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A Short Extract Exemplifying the Sexuality Within Supernatural Framework of Dracula is an analysis of a scene within Bram Stoker's Dracula between protagonist Jonathan Harker and Dracula's three 'Brides', renowned for its overt sexuality but also its subversion of female sexuality as a repulsive attribute.

An attack by one of the Brides on Harker.

An Introduction to the Author

Bram Stoker was an Irish author born in 1847 under the name Abraham Stoker and is best known for his Gothic novel Dracula published in 1897. He was brought up a Protestant and a Liberal, but also a monarchist. He was first noted for his writing when he was a theatre critic for the Dublin Evening Mail . Before writing Dracula, Stoker spent years researching folklore from Europe and the myth of the vampire.

An Introduction to the Extract

His most famous novel Dracula introduced the eponymous vampire from Transylvania and his conflict with Abraham Van Helsing, a professor and vampire hunter. Supporting characters include young solicitor Jonathan Harker, his fiancée Mina Murray, and Mina’s aristocratic friend Lucy Westenra, who join Helsing’s mission to rid the world of vampires. Themes of the novels include sexuality, immigration and colonialism, and the role of women in Victorian England. The novel is written in an epistolary style in which the text takes the form of diary entries, newspaper clippings and letters.

Extract

The following extract contains an encounter between Harker in Count Dracula’s castle and the ‘Brides’, three female vampires who serve the Count’s whims:

I was afraid to raise my eyelids, but looked out and saw perfectly under the lashes. The girl went on her knees, and bent over me, simply gloating. There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive, and as she arched her neck she actually licked her lips like an animal, till I could see in the moonlight the moisture shining on the scarlet lips and on the red tongue as it lapped the white sharp teeth. Lower and lower went her head as the lips went below the range of my mouth and chin and seemed about to fasten on my throat. Then she paused, and I could hear the churning sound of her tongue as it licked her teeth and lips, and could feel the hot breath on my neck. Then the skin of my throat began to tingle as one’s flesh does when the hand that is to tickle it approaches nearer—nearer. I could feel the soft, shivering touch of the lips on the super-sensitive skin of my throat, and the hard dents of two sharp teeth, just touching and pausing there. I closed my eyes in a languorous ecstasy and waited—waited with beating heart.

Analysis of Content

Throughout Dracula there is a strong theme of female sexuality and symbolism. This can be seen especially in Chapter Three where Jonathan Harker is approached by Dracula’s three wives. Throughout this paragraph the women are represented in an eroticised way and through their alluring approaches to Harker, Stoker is reversing standardised gender roles of the 19th Century. The three wives are overtly sexually charged and intend to entice Harker who in turn expresses his internal and apparent fear of the woman, yet also his delight: ‘There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive, and as she arched her neck she actually licked her lips like an animal’ . This mixture of intense feelings can be interpreted upon a Freudian level as Stoker places a specialised focus upon an erotic depiction of this particular attack, but it can also be seen as moving towards the sublime as Harker is reaching feelings of both pain and pleasure, which cause him to reach a state of astonishment by the Women.

On this Freudian level, Harker could be interpreted as having a repressed sexuality, and when faced by the women, he cannot contain his feelings for not only passion and fear but also for the unexpected - where women dominate the situation and prove Harker to be a weaker protagonist than perhaps Stoker intended. This could also elucidate that whilst the novel’s theme is horror, Stoker has toyed with this representation and shows that the true horror lies behind the awakening of female sexuality. In terms of sexuality, it can also be seen that Harker’s unconscious is represented by Dracula’s double that acts out Harker’s repressed desires . This would explain why Harker’s reaction to the women is that of a sublime delight.

References

A Short Extract Exemplifying the Sexuality Within Supernatural Framework of Dracula