Nineteenth century gothic Victorian literature contains a variety of different themes within its pages. The goal of that time period was to be proper, religious and pure. Yet, a lot of these stories’ content contains underlying sexual innuendos. The Goblin Market, a children’s poem, and Dracula, a horrifying vampire novel, convey tales to the audience that mean one thing on the surface, but deep down, express sexuality as a whole.
The Goblin Market is supposed to be for young readers, yet at the end of the poem it leaves the audience contemplating the implicit idea of sex. The goblins are trying to lure in Laura, and feed her their magical “fruits”. Forcing her to eat their fruit, is essentially the goblins forcing Laura to have sex with them. A disturbing line from The Goblin Market is, “She sucked and sucked and sucked the more, Fruits which that unknown orchard bore; She sucked until her lips were sore” (134-136.) This literally means Laura was sucking the juice from the magical fruits, but on a deeper level, it’s implying she is engaging in oral sex. There are many other sexual innuendos in this poem.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula draws upon the sensualness of vampires, and the sexual seduction they give off. On the surface, the main objective of the story is vampires sucking blood in order to survive–but there is a sexual component to this. A line from this novel is “The fair girl went on her knees, and bent over me, fairly 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” (32.) This sounds like an erotic, sensual, and intimate interaction between two lovers, not like a vampire wanting blood and that is it . The element of sexualness is intriguing to the characters as well as the audience.
The authors of each narrative must have been very aware of the sexual innuendos between the lines. As previously stated, the people of the Victorian era were restricted in expressing themselves. In order to embrace their sexuality subtly, they weave in erotic language to their famous writings. People can interpret these works in many ways, but evidentially refer back to the theme of sex and sexuality.