Author: Dr. Watson

During our discussion of Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market we touched upon the possibility of interpreting Lizzie and Laura’s tale as one of incest and homosexuality. I found this to be somewhat reminiscent of the ménage à trois found between Robert Audley, George Talboys, and Clara Talboys from Lady Audley’s Secret. In the novel, we frequently noticed a homoerotic subtext between the two men. To be more specific, we frequently noted Robert’s use of the word “brother” in his descriptions of George. This was particularly strange in the scene where he asked Clara, his supposed romantic interest, to go with him to find George in order “to bring our brother back between us” (LAS 431). This foreshadowed the end of the novel where the three of them lived happily ever after, brother and brother and brother and wife, making up one semi-incestuous family. This dynamic is of course easily seen as well in the aforementioned case of Lizzie and Laura. The two sisters live together in a domestic relationship, and in fact one of them is literally saved by a bizarre and taboo sex simulation. After this, the poem concludes with an explanation of the virtue of sisterly love. Thus, in the end, both tales take an interesting take on the intersection of familial and romantic love. There is of course one important difference, however. In Lady Audley’s Secret the trio is able to openly live together without fear. In Goblin Market, we get the implication of their connection but are not explicitly shown them living together. I would argue that this is because males at the time were accorded additional freedoms to live as they saw fit while women were heavily confined in their choices. This would explain why Laura and Lizzie still end up marrying instead of living together while Robert  could have what he wanted. Even in homosexuality, then, women were still suppressed.

Contrary to the prim and proper society that most individuals call to mind when they think of England in the Victorian Era, Bram Stoker’s Dracula presents a vision of the time dominated by anxieties of hypersexualized women and the dangers it presented to otherwise accepted norms. Such a depiction is greatly odds with established gendered orthodoxy, as conventional customs dictate that the man is to be the aggressor, penetrator, perpetrator, etc. Females, on the other hand, are generally expected to be much more submissive. The fact that Dracula flips this on its head in more than one occasion, then, must have some significance. In fact, what if the reason the novel inverts these expectations is because sex is being used as a metaphor for the change in gendered power relations that occurred during the Era?

We’ve all heard the Oscar Wilde quote that “Everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power.” I find this to be particularly applicable to the situations found in the novel. First, we have already established that much of the novel is clearly readable as sex through subtext. We have already discussed that penetration of the fangs and of the stake can be read as sexual penetration, blood is semen, etc., and this would fulfill the former component of the Wilde quote. As to the latter half, Christopher Craft wrote in “’Kiss Me with those Red Lips’: Gender and Inversion in Bram Stoker’s Dracula” that during Jonathan Harker’s encounter with the three vampire women he “enjoys a ‘feminine’ passivity and awaits a delicious penetration from a woman” (109). Later on, in Chapter 21, we find Mina Harker being the aggressor, albeit coerced, when she is actively sucking the blood of Count Dracula (300). Between these two scenes, I would argue that the latter half of the Wilde quote is being validated. In the first instance, Jonathan is clearly rendered submissive to the women. In the second, Mina is fulfilling the active sexual role usually assigned to men. What do they have in common? They both have women maintaining power over the men in that moment, a phenomenon that so clearly worried real life Victorian men at the time. Thus, in this novel, inversion of sexual roles is clearly used as a tool and a mirror to explore the larger inversion of power taking place at the time.

Over the course of my reading for tomorrow’s class I was struck by the peculiarity of Dracula’s representation of strength as presented in a gendered lens. By this I mean to say that the novel flips the generally accepted conventions of unfeeling men and nurturing women while at the same time managing to come across as both sexist and dismissive. This becomes clear at the end of chapter seventeen when we are told that Lord Godalming, in a moment of severe grief over the death of Lucy, “laid his head” on Mina’s shoulder “and cried like a wearied child whilst he shook with emotion” (245). I found this to be interesting in that it seemed to show a weakness in the usually perpetuated façade of indelible masculinity in the Victorian Era. While this is happening, however, Mina is presented as a strong women with stable emotions even though she herself has just endured the loss of a close friend. Such a dynamic is clearly at odds with established orthodoxy and thus jumped out at me immediately. Just after this, however, the novel somehow attempts to re-establish a patriarchal system of gender relations where the vulnerable male is able to un-ironically claim to be the protector of the woman he is literally relying on for comfort at that very minute. This is shown when Lord Godalming tells Mina “if a man’s esteem and gratitude are ever worth the winning, you have won my today. If ever the future should bring to you a time when you need a man’s help, believe me, you will not call in vain” (246). Apparently, in Victorian England, masculinity was so important that it was able to exert itself onto a woman who so clearly didn’t need it. In a time when gender roles so dominated the social landscape, the way they managed to both subvert them and still promote patriarchal values was interesting to say the least.

