Considering how thoroughly we\u2019ve covered the topics of blood, female sexuality, and fears surrounding the east, it\u2019s been rather difficult finding a topic that hasn\u2019t had a wooden stake driven through it. But what about Renfield, the lunatic with an insatiable appetite? He\u2019s been a character of growing importance as his connection to Dracula becomes revealed, allowing the protagonists to gain an insight into the psychological aspect of vampirism as well as offering clues as to Dracula\u2019s whereabouts.<\/p>\n
Although Renfield\u2019s zoophagous tendencies are observed early on, it isn\u2019t until later that Dr. Seward begins to connect his behavior to Dracula as more than just a coincidence. Renfield repeatedly shouts about a \u201cmaster,\u201d and his temperment changes with the comings and goings of Dracula to England. His psychosis strangely subsides, to which Dr. Seward remarks \u201cthat his instinct is satisfied as to the vampire\u2019s ultimate triumph,\u201d surely a reference to Dracula\u2019s success in converting Lucy. (240)<\/p>\n
More importantly, I believe it\u2019s worth exploring Dr. Seward\u2019s diagnosis of zoophagy as it pertains to the novels portrayal of male vs. female vampires. Personally, one of my favorite scenes involves the revelation that Renfield \u201cgave many flies to one spider and many spiders to one bird, and then wanted a cat to eat the many birds.\u201d Beyond the disturbing imagery of a man who spends his time collecting flies and spiders (although too similar to myself, thankfully I\u2019m not in an insane asylum) his method of sustaining his own life via blood can be considered more primitive and repulsive than even Dracula and the other vampires methods.\u00a0Admittedly I had to skip ahead\u00a0in the novel for mentions of Renfield until I found evidence of my claim, but I believe it fits quite well in this theory.<\/p>\n
(SPOILERS)<\/p>\n
Renfield admits later in the novel that Dracula often came to him and \u201cpromised things … he used to send in the flies \u2026 and big moths.\u201d (298) Up until this point, Dracula has only converted women into vampires, not a single male is known other than himself. Yet still Dracula has this follower who is a man and longs for immortality. Rather than bite him and bring him into\u00a0his harem\u00a0of super-sexual vampire seductresses, Dracula\u00a0seems to\u00a0use Renfield as a pawn, possibly to get close to Lucy and Mina.\u00a0\u00a0In effect, Dracula humiliates Renfield by making him eat vermin. The poor guy is literally told to eat what most people consider disgusting pests to gain the same life-sustaining effects of blood drinking without the sexualization due to him not being a woman. This further supports our class discussions regarding the claim that the novel\u2019s predominant theme is around the fear of expressed female sexuality.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Considering how thoroughly we\u2019ve covered the topics of blood, female sexuality, and fears surrounding the east, it\u2019s been rather difficult finding a topic that hasn\u2019t had a wooden stake driven through it. But what about Renfield, the lunatic with an insatiable appetite? He\u2019s been a character of growing importance as his connection to Dracula becomes … Continue reading Renfield’s getting the short end of the stake<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1374,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[123782],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2016-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325","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\/1374"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}