In Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Chapter XVI explores the tribulations that the Crew of Light endured in hunting down Lucy’s body to properly dispose of it permanently and amend it to her proper pure form. Christopher Craft wrote a scholarly article,“‘Kiss Me with The Red Lips’: Gender and Inversion in Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” discussing the anxieties present in late Victorian culture revolving around desire, gender, and sexual inversion. Lucy’s initial conversion to vampirism catapults anxiety as all her doting suitors try to help her in any way possible while simultaneously detesting her new devilish form.
Lucy is privileged enough through her beauty to have a band of men willing to not only donate blood but kill Dracula to restore her tainted name and to a lesser degree save humanity from further bloodshed. The Crew of Light’s main intention was to “fix” Lucy from her warped, vampiric ways by each taking a turn at transfusing blood to satisfy her hunger, however, ultimately futile that is when the crew rethinks their master plan and redirect their frustrations on Dracula’s penetrations. Craft believes Van Helsing sees merit in “corrective penetration” acting as “a masculine prerogative” where “a woman is better still than mobile, better dead than sexual” (Craft 455). Thus, the men band together to come up with a plan to penetrate Lucy with a wooden stake and decapitate her to allow her soul to rest in heaven. Although the crew works under the guise of restoring Lucy’s corrupted soul, they still inflict masculine authority such as referencing the bible as “him” from which they will read to complete the ritual. Personifying the bible as a masculine being further reiterates the notion that men must be in positions of authority even in situations where they may physically and emotionally be inferior to such supernatural beings. Craft agrees that the novel believes “the penis shall not be erased, and if it is erased, that it shall be reinscribed in a perverse simulacrum” (Craft 453). Men are not allowed to be subverted and if their authority is challenged it must work to reestablish the hierarchical gender norms prevalent at this time.
Although Arthur had to “share” Lucy when asking other members of the Crew of Light to donate blood he restates his position as “top dog,” since he is the fiancé, by being the chosen one to kill Lucy. Once Arthur’s “mind was set on action his hands never trembled nor even quivered,” meaning he never displayed hesitation in mutilating his fiancée (Stoker 230). Arthur, as her Fiancé, felt authorized to save Lucy’s tainted soul and rightly return her to her pure self. He felt so confident in his role as the masculine partner saving her soul that he did not feel the need to hesitate in fixing what was rightly “his.” His marriage was prematurely taken away by Dracula’s initial vampiric penetration, but Arthur triumphs over the Count as he permanently sets Lucy to rest. Throughout this chapter the Crew of Light belittles Lucy through dehumanizing language, effectively asserting their authority above female agency. They constantly describe Lucy as a monster, devil, or “foul thing” (Stoker 231). The diction used here to describe Lucy’s passing comes straight from a horror novel as she contorts her body like a supernatural creature such as the exorcist or the grudge. She also died like a rabid animal with “crimson foam” at her mouth and penetrating her own mouth with her fangs insinuating she was behaving maniacal (Stoker 230).
Although Lucy behaved outside of her gender norms by engaging in sexual promiscuity and endangering children, Arthur, as her fiancé, must work to reassert his position over her by killing her. This novel is too afraid to provocatively “go there” without affording the male, “righteous” characters an opportunity to reestablish gender hierarchies. The inversion of the penis cannot remain this way, Craft illuminates the anxieties of its time to validate the correct forms of penetration where it must fall within matrimony and between a woman and a man.
Your analysis is quite interesting and insightful; however, I would like to push back against the idea that the novel is too afraid to “go there” without reasserting traditional gender hierarchies. While it is true that the novel ultimately adheres to a traditional framework of male authority and female submission, I believe that Stoker also uses the figure of the vampire to challenge gender norms in interesting ways. For example, consider the character of Mina Harker who is initially portrayed as the epitome of Victorian womanhood (notably her submission to her husband). Throughout the novel, Mina gradually becomes more assertive and independent as she takes an active role in the hunt for Dracula. Mina’s eventual triumph over Dracula is depicted as a victory not just for the men but for Mina herself who asserted her own agency in the face of the male vampire’s power.