Course Blog

Christina Rossetti deal with the theme of forbidden female sexuality and the new woman in her poem “Goblin Market”. Greg Buzwell in his article “Daughters of Decadence: the New Woman in Victorian fin de siècle” he describes the new woman as sexually free and independent as opposed to the stereotype of the dutiful wife. In her poem, Rossetti rejects the idea of the new woman by describing the consequences of a woman exploring her sexuality. Though, Rossetti describes Laura as indulging in the fruit from the goblin market which could be interpreted as evidence of sexual freedom, however Laura pays greatly for tasting the goblin’s fruit, “Day after day, night after night, / Laura kept watch in vain / In sullen silence of exceeding pain” (Rossetti 8). Laura experiences terrible pain because she longs for the fruit thus revealing that her exploring her sexuality prior to marriage was a bad decision. In contrast, her sister Lizzie, maintains her purity and is able to save her sister, “one may lead a horse to water, / Twenty cannot make him drink” (Rossetti 12). Though the goblins attempt to seduce Lizzie, she cannot be persuaded thus allowing her to save her purity and in the end her sister’s life. At the end of the poem Rossetti, “Afterwards, when both were wives / With children of their own” (Rossetti 15) thus revealing how in order for the poem to end happily both girls must embrace the mainstream female gender roles in order to have a happy ending, and escape the evils of tasting the fruit from the goblin market.

Dracula is, on the surface, a story about scary blood-sucking creatures of the night. But there are many moments in the novel where we see sexual connotations attached to certain characters, as well as to things such as blood. Lucy is a character who displays many of these sexual themes in various ways. Even early on in the novel, we can see hints at Lucy’s open sexuality: “Why can’t they let a girl marry three men or as many as want her and save all this trouble?” (Stoker 96). Lucy is clearly unhappy with the social norm of monogamy, wishing to be with all of her suitors at once. The word “want” is also important here, implying a more sexual tone. This portrayal of Lucy seems to play into one of the main societal fears during the Victorian era: the so-called “New Woman.” This was a term referring to women who were becoming more independent, breaking free of societal constraints. One of these constraints was the idea that women must be virgins, unless they had a husband and were planning to become a mother.

Some saw female sexual freedom as immoral, and fears mounted about rampant female sexuality. Greg Buzwell writes in his article about Dracula and Victorian anxieties, “Those who took a hostile attitude towards the New Woman saw her either as a mannish intellectual or, going to the opposite extreme, an over-sexed vamp.” The novel establishes Lucy as a more “modern” woman in terms of sexuality, and then later we see her descend into vampirism, which seems to be a metaphor for her supposed sexual immorality. This immorality is then corrected when Arthur, Lucy’s fiancé (and thus only suitable lover by Victorian standards) penetrates her with the stake, again providing us with a clear sexual image. It seems Stoker used the sexual anxieties of the time to his advantage – he gave the Victorian reader a sense of satisfaction by presenting this sexual, immoral woman, and then putting her in her place.

When looking at Dracula through a lens of Reviews & Reactions of the San Francisco Chronicle on Dracula, I realized that both writings include the linkage to beauty and death, but more interestingly the way they address sexuality is different.

In Dracula and Reviews & Reactions of the San Francisco Chronicle on Dracula they both include the idea of the human-vampire being attracted to beautiful women solely to use them for their blood. It can be inferred that beautiful women resemble beautiful blood, meaning that beauty is ultimately linked to death. Also, the term “human-vampire” (Chronicle, 366) implies that the Count was human on his exterior and a monstrous vampire in the inside. The Count could then pretend to be attracted to beautiful women and lure them in with his human exterior only to “use [the] beautiful women…. and compass the death of many innocent people” (Chronicle, 366). One might question why are the Count’s victims always women? Why not men? I think that women are easier targets for the Count because of his human exterior as a man. He can pretend to be attracted to them and aim for a kiss near a women’s “throat” (Stoker, 75). Similarly, the 3 female vampires attracted Jonathan and lured him in with their sexual attention to his body.

The way Dracula addresses sexuality is different from Reviews & Reactions of the San Francisco Chronicle on Dracula in that Bram Stoker addresses sexuality in a demonizing way. He portrays women as threatening or wicked as their method to lure in men. For example, when Lucy is a full on vampire and was supposed to be dead in her coffin, “she advanced [forward], however with a languorous, voluptuous grace, [and] said: –“Come to me, Arthur” (Stoker, 181). After Lucy called to Arthur, “he seemed under a spell” (Stoker, 181). This made me infer that beautiful women can get practically anything they want, despite how they act. While in the Chronicle Review, sexuality in Dracula is addressed in their opinion as “realistic… one actually accepts its wildest flights of fancy as real facts” (Chronicle, 367). This review made me question how is the way sexuality is addressed in Dracula realistic? Especially if someone who is wicked lures in men? If someone were wicked, wouldn’t that make one want to rebel, and not get drawn in? If human men are so easily drawn to women, why aren’t there more men as vampires in the novel?

