{"id":951,"date":"2023-09-17T22:53:35","date_gmt":"2023-09-18T02:53:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/?p=951"},"modified":"2023-09-17T22:53:35","modified_gmt":"2023-09-18T02:53:35","slug":"vampirism-and-the-british-empire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/2023\/09\/17\/vampirism-and-the-british-empire\/","title":{"rendered":"Vampirism and the British Empire"},"content":{"rendered":"

The fin de si\u00e8cle proved challenging times with the many advancements at the end of the century. Notably, Gothic novels told tales of fantastical monsters preying upon powerless humans, as portrayed by the vampires in Bram Stoker\u2019s Dracula<\/em>. During the same time period, the British Empire expanded and occupied nearly half the known world. Dracula<\/em> exemplifies many aspects of the fin de si\u00e8cle through its characters. In the passage where Lucy is first bit by a vampire, Dracula\u2019s lust for blood mimics the actions of the ever-growing British Empire.<\/p>\n

Stoker\u2019s use of contrasting colors paints Lucy as the vulnerable innocent and Dracula as the unknown monster, as is the common dynamic in Gothic texts. In the passage where Mina searches for a lost sleeping-walking Lucy, she finds her friend asleep on their bench by the church with \u201csomething, long and black, bending over the half-reclining white figure\u201d (101). Lucy\u2019s position as a figure \u201chalf-reclining with her head lying over the back of the seat\u201d leaves her vulnerable, with her neck exposed to any vampire that happens upon her, such as Dracula. As the audience, we know Dracula is the former figure since Mina later describes his \u201cwhite face and red, gleaming eyes\u201d (101), which are tell-tale vampire traits throughout the book. Furthermore, vampires are more monster than human as Mina notes that Dracula looked like \u201cwhether man or beast, I could not tell\u201d (101). Mina continuously describes Dracula as \u201csomething dark\u201d and Lucy as \u201csnowy white\u201d (101). In this way, Stoker associates dark, shadowed colors with Gothic monsters, in this case vampires, while pure white colors associate with innocent, helpless prey, such as humans. This contrast between the two figures fits the Gothic theme of unnatural monsters preying upon human victims.<\/p>\n

The one anomaly to this color contrast is that Dracula, a dark figure, also has a \u201cwhite face\u201d (101), even though white is the color associated with Lucy and innocent humans. However, this anomaly allows Dracula to mirror the actions of the British Empire at the time of the fin de si\u00e8cle. By 1919, the British Empire ruled most of the world, including Canada, Australia, parts of Africa, and multiple pieces of other continents (as depicted in the map from Washington Post shown in class). According to the Longman Anthology text, the Empire perceived this rapid expansion as their \u201cduty to spread British order and culture throughout the world\u201d (1064). This expansion led to some wars and displeasure from the conquered people, some of whom died in British concentration camps (Longman 1064). Interestingly, this duty was phrased \u201cThe White Man\u2019s Burden,\u201d and Dracula is a terrifying vampire with a \u201cwhite face\u201d who sucks blood in order to spread vampirism. Cambridge historian J.R. Seeley, in 1883, describes the empire\u2019s expansion as one who seemed \u201cto have conquered and peopled half the world in a fit of absence mind\u201d (Longman 1064). Similarly, Dracula has \u201ca fit of absent mind\u201d since doesn\u2019t care who his victims are\u2014as long as if he eats blood to sustain himself, it doesn\u2019t matter who it takes it from. The British Empire, to some extent, didn\u2019t care who they conquered as long as if the resources from that continent sustained the empire.<\/p>\n

The Longman Anthology also states that an Englishman had a duty similar to \u201cThe White Man\u2019s Burden,\u201d where he deserved to \u201crule whatever childlike or womanly peoples he came across\u201d (1063). Lucy resembles both a childlike and womanlike figure. When Mina leads her freshly bitten friend home, she comments Lucy had \u201cthe obedience of a child.\u201d As Lucy wakes from her sleep walking, Mina\u2019s description of Lucy\u2019s \u201cmoaning\u201d and how she \u201calways wakes prettily\u2026she did not lose her grace\u201d sexualizes her feminine beauty (102). Dracula\u2019s preying upon whatever childlike and womanly peoples he comes across\u2014since he can thrive off the blood of anyone\u2014fits both the description of a Victorian Englishman and the broader implications of the British Empire conquering the world.<\/p>\n

Even though Dracula is a foreigner from Transylvania in the novel, he perfects his Englishman fa\u00e7ade and moves to England. Dracula, determined to pass as a real Englishman in every way, even learns to perfect the English accent (27). Dracula\u2019s actions mirror not just an Englishman but the entire British Empire at the time. In the same way vampirism sucks the life out of others to selfishly empower the vampire, the British Empire\u2019s expansion trampled foreign lands in order to empower the empire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The fin de si\u00e8cle proved challenging times with the many advancements at the end of the century. Notably, Gothic novels told tales of fantastical monsters preying upon powerless humans, as portrayed by the vampires in Bram Stoker\u2019s Dracula. During the same time period, the British Empire expanded and occupied nearly half the known world. Dracula … Continue reading Vampirism and the British Empire<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5319,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[125361],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-951","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\/951","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\/5319"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/951\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}