Sadeian woman, Virago: London.

Craft, Christopher. “Gender and inversion in Dracula.” Dracula. Ed. Nina, A., and David, J. S 1997, Norton, New York.

Day, W P 2002, Vampire legends in contemporary American culture: what becomes a legend most. University Press of Kentucky: Lexington.

Dworkin, A 1974, Woman hating, Plume: New York.

Masters, A 1972, Natural history of the vampire, Putnam: New York, NY.

Norton, R 2000, Gothic readings: the first wave 1764-1840, Leicester University Press: London.

Podonsky, A. M 2010, ‘Bram Stoker’s Dracula: a reflection and rebuke of Victorian society’. Web.

Richards, C 2008, Forever young: essays on young adult fictions, Peter Lang: Grand Rapid.

Roemer, D., and Bacchilega, C 2001, Angela Carter and the fairy tale, Wayne State University: Detroit.

Simpson, H 2006, ‘Femme fatale’. Web.

Stoker, B 2011, Dracula, Plain Label Books: Bel Air, CA.

Warner, M 1995, From the beast to the blonde: on fairy tales and their tellers, Chatto & Windus: London.

Waters, K. V 1997, The perfect gentleman: masculine control in Victorian men’s fiction 1870-1901, Peter Lang Publishing: New York.

Wright, D 1989, The Book of Vampires, Omnigraphics: Danbury.