“From this point onwards I will follow the course of events by transcribing my own letters to Mr Sherlock Holmes which lie before me on the table. One page is missing, but otherwise they are exactly as written, and show my feelings and suspicions of the moment more accurately than my memory, clear as it is upon these tragic events, can possibly do.”

In this blog post I am going to relate the epistolary form of the latter part of the novel to our in-class discussion about Victorian Era anxieties about time. In addition, I am going to argue that the form speaks to the increasing amount of free time that the reading middle class gained during the Era.

In class on Wednesday we discussed the significance of the introduction of the moving picture to Victorian audiences, specifically in the form of the video showing the arrival of a train. Over the course of that discussion, we ended up talking about the conundrum this presented in the context of time: A singular and past event was able to be relived in the future an unlimited amount of times. I believe that the epistolary format is representative of the same development. Letters are fixed in time and are clearly dated, but much like a video, they present a clear perspective of the subject in current time. Watson’s letters thus serve as remnants of past events, yet at the same time they present an avenue to immortality for the persons involved. To tie this back into our introduction to Victorian culture that we received in the form of the handout, this matches the Victorian quest of leaving a lasting legacy.

Additionally, this form of storytelling could be seen as the product of its audience. The time period was marked by the expansion of labor laws and subsequent rise in leisure, which has we know radically increased literacy rates. By telling the story through letters, Doyle invites his readers to make their own attempt at solving the mystery as the clues unfold, far removed from Holmes ability to simply explain it away for the reader. By providing this degree of interactivity, I think it could be argued that Doyle was deftly expanding the popular appeal of his work while simultaneously filling a popular need.

In summary, I think this passage serves as a window into the Victorian psyche much like Lady Audley’s Secret, they merely illuminate different cultural anxieties. At the same time, I also think it serves as an enticing incentive for following along with the mystery.

“Look at marriages! Who is to say which shall be the one judicious selection out of the nine hundred and ninety-nine mistakes? Who shall decide from the first aspect of the slimy creature, which is to be the one eel out of the colossal bag of snakes?” (page 205)

This short passage, upon a deeper examination, is uniquely illuminating regarding the role of marriage in the novel. In a novel rife with references to bigamy and implications about Lady Audley’s honesty and sexuality, the passage poses yet another question about the role marriage played in Victorian society. Marriage was tied to standing at the time, but Robert points out that, when considered in a certain light, marriage as an institution is really quite ridiculous. Its very existence is predicated on the notion that a successful pairing can be found on such ludicrous grounds as the sheer luck needed to pick the right one out of nine hundred and ninety-nine.

Additionally, as we discussed in class today, prominent individuals of the time bemoaned the “gumming up” of the marriage market and even suggested the “surplus” amount of women be exported to other countries. If there really were that many potential spouses, and they were living in a rigidly constructed society that did its best to inhibit mobility and force matches of convenience, the odds of any couple truly working in any meaningful way were very slim.

This understanding of marriage then, when combined with the logical consequences of the Victorian contradiction that we discussed in class, allows for Lady Audley’s character to take on insidious undertones. Society at that time was obsessed with the face and first appearances, and on that count Lady Audley’s supposedly stunning looks would serve her well, a fact that ties in nicely with Robert’s observation of marriage being influenced by the “first aspect.” It also puts forth Lady Audley, and her marriage, as a perfect representation of the idyllic public facade that Victorian society sought to promote. At the same time, the institution of marriage, or at the very least the desecration of it, can be seen as the root of the novel’s intrigue. After all, the disappearance and potential murder of George Talboys is strongly suggested to be the work of Lady Audley. If this is the case, her marriage to Robert’s uncle and Robert’s friendship with George put Mr. Talboys in danger, leaving us to wonder if Lady Audley really is nothing more than one of the “colossal bag of snakes.” In any case, she certainly seems to be a “slimy creature.”