Author: Tobin Bromberg

Christina Rossetti’s poem Goblin Market shows the intense fear of female sexuality that was present in Victorian England. The two protagonists of the poem are both young girls, clearly meant to represent the epitome of purity in Victorian culture. Meanwhile, the goblins and their fruit are quite obviously meant to be a representation of unsavory men, and the ruin that their ‘forbidden fruit’ will bring to all those whom they tempt. Furthermore, Laura paid for her fruit by giving a lock of hair to the goblins. Though this holds little to no symbolic meaning in our time, in Victorian times, men would often carry around a lock of hair belonging to their lovers, showing that Laura has been taken as a lover out of wedlock by the goblins. In addition to hair, Laura pays for the fruit with a tear, which, in my opinion, shows that she is unwilling to go through with the transaction, but is so overcome with lust for the forbidden fruit that she feels that she must either eat the fruit or die trying. Just as the Victorians feared a woman engaging in sexual acts outside of wedlock would do, Laura “suck’d and suck’d and suck’d the more” until the fruit was completely gone, but even then did not feel fulfilled. She took the seed of the fruit and planted it, but even watering it with her tears proved to be fruitless. She was thus left with a deep desire that consumed her, wanting again to taste the forbidden fruit which she had been told always to avoid, thus leading to her untimely death, showing Victorian fears about female sexuality.

The themes in Scarborough’s essay Science or Séance?: Late-Victorian Science and Dracula’s Epistolary Structure are central both in Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Victorian life. In Dracula, the cutting-edge scientific techniques of the day are shunned in favor of both regional and religious superstitions. This is especially evident when Harker and Van Helsing kill the vampiric incarnation of Lucy, as they stuff her mouth with garlic, which is a traditional Transylvanian way to ward off vampires. Furthermore, they seal her tomb off with fragments of a communion wafer, once again representing their use of religion in order to prevent the vampire from ever rising again. The use of religion is once again prominent later in the novel when it is discovered that Mina Harker is a vampire. She is pressed with a communion wafer, which burns her, showing that she is unholy, a damned soul. Upon this discovery, she begins reciting scripture, saying “unclean”, a word which is constantly used in the book of Leviticus to refer to any unholy being, be it non kosher food, a dead body or a menstruating woman. This is clearly a rebuke of the wealth of scientific discoveries that were made throughout the Victorian era. These discoveries pushed the people of London away from religion, in favor of using science to explain natural phenomena. However, many people in Victorian London, especially members of the clergy, felt that the use of science, and the multitude of scientific advancements of the time, were blasphemous, and punished or shunned those who favored science over religion. Because of this conflict, the points in Scarborough’s essay ring true to the conflicts presented both in Victorian life and in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

”…i always have when the Count in near; but at the instant I saw that the cut had bled a little, and the blood was trickling over my chin. I laid down the razor, turning as I did so half round to look for some sticking plaster. When the Count saw my face, his eyes blazer which a sort of demoniac fury, and he suddenly made a grab at my throat. I drew away and his hand touched the string of beads which held the crucifix. It made an instant change in him, for the fury passed so quickly that I could hardly believe that it was ever there.” (33)

In the Judaic tradition, the consumption of blood can be two very different things. In Judaism, blood is considered to be the source of life. For this reason, meat is not considered to be kosher unless the animal is slaughtered by cutting the jugular, draining most of the blood, and then salting the meat, so as to drain the rest of the blood. However, these traditions were commonly ignored throughout history in cases of blood libel, where Jews were accused of ritually murdering young Christian children around Passover and using their blood to bake matzah. While reading this passage, I saw a parallel between Bram Stoker’s Dracula and blood libels. Dracula tries to hide his gruesome secret, but goes ballistic at the first sight of blood, his primary source of sustenance. However, upon touching the sign of the crucifix, he is transformed, or converted, back into a normal human being. Because of this, I believe that this scene shows some latent anti-Semitism. Dracula was published in 1897, when anti-Semitism was still fairly prevalent in Europe, and Bram Stoker has already showed some racism by this point in the novel. Therefore, I think that this scene, in addition to revealing Count Dracula’s monstrous nature, shows an undertone of anti-Semitism in the novel.

“She paused beneath its shadow, for the stranger was close upon her. She saw him: O God! she saw him, in that dim evening light. Her brain reeled, her heart stopped beating. She uttered no cry of surprise, no exclamation of terror, but staggered backward and clung for support to the ivied buttress of the archway. With her slender figure crouched into the angle formed by the buttress and the wall which it supported, she stood staring at the new-comer,” -Page 336

This seems to be the tipping point for Lady Audley. For the entire novel up to this point, she had kept her cool when it seemed like her secret was going to be revealed, but now, when she know the hour of her confession has come, she is overcome with shock. Until this point, she had showed little to no emotion when in dire situations, but now, she cannot even stay on her feet. It seems to me that this is the culmination of the entire novel’s worth of emotional suppression, the point at which she can no longer keep her feelings bottled up. This runs opposite to Lady Audley’s character from the rest of the novel. Before this point, she had been stoic when her secret was on the line, and had always found a way to talk herself out of trouble. However, when Robert Audley approaches her, she knows that he is going to confront her about her attempt to murder him, and thus breaks down. This shows that through all the atrocities that Lady Audley committed, she had not forethought. Never once had she thought that somebody would catch her for her crimes, least of all the very person whom she had tried to murder. Thus, Lady Audley’s character is completely reversed in this scene, as she goes from confident and emotionless, to weak and vulnerable, as she realizes that she will be caught and her guilt weighs upon her shoulders, so heavy that she is not even able to stand.

Pages 41-42

“’George,’ said Robert Audley, laying his hand gently upon the young man’s arm, ‘you must remember that the person whose name you saw in the paper may not be your wife. There may have been some other Helen Talboys.’

‘No, no,’ he cried, ‘the age corresponds with hers, and Talboys is such an uncommon name.’

‘It may be a misprint for Talbot.’

‘No, no, no; my wife is dead!’

 

The repeated use of the words “no” and “may” convey a sense of doubt and suspicion to this scene, where George Talboys first finds out about the death of his wife. George Talboys and Robert Audley are supposed to be friends, so Audley’s reluctance to acknowledge the death of Helen Talboys seems to contain an ulterior motive. Furthermore, obituaries and other articles related to death are often fact-checked multiple times, making Robert Audley’s claim that “it may be a misprint for Talbot” seem all the more suspicious. Braddon may use this exchange in order to connect the Audleys to the death of Helen Talboys. In my opinion, this exchange foreshadows Lady Audley’s secret, either that she murdered Helen Talboys, or that she is in some other way connected to her death. However, this is not the only possible outcome; it is also possible that Helen Talboys conspired with the Audleys to fake her own death, in order to avoid George Talboys. Thus, this passage puts an air of uncertainty over the death of Helen Talboys.