“The narrators insist that they are agents to God and are able to ignore their similarity to the vampire because their commitment to social values . . . enables them to conceal their violence and their sexual desires from each other and even from themselves. Stoker, however, reveals that these characteristics are merely masked by social convention. Instead of being eliminated, violence and sexuality emerge in particularly perverted forms.” (Senf 430)
The central fear at the heart of Dracula is not of “the other” in any of its forms – foreignness, exoticism, difference – nor of Dracula himself as the ultimate “othered” figure, fearful as these things are in the context of the novel. Rather, the most potent anxiety is the fear of our own selves: human nature, the human potential for evil, humanity’s weaknesses. Lucy in her vampirized state is the subject of more description, more repulsion, and more emotion than Count Dracula; similarly, the three vampire women, who appear in Dracula’s castle and again in their coffins being killed by Van Helsing, are feared not only for their own power but for their power to create evil in others.
The first experience with the desire for evil comes to Jonathan Harker half-asleep in Dracula’s castle. The three vampire women hover over him: “all three had brilliant white teeth, that shone like pearls against the ruby of their lips. There was something about them that made me uneasy, some longing and at the same time some deadly fear. I felt in my heart a wicked, burning desire that they would kiss me with those red lips” (Stoker 45)
Here, desire and fear – and perhaps fear of the desire – are mixed. The women are entirely artificial: their teeth are “brilliant white,” their mouths are like jewels rather than human mouths, and “something” makes Jonathan uncomfortable – their desirability. Yet Jonathan feels the effect of their attractiveness; their beauty influences him, giving him a new emotion – sexual desire – which falls far outside accepted English emotions. Part of Jonathan’s fear is of his own desire for the women; he feels a “wicked, burning desire” which evokes sin and images of hell. The wickedness is his own, as the desire is his own. Jonathan fears not only the women but himself – his own desires.
Later, when the men visit Lucy’s tomb, she advances on them.
“She still advanced, however, and with a languorous, voluptuous grace, said: –
‘Come to me, Arthur. Leave these others and come to me. My arms are hungry for you. Come, and we can rest together. Come, my husband, come!”
There was something diabolically sweet in her tones – something of the tingling of glass when struck – which rang through the brains of us who heard the words addressed to another. As for Arthur, he seemed under a spell; moving his hands from his face, he opened wide his arms. She was leaping for them, when Van Helsing sprang forward and held between them his little golden crucifix. She recoiled from it” (Stoker 226).
The apex of this scene is not Lucy’s appearance but Arthur’s attempt to go to her – to become like her. He is tempted by evil to become evil, and the fear here is not only of Lucy’s evil but of Arthur’s temptation. Lucy’s voice is “diabolical,” yet also “sweet” – it holds appeal for the listeners, and this is what makes them believe it diabolical. Their attraction to it creates their repulsion from it. Arthur’s attempt to give in to Lucy’s addresses, although “under a spell” and not of his own volition, echoes Jonathan’s desire to be kissed by the vampire women. Their own desire for the vampires, not the vampires themselves, creates fear; the men fear their own capacity for desire and yielding and possibly their own hidden stores of evil.
As Senf describes, the characters’ violence, sexuality, and behavior outside societal conventions is simply hidden by their own societally-driven claims about themselves. They claim to be moral, well-intentioned, intrinsically “good” (and godly) people – but their desires, which the vampires play on, tell a different story. “Stoker implies that the only difference between Dracula and his opponents is the narrators’ ability to state individual desire in terms of what they believe is a common good” (Senf 427). They believe Dracula is selfish, while they are selfless. Senf’s parallels between good and evil illuminate the central fear of the novel: our own flawed, possibly corrupted humanity.
Your post is extremely interesting when thinking about the entire fear of oneself during the turn of the century, when uncertainty about other aspects of society, like the corrupt powers of government and the experimentation with uncommon sexual desires, play into an uncertainty of self. You make an excellent point when you pinpoint desire as being the root of the most uncertainty because desire is most often a subconscious aspect of a person that cannot easily be ignored or contained. This is exemplified in Dracula, when many characters experience an overwhelming desire to partake in something detrimental to either themselves, or society as a whole, playing into the general feeling of uneasiness that comes about during the Fin De Siècle.
This post makes me think of another place in the Senf article where she writes, “Taken out of context, it would be difficult to distinguish the man from the monster” (427). The ideas of good and evil not being opposing features of humanity, at least for the characters in this novel, but instead interwoven ideas goes along with the ideas of desire and fear being mixed as well as good characters becoming “evil” vampires. Another point Senf makes is that “Dracula adheres more closely to English law than his opponents in every area except his sexual behavior,” and this individualistic expression is what makes him the “evil” other (428), which corresponds to the point in your conclusion where you mention the “societally-driven claims about themselves” as well as how they are “good” people. While the characters’ selfishness and selflessness are portrayed in different ways, Senf’s argument of good and evil does address this concept of a flawed humanity.
When you talk about the idea of sexuality and behavior outside societal conventions being hidden by their own societally-driven claims about themselves, this really starts to invoke the idea of Lord Henry from Dorian Gray. He seems to me to be a pretty terrible person, but he continues to mask it in this idea of essentially trying to be the most interesting amongst his friends, even though Hallward has called him out on his fake attitude almost every step of the way.