{"id":1066,"date":"2023-09-29T16:09:47","date_gmt":"2023-09-29T20:09:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/?p=1066"},"modified":"2023-09-29T16:09:47","modified_gmt":"2023-09-29T20:09:47","slug":"victorian-anxieties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/2023\/09\/29\/victorian-anxieties\/","title":{"rendered":"Victorian Anxieties"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Bram Stoker\u2019s Dracula<\/em>, Chapter XVI explores the tribulations that the Crew of Light endured in hunting down Lucy\u2019s body to properly dispose of it permanently and amend it to her proper pure form. Christopher Craft wrote a scholarly article,\u201c\u2018Kiss Me with The Red Lips\u2019: Gender and Inversion in Bram Stoker\u2019s Dracula<\/em>,\u201d discussing the anxieties present in late Victorian culture revolving around desire, gender, and sexual inversion. Lucy\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n

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\u2019s main intention was to \u201cfix\u201d 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\u2019s penetrations. Craft believes Van Helsing sees merit in \u201ccorrective penetration\u201d acting as \u201ca masculine prerogative\u201d where \u201ca woman is better still than mobile, better dead than sexual\u201d (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\u2019s corrupted soul, they still inflict masculine authority such as referencing the bible as \u201chim\u201d 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 \u201cthe penis shall not be erased, and if it is erased, that it shall be reinscribed in a perverse simulacrum\u201d (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. <\/p>\n

Although Arthur had to \u201cshare\u201d Lucy when asking other members of the Crew of Light to donate blood he restates his position as \u201ctop dog,\u201d since he is the fianc\u00e9, by being the chosen one to kill Lucy. Once Arthur\u2019s \u201cmind was set on action his hands never trembled nor even quivered,\u201d meaning he never displayed hesitation in mutilating his fianc\u00e9e (Stoker 230). Arthur, as her Fianc\u00e9, felt authorized to save Lucy\u2019s 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 \u201chis.\u201d His marriage was prematurely taken away by Dracula\u2019s 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 \u201cfoul thing\u201d (Stoker 231). The diction used here to describe Lucy\u2019s 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 \u201ccrimson foam\u201d at her mouth and penetrating her own mouth with her fangs insinuating she was behaving maniacal (Stoker 230). <\/p>\n

Although Lucy behaved outside of her gender norms by engaging in sexual promiscuity and endangering children, Arthur, as her fianc\u00e9, must work to reassert his position over her by killing her. This novel is too afraid to provocatively \u201cgo there\u201d without affording the male, \u201crighteous\u201d 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Bram Stoker\u2019s Dracula, Chapter XVI explores the tribulations that the Crew of Light endured in hunting down Lucy\u2019s body to properly dispose of it permanently and amend it to her proper pure form. Christopher Craft wrote a scholarly article,\u201c\u2018Kiss Me with The Red Lips\u2019: Gender and Inversion in Bram Stoker\u2019s Dracula,\u201d discussing the anxieties … Continue reading Victorian Anxieties<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4646,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[125361],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2023-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4646"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1066\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}