Bram Stokers Dracula is undoubtedly one of the most influential horror novels in western culture. One is left to wonder what gives the novel its staying power. Throughout the ages, authors have created influential writing that has eventually gathered its dust, been placed under some uneven coffee table, and inevitably fallen out of the realm of lasting literature. So what is it about Stokers Dracula that has resonated so powerfully with western civilization and inspired countless adaptations of vampire horror since? Why does vampirism captivate our culture? Within this novel, blood, the ultimate focus of vampirism, surfaces in a mirage of opposing ideas that range from sexual promiscuity to Christian doctrine. There can be no doubt that this theme of blood is the most captivating and disturbing aspect of Bram Stokers Dracula, and it is this theme that has since highly influenced both western culture and the horror genre. Blood not only demonizes a vampire, but it humanizes one. It establishes something the reader can identify with, for blood is life to humans just as it is to vampires. Blood is the tie that both binds and divides Draculas world from the rest of humanity. It quite literally, and figuratively, gives Dracula his staying power.
From the very beginning of the novel, Dracula presents two worlds that are completely foreign to one another. England juxtaposes Transylvania in almost every way. While England ushers in a new age of technology and advancement, Transylvanian members continue to live in peasantry. While English men like Mr. Swales have no patience for the ideas of superstition, Transylvanian members ritualistically guard against evil. This opposing nature between Draculas world and the rest of the characters sets the stage for further contrast. Essentially innate aspects of Draculas nature are in sharp conflict against western civilization. Stoker outlines a blatant contrast between sexual promiscuity and sexual purity, selfishness and selflessness, and paganism and Christian doctrine. All of these clashes are inevitably tied to Draculas need and thirst for blood.
Draculas world and nature is drenched in sexual promiscuity. With the power to seduce, the vampires of Stokers novel represent animalistic sexual desire. There is no real argument that can take sexuality out of Dracula, nor is there any legitimate argument that can untie this sexuality from its bond of blood. The very way in which Dracula feeds on the blood of females suggests an exchange of bodily fluids that represents sexual intercourse. After Lucy has been bitten by Dracula she is exhausted of her energy to the point of nearly passing out. The three weird sisters that confront Harker in the third chapter of the novel exhibit an undeniable sexual aggression. Harker relays that he wishes to be kissed by these three women with voluptuous lips. One of the sisters says He is young and strong; there are kisses for us all. (Stoker 45) As the text continues, Stokers description of the vampires sexual advance on Harker is blatantly likened to oral intercourse. The fair girl went on her knees and bent over me... There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive...as she arched her neck she actually licked her lips like an animal.... Lower and lower went her head as the lips went below the range my mouth and chin and seemed about to fasten on my throat. (Stoker 45). Dracula and the other vampires thirst for blood creates a highly sexualized conflict within the novel as these seductive powers threaten to destroy the chastity that is idealized in western civilization.
Draculas power over female sexuality, as highlighted by is overpowering of Lucy and Mina, clearly represents a fantasy of the Victorian men that are juxtaposing the Count. Even Mina, who remains the source of chastity and purity throughout the entirety of the novel, is subdued by Dracula. Mina relates how the Count drank her blood in a forcefully sexual manner, threatening to kill her husband if she resisted, and when he was through, cut his own chest and forced her to drink his blood. In horror she declares, ...he seized my neck and pressed my head to the wound so that I must either suffocate or swallow... (Stoker 307)
Yet, while Stoker uses the drinking of blood to highlight a loss of sexual purity, he uses a shedding of blood to represent a restoration of peace and chastity. After Lucy has become a vampire and allowed her sexual curiosity to destroy her, her fianc, Arthur Holmwood, purges her body of its evil through the shedding of blood. By driving a stake through her heart, Lucy is returned to her original submissive and chaste self. The destruction of Lucys evil foil is highly sexualized. He struck with all his might... The body shook and quivered and twisted in wild contortions... as his untrembling arm rose and fell, driving deeper and deeper the mercy-bearing stake. (Stoker 230) It is fitting that this sexualized restoration of Lucy should come from her fianc, a man who would have, had Lucy displayed more self-control, fulfilled her sexual curiosity. This emphasis on sexuality through the perversion of a focus on blood has been the most captivating aspect of Dracula in western culture.
