“This man belongs to me!” Dracula shouts at the three vampire maids in defense of Jonathan. But this defense isn’t done out of kindness or love, even though Dracula admits “Yes, I too can love,” while looking directly at Jonathan. It’s defense because Jonathan is Dracula’s possession. He belongs to Dracula, and he clarifies that this ownership will be transferred to the three maids after Dracula leaves for England. The possessiveness, the intense gregariousness he displays when for Jonathan alone when he first arrives– all of these are hall marks of “Dark Romance” novels, in which the main character, usually a woman, is captured by a dangerous or cruel man who makes her fall in love with him. The reason why these stories are so popular, especially among woman, is because minority groups for whom desire is vilified often can only safely feel desire through forms of art where the character they identify with has no choice. Without autonomy, you aren’t sinful for your desire: it is happening to you, instead of you pursuing it.
This is a strange angle for the book to take since Jonathan Harker has very little similarities to the usual protagonists of that genre: he is a man, happily engaged to the woman of his dreams, and certainly doesn’t fall in love with Dracula. But if we look at Dracula with the context of Bram Stoker likely being a queer man, the dissonant becomes more clear.
I believe Stoker is purposely making Dracula subtextually queer, both to explore his own desires safely in fiction, and also to push his creepiness that much farther. In this Dark Romance novels the dangerous man always has the most power in the relationship, which is portrayed as attractive, but in Dracula, the trope is taken more realistically. Jonathan is trapped, powerless, completely reliant on Dracula who tells him little and terrifies him daily. Nothing about it is hot.
Dracula is a foreign character invading the familiar, good British Empire, and the queer subtext makes him even more foreign, his infiltration even more serious. The discord between what readers expect from these tropes, and what follows, makes the horror all the more impactful.
I find your analysis of the typical trope of the “dark romance” to be fascinating! I think that many subsequent versions of Dracula have very obviously noticed this trope, more likely through Dracula’s relationship with Mina and Lucy, but nonetheless, with Jonathan too. I have to wonder if the sexual nature that is expected within the dark romance genre was going to become more explicit had Jonothan remained trapped with the weird sisters for a longer period of time after Dracula was gone? Would it have been more comfortable to explore those taboo aspects with that combination in mind?