In the novel\u2019s final note, Harker clearly establishes that he, not Dracula, is Quincey\u2019s father. Although his insisted paternity accounts for cultural anxiety about imperialism, when coupled with historical understandings of illegitimate offspring, it could also reflect cultural anxiety about marriage.<\/p>\n
Quincey\u2019s birth announcement makes clear that there is no chance Dracula is the father, as Harker emphasizes his \u201cbirthday is the same day as that on which Quincey Morris died\u201d (402), well over 10 months of pregnancy. The culmination of the anti-Dracula crusade in Quincey\u2019s birth is a halcyon ending to the battle against foreignness. As a male British subject who can continue Britain’s legacy, Quincey represents the resilience of Britain and thus its supposed natural and justified superiority. In this sense, Harker\u2019s note seems to be about advancing pro-Britain, pro-imperialist, pro-xenophobic rhetoric and assuaging any questions pointing otherwise.<\/p>\n
I want to examine Harker\u2019s paternity claim in light of living vampires. Gerard claims that \u201cThe living vampire is in general the illegitimate offspring of two illegitimate persons\u201d (334), meaning that a second, lesser-known kind of vampire was understood to emerge from children born out of wedlock. Gerard uses language like \u201cflawless pedigree\u201d and \u201cintrusion of a vampire into his family vault\u201d (354) to refer to the precautions and attitudes espoused by Victorian families to avoid creating illegitimate offspring and \u2018living vampires.\u2019 Harker\u2019s insisted paternity, then, can be analyzed not only through an imperialist lens, but also through a marital lens. Harker eliminates any questions about his paternity to extinguish the possibility that Quincey might be a living vampire, or the product of an illegitimate encounter between Dracula and Mina. Harker makes it clear that his family is consistent with the idyllic Victorian structure.<\/p>\n
Harker\u2019s paternity appears to be about reinforcing British superiority, but could also be about reinforcing traditional familial structures. Ending the novel with an assurance of the Harkers\u2019 \u201cflawless pedigree\u201d leaves readers with a happy ending that just so happens to conform to Victorian marital and familial propriety. This propriety goes hand-in-hand with social expectations for sexuality, as the fear of illegitimacy would likely discourage embracing non-marital sexual desire. Xenophobia and family structure might also go hand-in-hand: perhaps Harker\u2019s insisted paternity does not represent either imperialist or familial anxieties, but rather both\/and. This dynamic supports our in-class analysis of blood\u2019s symbolism on p. 187 as representing fears about both ethnicity and family, culminating in anxiety about \u2018ruining whiteness\u2019 through interracial relationships. In any event, I think a strong case can be made that Harker\u2019s fierce claim to fatherhood illustrates not only a reference to imperialist politics, but also to Victorian notions of marital, familial, and sexual propriety \u2014 all conveniently framed behind the supernatural.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the novel\u2019s final note, Harker clearly establishes that he, not Dracula, is Quincey\u2019s father. Although his insisted paternity accounts for cultural anxiety about imperialism, when coupled with historical understandings of illegitimate offspring, it could also reflect cultural anxiety about marriage. Quincey\u2019s birth announcement makes clear that there is no chance Dracula is the father, … Continue reading An (ill)Legitimate Take on Harker’s Paternity<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4765,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169398],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2021-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4765"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2065\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}