Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula is unapologetically sexually charged even though it is set in a world of Victorian morals and values. Stoker uses sexuality in Dracula to comment on politics and society. Christopher Craft illuminates sexuality in Dracula through his essay “Kiss Mewith Red Lips: Gender and Inversion in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” Astute argues that the stereotypical roles of both men and women in the Victorian period were twisted and inverted to break the hope between sexual consciousness and openness as well as homosexuality. Dracula can indeed be read in the context of psychosexual intentions and certainly announces the possibility of gender reversal and the real or perceived danger of homosexuality and eroticism. It can be argued that Christopher Craft’s own argument is that he falsely develops the role of women in his article.
Christopher Craft argues that the first use of sexuality and gender placement in the novel Dracula is through biting, and thus the transmission of the vampiric role from the vampire to the victim. The mouth has long been a source of sexual identity, and the vampire’s quest to sustain itself through the blood or bodily fluids of its victim places vampires in hyper-sexualized territory. Cunning teeth or a vampire’s tooth is viewed as an easily masculine feature through the role it plays in the penetration of the body, or male to female. When the teeth pierce or penetrate the victim’s skin, Craft then argues that blood is also representative of semen, another bodily fluid that gives birth to and sustains life. Dracula penetrates as the male and apparent father of vampires and in effect robs his victims of their lives and Victorian possessions, then tricks them into giving into sexual temptation and satisfaction. There are two types of time: “penetrative and receptive” (445).
The three female pleasure vampires are particularly interesting when dealing with Dracula’s gender reversal. These three characters are completely sexualized by the expectations of the women of the time inverted to sexually open and conscious temptresses who try to satisfy their urges in Jonathan Harker, who is subjected to the role of a woman who can only be penetrated by a dominant female vampire. By striking Harker, those women would take on the roles of men, represented by sharp teeth, a phallic symbol. at the discretion of the fornicator to penetrate the victim. Jonathan Harker is both bored and excited by the thought of the vampire’s pleasure of “kissing” or seeking sustenance (42-51).
It is worth noting that Dracula interrupts one of the devourers of Jonathan Harker and forces the three women to say: “How dare he touch any of you? How dare you look at him when I’m forbidden? Go back, I say? All of you!” (43).
The Earl therefore defends his love, perhaps for Harker, or for his own blood. This scene is entirely homoerotic and places Harker constantly in the female role of taking on the dominant role of Count Dracula male, or penetrating one. and to restrain
Furthermore, the Lucy Western system is a case of genre inversion for the Craft. In the victimization of Dracula, Lucy has become overly sexual and a constant seeker of sexual satisfaction through her three male suitors. She inverts the expectation of a meek woman to follow and pursue men. She seeks to penetrate and devour their blood, the representative seed. Lucia was once condemned by a vampire as a sexual character and described as sexual, even voluptuous. After death, Lucy’s beauty returns, but not before flipping gender roles with Arthur boldly (for a woman of the time) asking to be satisfied with kisses .
I completely agree with Christopher Craft on the present assertions of homosexuality. I also look at the mouth and teeth, the attack and subsequent sharpening of the body with the sharp white teeth representative of the phallic symbol, and placing the emphasis on the male characteristics and characteristics of the vampire, whether male or female in action.
Where he differs from Craft is what he noted in the novel. Craft points out, “However, we must remember that the vampire’s mouth was first of all Dracula’s mouth, and all subsequent versions of it (in Dracula all vampires except the Count are female)”. It should further be noted that Dracula “controls his children” and feeds them on his behalf (446). This simple note is important to understand that the control lies within the count. He orders his female vampires to do as he pleases. The Count on Vampires effect is one and all. They become him. The three female vampires and Lucy Western were only female in human form. For victimization, penetration, blood drawing and vampires, the woman in them not only assumed the masculine position of dominating and penetrator power, but became a masculine effect.
To argue that women in Bram Dracula are inverted and about Victorian erainvert yourself and assume that the women remain, having used the characteristics given to them by men. It is argued that when one becomes a vampire, one becomes male in all social roles. A vampire is penetrable, regardless of anatomy or genitalia, a vampire is penetrable through the male orifice of the mouth and penetrating teeth.
Although Jonathan Harker female-body attracts Jonathan Harker’s vampiric daughters, they still want to penetrate and subjugate them to the lower world. the sexual parts, and the ultimate dominion over the condition of the count, which relegates his female to that aspect alone, the outward appearance. You can’t judge a book by its cover, and therefore you can’t look at a vampiric trio or a Lucy Western as the epitome of female sexuality simply going insane by appearance. It is simpler to say that female vampires are inverted into male roles. They cannot assume a male role if they are male.
Agreeing with the homoerotic opinion of the Count and Jonathan Harker, but allowing the Count to control his children, proves the female vampire’s lust for Harker, and their subsequent desire for homosexual experience as well.
Most of one gender is present in Dracula, male. The only female representation is Mina, and Lucia before her damnation by the vampire. The male group of light, Dracula, Harker, and all the new female vampires with their male characters and roles are monopolizing the few female shelters. The perfection of sexual functions in the new places is evidently ordered. With the birth of Little Quincy I agree with Christopher Craft that the evils of vampire sexuality and homosexuality are overcome, Little Quincy returns to the ideal sex roles of the Victorian era.