The Victorian vampire, and specifically Dracula, is a frightening creature. He is completely mysterious, as well as corrupt with evil. He feeds on living people, even children, sentencing them to untimely deaths for his benefit. Only some minute presence of God can deter him. In Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula represents all manifestations of the devil. As the devil would, Dracula coerces young women into performing ungodly acts; he turns them into one of his own through mysterious forces, or meets them face-to-face and attempts to pervert them. Sexuality plays a strong role in the novel in that way; Dracula’s ability to change good-natured women is a large part of what gives him his evil nature.

In his article, Dracula: Vampires, Perversity, and Victorian Anxieties, Greg Buzwell describes the vampire as, “a strangely alluring representation of nocturnal glamour, and potent sexuality.” As explained in the article, Dracula imposes not only a physical threat of the women in the novel, but also poses a predatory threat on any land he chooses. As Dracula turns his victims, he lets loose a sort of virus, or foreign threat of any kind.

In addition, Buzwell says in his article that, “During the course of the book Dracula attacks both Mina and Lucy; but Mina, due to the traditional Victorian qualities of determination and loyalty towards her husband is able to resist his advances. The rather more free-spirited Lucy is not so lucky.” Here, he describes that Dracula’s evil advances are a metaphor for the realistic temptation that the women face in the book, not unlike the temptation that the devil would ensue. But that because Mina maintains her good values, she does not end up like Lucy. Here, the reader can see that Dracula imposes a metaphor for the morals a Victorian woman should follow, or succumb to, at her own risk.

 

While Dracula first appears to simply be a scary story, upon further examination, it becomes clear to the reader that Bram Stoker may have actually been writing a postcolonial novel. The concept of colonialism is exceedingly present in Victorian times, as the British Empire was a prevalent force across the entire globe. However, as the 19^th century came to a close, many of those residing in Great Britain at the time feared becoming the colonized, rather than the colonizer. Stoker expertly navigates this issue through Count Dracula’s role as the primitive outside force in Dracula. Dracula’s chosen method of evil power is to infiltrate the body and infect it, similar to how a nation infiltrates another nation and takes over: “This was the being I was helping to transfer to London, where, perhaps, for centuries to come he might, amongst its teeming millions, satiate his lust for blood, and create a new and ever-widening circle of semi-demons to batten on the helpless,” (Stoker, 60). Aside from his monstrous power though, Dracula is also often referenced as an outsider and loner, even in his residence. When the group goes to ultimately kill Dracula, the journey to get to his castle and the isolation of it is described in vivid detail: “All yesterday we travel, ever getting closer to the mountains, and moving into a more and more wild and desert land,” (Stoker, 388). By emphasizing how different Dracula’s land and domain is to theirs, it reveals their fear of the outside.

Furthermore, it is no coincidence that Stoker wraps up the novel in the way that he does. Dracula dies, and Mina goes on to become the perfect picture of a domesticated, pure woman (Stoker, 42). By ending the novel with the eradication of Dracula and the return of normalcy to the characters, Stoker calms any post-colonial fears. Dracula, the colonizer, is defeated by the native people, and is unable to colonize anymore. If Stoker had ended the novel with some question as to whether or not Dracula was alive, the post-colonial fear would still be present. But instead, Stoker reassures readers, and the English people, that no one can colonize them; the characters, as well as Great Britain, will remain triumphant.

    I chose to write about the sexuality in Dracula. Sexuality is a predominant theme throughout the entire novel. Bram Stoker writes a thrilling novel that is gruesome in a sexual way. For example in this quote taken from chapter three, it gives the first glimpse of how sexuality is used by the three ladies who use seduction to manipulate Mr.Hawkins in order for them to suck his blood.               

   “I was afraid to raise my eyelids, but looked out and saw perfectly under the lashes. The girl went on her knees and bent over me, simply gloating. There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive, and as she arched her neck she actually licked her lips like an animal, till I could see in the moonlight the moisture shining on the scarlet lips and on the red tongue as it lapped the white sharp teeth” (chap 3).

