{"id":248,"date":"2016-03-11T03:59:21","date_gmt":"2016-03-11T03:59:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/?p=248"},"modified":"2018-09-02T22:05:55","modified_gmt":"2018-09-02T22:05:55","slug":"fear-of-ourselves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/2016\/03\/11\/fear-of-ourselves\/","title":{"rendered":"Fear of Ourselves"},"content":{"rendered":"

“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)<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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)<\/p>\n

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\u00a0influences 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.<\/p>\n

Later, when the men visit Lucy’s tomb, she advances on them.<\/p>\n

“She still advanced, however, and with a languorous, voluptuous grace, said: –<\/p>\n

‘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!”<\/p>\n

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).<\/p>\n

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\u2019s evil but of Arthur\u2019s temptation. Lucy\u2019s voice is \u201cdiabolical,\u201d yet also \u201csweet\u201d – 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\u2019s attempt to give in to Lucy\u2019s addresses, although \u201cunder a spell\u201d and not of his own volition, echoes Jonathan\u2019s 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\u00a0and possibly their own hidden stores of evil.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“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 … Continue reading Fear of Ourselves<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2924,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[123782,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2016-blog-post","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248","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\/2924"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}