The binary systems which govern Bram Stoker’s Dracula are broken by the titular monster who does not fit into either myth or reality, living or dead, man or woman. While many of the characters refer to Dracula as an “It” or as a “monster”, still just as many use he/him pronouns for Dracula despite hesitating to identify Dracula as a man (Stoker 95). He does not fit the strict gender binary but is more identifiably male than female and is described as appearing masculine with the exception of his “full lips” when he has recently drunk blood (Stoker 301). His appearance arguably becomes more feminine with the consumption of his only food is blood, which can stand as a metaphor for milk. Craft agrees and claims that Stoker inverts gender roles further in Dracula by “inverting a favorite Victorian maternal function” when Lucy feeds on small children- a mother eating a child instead of feeding a child and Dracula using blood as a substitute for mother’s milk just he forces Mina to drink his blood as a substitute for semen ( 453; 458). All of these inversions of the binary systems in England are due to the foreign and evil activities of Dracula.
Once the perspective of the story switches to Mina Harker and Lucy Westenra, the clear separation of the gender binary and its importance in England becomes clear. In the article “Gender and Inversion in Dracula”, the author claims that Stoker’s novel holds “a fixed conception of femininity” (Craft 450). The two female characters depict narrow stereotypes of femininity; the coquettish Lucy, flirting with her three suitors, and the devoted Mina, anxiously awaiting news of her husband. The correspondence between Mina and Lucy in chapter five contains pleasantries and the rumors that “a tall, handsome, curly-haired man???” is about to propose to Lucy, which are portrayed as innocent and foolish letters in opposition to Dr. Stewards phonographic medical journal (Stoker 63). Mina expresses her desire to practice her shorthand so that she may be of more use to her husband, despite her work as an assistant school teacher (Stoker 62).
She is consumed by the work she does for men, at first simply for her husband, and then for the whole Crew of Light. Mina is “interpreted solely by males” as she is viewed as a tool for success in dispatching Dracula (Craft 451). Her ability to read Dracula’s mind and thereby divulge his whereabouts is crucial to their quest but also allows him access to control her (Stoker 347). When Dracula turns Lucy into a vampire, she has no qualms about her new identity; “[flinging] to the ground, callous as a devil, the child” moments before using her “voluptuous grace” on her former fiancé (Stoker 226). Thus while both Lucy and Mina are transformed by Dracula, Mina is saved by her intelligence and in her pure dedication to the Crew of Light. At the end of novel, Van Helsing says to the Harkers son Quincey, “he will understand how some men so loved her, that they did dare much for her sake” (Stoker 402). The story of the Harkers bravery, but especially Mina, will be passed down to the embodiment of the Crew of Light, their son, the perfect evidence of their non-vampiric, cisgender, heterosexual union.
Craft, Christopher. “Gender and Inversion in Dracula”
Stoker, Bram. Dracula
I really enjoyed your analysis of the gender inversion and the ways in which the blood is a metaphor for different bodily fluids. I’m also very interested in the ways that you state that Mina is consumed by her work for men. I feel like there is a connection between sexuality and the way that you phrase this consumption. Mina’s life becomes a commodity for men’s benefit, her work is their work, and this also connects her very strongly to heterosexuality. Her identity is dependent on her male connections.
Going off of your point that both Lucy and Mina represent female stereotypes, Craft also points out that the Crew of Light attempt to “protect” both women’s femininity: “Van Helsing stands as the protector of the patriarchal institutions he so emphatically represents and as the guarantor of the traditional dualisms his religion and profession promote and authorize.” (449) Van Helsing and the three men feel obligated to shield both women from Dracula’s dangerous influences, which grant the women more sexual agency and freedom, and allow for them to assume the masculine role as “penetrator.” This makes me wonder – to what extent are the women fully devoted to the work of the Crew of Light, and to what extent are they simply manipulated by the men in order to maintain a strict gender binary?