       The description in the quote about how the girl “arched her neck she actually licked her lips like an animal” leads me to imagine sexuality being used as a weapon to reach the grotesque goal of the killing. But the killing is not necessarily a violent form of attack like a knife stabbing would be. Dracula uses a newer approach to lure his “prey” to kill them. I think Dracula succeeded using this method because the Victorian era was set on stringent rules for women about how they appeared in public places. The dedication and loyalty of their husbands were super important. But in Dracula, Stoker uses a new approach to creating a character that can weaken these principles by using his sexuality to heighten the desire for him. In this link   http://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/dracula, the author describes the relation of sexuality in Dracula to the two women Mina and Lucy and how each of them were marked by Dracula yet the two of them reacted in two separate ways. I thought this article was really interesting and the other makes awesome points and connections.

One of the central themes in Christina Rosetti’s poem Goblin Market is the “fruit forbidden” (Rosetti 478) – sold by the goblin men – that both Laura and Jeanie eat. After giving in to the temptation both women start to waste away. Jeanie, who appears in the poem only as a cautionary tale of the past, even dies and on her grave “no grass will grow” (Rosetti 158). Laura can, however, be saved by her sister’s actions and eventually survives. The main question remains: Why do these women have to suffer for tasting the goblins’ fruits? What do these fruits actually stand for?

An obvious explanation could be a reference to the biblical tale of Adam and Eve. As the original woman, Eve is tempted by the snake, tastes the forbidden fruit and therefore causes God to ban humanity from paradise. This parallel implies that Jeanie and Laura equally commit a sin when they eat the goblin’s fruits. This would also account for the fact that Jeanie’s grave seems to be cursed in a way. Jeanie might remind us of Mina Harker in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, who becomes ‘unclean’ after one of the Count’s attacks. Jeanie dies in sin and therefore never receives redemption. She, like Mina, is unclean and never regains her original purity.

Still, the question remains: Why do the goblins’ fruits represent a sin in the Victorian context? A possible explanation is that the fruit – and more specifically the act of eating the fruit – is heavily sexualized in Rosetti’s poem. The author describes it as follows:

“She [Laura] sucked and sucked and sucked the more
Fruits which that unknown orchard bore;
She sucked until her lips were sore.” (Rosetti 134-136)

This language (especially the words ‘sucking’ and ‘sore lips’) imply connotations of oral sex. Giving in to the goblins’ temptations therefore does not only mean eating fruit but somehow seems to equal partaking in sexual relations. Since Laura and Lizzie are described as unmarried “maids” (Rosetti 2), these premarital sexual relations would have conflicted with the prevailing Victorian ideals of womanhood.

Interestingly, Christina Rosetti’s own views on the position of women in the Victorian society are said to have been “usually far from conservative and often questioning, challenging and potentially subversive” (Avery). Why, then, would Rosetti have written a poem like Goblin Market that seems to strengthen the general Victorian belief that women who give in to their sexual temptations like Jeanie and Laura committed sin and would die because of it? Possibly, Rosetti’s goal was to highlight the fact that, even though Laura makes a mistake by giving to the goblin men, due to Lizzie’s efforts she survives and receives redemption. Rosetti implies that Victorian women are not either pure and virtuous or entirely promiscuous. Rather, they can make the wrong decision at some point and still, later in their lives, fulfil the ideal of a Victorian woman who is married “with children of [her] own” (Rosetti 545).

Sources:

Avery, Simon: “Christina Rossetti: gender and power”.  <<https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/christina-rossetti-gender-and-power>> (12 Nov 2017)

Rosetti, Christina: “Goblin Market.” Goblin Market and Other Poems. 

In “Dracula”, many characters contribute themselves to documenting every incident by using different means of record and keep emphasizing the importance of record in the midst of such a mystery. In relation to the pervasive power that doubt exercises over various characters, the act of recording serves its role to support and prove the rationality of characters. Especially, the documents help Jonathan and Mina to dispose their self-doubt and worries. Before organizing a group to defeat Dracula, what suffers Jonathan the most is his self-doubt about his experience in Transylvania and the fear of being regarded as a madman. So he decides not to share his experience even to the his spouse and seal his diary into secrecy. However, by keeping himself away from the diary, he just left his problem uncured and thus cross again with the predicament. Finally, it is that Jonathan determines to openly discuss the issue and share his record when the problem of Jonathan see possibilities of solution. Among various phrases of emphasis on the significance of recording, the statement of Dr. Van Helsing, a figure who keeps saving other characters from the doubt and irrationalities, can be used as a evidence to support the role of record throughout the text. In conversation with Dr. Seward, Van Helsing notes that “knowledge is stronger than memory, and we should not trust the weaker. (…) Take then good note of it. Nothing is too small. I counsel you, put down in record even your doubts and surmises. Hereafter it may be of interest to you to see how true you guess. We learn from failure, not from success!” (Stoker 130). In the line, the word ‘knowledge’ in comparison to ‘memory’ bears multiple layers of meaning. Firstly, it indicates that by the act of writing, their experiences can come into a form of knowledge, which can earn credibility from both they themselves and the readers. Secondly, it implies that the reconstruction of memory into knowledge can be related to the dramatization of the incidents and thus arouse certain sentiments or atmosphere from their experiences of incidents as raw materials. Finally, it can be understood that the record itself can and should be the object of analysis and study to construct the effective tactics to fight off the Dracula. On the other hand, the composition of novel, comprised of various excerpts from each character’s record, ensures the credibility of the incidents and the narrator through its obsession with facts while not devastating the horror, monstrous, fantasy elements of the plot.