Blood is also the source of another juxtaposition within the novel- that of self-gratification and self-sacrifice. Dracula, and the rest of the vampires, represents a group of beings that act solely for their own good. Dracula essentially has no mercy for anyone other than himself and his own kind. While he ensures no harm comes to Harker in the commencement of the novel, he does so only to further his own pursuits back in England. In chapter three, Dracula assures the three weird sisters that they may have Harker when he is done with him, which further verifies that Dracula views Harker merely as a tool that he can use to further his own plans. (Stoker 46)
In fact, Draculas entire existence depends on his ability to use other people. If he is to live, he has no choice but to take advantage of human life to do so. Draculas focus however is not merely his own existence. His kind is at odd with humanity and in danger of dying out. Dracula overpowers the women within the novel to continue his own preservation, but he also does so thinking that they will eventually add to his numbers by drinking the blood of other humans. In chapter twenty-three Dracula ridicules Van Helsing and his group by saying, Your girls that you all love are mine already, and through them you and others shall yet be mine- my creatures to do my bidding and to be my jackals when I want to feed. (Stoker 326) Clearly he has no sympathy for the lives that he has stolen. His sole focus is his own self-gratification and preservation. If his life can only be continued by drinking the blood of the innocent, Dracula will not be stopped.
In contrast, Van Helsings practices center mainly on preserving and saving life by giving blood, not taking it. Throughout the course of her treatment, Lucy receives blood transfusions from both Arthur Holmwood and Dr.Seward. Dr. Seward states at one point that his body is week from his loss of blood for the sake of preserving Lucys life. (Stoker 152) Van Helsing and those helping him collectively represent an attitude of self-sacrifice. These men and women stay up all night in order to look after Lucy, they go to great lengths to save her, they literally physically give of themselves to preserve her, and they put themselves in direct danger in order to restore her soul. This attitude flies directly in the face of Draculas ambitions. While Dracula cares only for himself and his own preservation, Van Helsing and his followers are committed to caring whole heartedly for Lucy and anyone else in grave danger. Dracula takes blood in order to save himself, while Van Helsing and his followers give blood in order to save someone else.
Blood as the source of life is not a foreign concept to western civilization, and there is an unmistakable parallel between the ancient evil that Dracula represents and the constant manifestation of Christian symbols. Draculas need to drink blood in order to live seems to be a perverted representation of the Christian practice of communion, and Dracula is not the only character to represent this perversion. Renfield, Dr. Sewards non-vampire patient, is also obsessed with consuming the blood of living creatures. At one point, having cut Dr. Seward and immediately having attempted to drink his blood, Renfield shouts, The blood is the life! (Stoker 152) And the blood is the life in Stokers Dracula. Blood alone is the only thing capable of sustaining life for both Draculas followers and Van Helsings followers. Draculas bloodthirstiness is a perversion of Christs sacrifice for humanity, for while Draculas hunt extends his physical life, it ultimately leaves him soulless.
Christ shed his blood so that humanity might be saved eternally, while Dracula kills merely to keeps his meaningless immortality. Ultimately, it is Dracula and the rest of the vampires consumption of blood that is dooming them. In the end, peace is restored to Dracula, Lucy, and the three weird sisters when their blood is shed. The combat between Christian theology and the inherent evil represented by vampirism promotes Van Helsings mission to that of a holy war. The overwhelming message, which is validated by the fate of Dracula and the other vampires, suggests that real eternal life is found only in the blood of Gods son- blood that was willingly given, not forcefully taken.
Blood is the tie that both binds and divides Draculas world from the rest of humanity, and it is Stokers use of blood within the context of the novel that has established Dracula as one of the most influential horror novels to ever be written. There is a simultaneous appeal and repulse on behalf of a reader when confronted with the animalistic drive that Draculas thirst for blood creates. Sensuality, selfishness, and a rebellion against religion are not unnatural to human nature, but they are often unaccepted by human society. These ideals are the basic drives that people suppress in order to be functional in civilization.
Perhaps, what is most fearful about Dracula is not that he is so foreign, but that he is at all familiar. He represents the soulless human, a being that acts solely for its own benefit. That is not a desire that any human can claim to have never been able to relate to. When these familiar desires are linked to something as grotesquely repulsive as the consumption of human blood, Dracula simply becomes the villain. There is no sympathizing with something almost anyone can recognize as evil. For while drinking the blood of another is not natural in western culture, self-gratification is. Humans recognize Draculas impulses as evil because they have personally experienced something comparable. Yet still, our culture tells us to resist the impulse. Ultimately, it is his quest for blood and his inability to deny himself that drains the reader of sympathy. Blood within western culture has taken on two completely opposite symbols. Blood is either love, kinship, and salvation, or it is death, war, and demise. Both meanings manifest within the context of Dracula, but Dracula himself represents only the latter. It is this simultaneous disgust and appeal that gave Dracula his fame. It is this very conflict that continues to make him one of the most notorious faces of horror today.
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