Bram Stoker
Part I is right here and II is here
Vampiric sex becomes an irresistible and absolute contamination or indeed the expression of a universal disorder where it is not merely the confines of common moral sexuality that are obliterated but even the sacred separation between life and death in a sort of supernatural, cosmic violation that defies the very laws of nature. However, to define the sexuality of the vampire is to produce more vampirism, or indeed to stabilise the idea of perversity, as Judith Halberstam observes in ‘Technologies of Monstrosity: Bram Stoker’s Dracula’.
'This would overlook Gothic novels’ ability to create monsters that are never unitary but an aggregation of different elements, in Dracula’s case, ‘monster and man, feminine and powerful, parasitical and wealthy; he is repulsive and fascinating, he exerts the consummate gaze but is scrutinized in all things, he lives forever but can be killed. Dracula is indeed not simply a monster but a technology of monstrosity’ (1995: 88).
Yet, if the erotic theme mixed with a fear of the foreign and the unknown was already present in classical literature and legends and was then utilised again by the first authors who turned the vampire into a charming, if terrifying, creature, Stoker’s novel adds an original trait to the issue in light of Victorian positivism, which had been so deeply affected by the mere existence of Dracula within itself.
Although the author accepts the supernatural nature of the monster, he seeks at the same time to rationalise his behaviour and to analyse it through natural and scientific laws. He attempts to fight the darkness brought about by his creature with the enlightenment provided by reason and to extirpate the plague by scientific means. Professor Van Helsing, embodying the Age of Reason, defeats Dracula not simply by using the normally accepted method of staking through the heart (although it is a knife that finishes him off, to be precise), but also with the help of much more modern contraptions such as phonographs and cameras.
Caught between two divergent forces, the medieval, obscure origin of the theme and the lucid positivism which resolves the events, Dracula becomes an extremely potent symbolic figure: he rebels against the natural order of life by exemplifying a total refusal to bend to divine and human laws. In his three-fold quality of undead, magician and diabolical entity, he is the heir of animalistic impulses that lie dormant within the subconscious of reason, ready to rise when the nightmare forces its way through the cracks in the walls that separate it from reality. It comes as an enlightened progression that it should be Van Helsing who should lead the younger (but somewhat weaker) men, for he is at once the scientist, the man of letters and the warrior who has all the qualities to face the medieval legend in its most terrible modern incarnation.
This original dichotomy is most certainly the quality that has allowed Dracula to remain relevant and yet it is not the only doubling to be found in the text, as John Paul Riquelme wrote in his essay ‘Doubling and Repetition/Realism and Closure in Dracula’ (2002: 559-60). It is quite possible that the numerous dualisms and liberating quality of this text, despite the disguise of a morality tale, have facilitated its success.
This is a novel that has been continuously reprinted, studied and imitated in literature as well as popular culture for over a century, and whose appeal has included odd episodes of identification among the most hardcore fanatics. Its seminal importance has turned it into a veritable watershed, so much so that references to horror literature pre- and post-Dracula provide separate sets of different characteristics, merits and downfalls. It itself remains remarkably timeless and thoroughly modern, as Dennis Foster suggests with his psychoanalytic reading ‘The little children can be bitten: A Hunger for Dracula’, where his investigations into the vampire as otherness relate Dracula to ourselves and the hunters to our precarious ethical principles (Stoker, 2002: 498).
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That's it for the text my dear reader. Next week I shall tell you a bit more about biblio resources, and especially about my favourite edition of this seminal novel.
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