There are numerous instances of sexuality portrayed in Christina Rossetti’s poems. This is particularly apparent in one of her longer works, The Goblin Market. This poem presents sisters Laura and Lizzie who have been warned to stay away from the Goblins who sell fruits. These goblins possess fruits of great temptation for Laura. Immediately we are presented odd tale, but how does it translate to more sexual connotations?

Firstly, it is worth mentioning that the Goblins are all men, and not outwardly appealing at that. “One had a cat’s face / One whisked a tail…” (p 3). Yet it seems as though all of the women in the poem lust after something that the Goblins possess. Laura falls prey to the tempting songs of the Goblins and seeks to buy their fruit. In this context I take fruit to be associated with copulation. The two main characters of the poem have been warned against perusing a forbidden act with these “men”, particularly because of their foreign descent. Despite this, the appeal of the forbidden draws Laura to literally give up a part of herself to receive the “sweet fruits” of the Goblins. In the case of the poem, it is the “…gold upon [Laura’s] head” (p 4), but interpretations might lead readers to understand it as Laura selling her purity to the Goblins; note the way we interpret colors can also be used to link the idea of gold to goodness and purity.

Meanwhile, Laura receives the fruit of the Goblins, and is completely entranced by it. “Sweeter than honey from the rock / Stronger than man-rejoicing wine / Clearer than water flowed that juice…” (p 4). Yet after Laura has her fill, the Goblins appear to her no more. She has lost her virginity in both a literal and figurative sense, and as she has had a taste of the forbidden fruit, she also is made more and more miserable without it. “Day after day, night after night / Laura kept watch in vain / In sullen silence of exceeding pain…” (p 8). Laura lives with the longing for the moments of bliss and pleasure she once had from engaging with the Goblins, but they are gone from her and she cannot live as she had before.

The poem brings into question the liberty of women, particularly sexual liberty. While Laura is told by everyone, her sister included, that she cannot seek out her own temptations, she does not honestly keep herself from her wants, and because of this nearly ends up miserable. The tale seems to be a cautionary one, not only about unwed sex, but about women not pursuing that which is socially beyond their reach.

Although Dracula at face value is about the fear of a foreign monster, what actually makes Dracula so unnerving is watching the descent of normal humans into monsters, rather than the monster itself. While some of the grotesque parts of the novel take place when Jonathan Harker is alone with Dracula, it seems as though these scenes are only exposition for what is to come next: Lucy’s transition into a vampire. The existence of Dracula as a monster is less haunting, as he is never really portrayed as fully human: “Strange to say, there were hairs in the centre of [his] palm… As the Count leaned over me and his hands touched me, I could not repress a shudder,” (Stoker, 25). By immediately portraying Dracula as such an inhuman looking creature, the uneasiness of the reader lies in the shallow fear of the unknown. However, the real horror comes whenever the sweet, innocent, proper Lucy is transformed into the cruel creature she becomes: “…Lucy’s eyes in form and color; but Lucy’s eyes unclean and full of hell-fire, instead of the pure, gentle orbs we knew. At that moment, the remnant of my love passed into hate and loathing…” (Stoker, 225). The entirety of this passage induces much more horror than any other passage about Dracula, as readers are able to relate and imagine seeing someone that they love morph into something so evil in front of their eyes. It is easier for readers to pass Dracula off as an other, but to watch someone a reader can relate to become so barbaric is truly unsettling to the human condition. Therefore, Lucy’s tale of turning into Dracula, as well as Renfield’s descent and Mina’s threat of vampirism, is what makes this story a true horror story, even though they are not the main monsters.