Morataya 1

Nancy Morataya

Professor Batty

English 102

November 15,2017

Essence of a Bestial Being

My first recollection of vampires came when I watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The

memory of watching a teenage girl battle evil vampires was fascinating. My favorite episode

when Buffy falls in love and the vampire turns evil. I guess I hoped good would conquer evil but

that was not the case. I have always had an interest in vampires, interpretations vary throughout

time but there is always a hint of the original Dracula by Bram Stoker. This novel in which an

uncanny character is depicted who wants to gain dominance over humanity. The novel being

based in the Victorian Era, where social and moral standards are imperative; but modern ideas

were making an appearance. Dracula was once a human who has been transformed to a

monstrous being and to survive must drink blood and infect others to be immortal. Although

some people may argue Dracula is conveying his dominance over humanity, I am suggesting he

shows his monstrosity by liberation of the human mind through desires, sexualization, and

sexism.

Dracula is conveyed as monstrous because of his animalistic traits and a sense of

uneasiness that is transmitted from him. His appearance tall old man, clean shaven save for a

long white moustache (Stoker 13) and his actions are another. He travels to London to spread

his vampirism and conquer the new world. Dracula manipulates and takes advantage of Jonathan

by keeping him hostage, Lucy by drinking her blood, Renfield he forces him to let him into the

asylum, and trying to turn Mina into his mistress. He is monstrous because he is driven by his id
 Morataya 2

with no moral compass to guide him. He is guided by his dreams, desires (sexual and otherwise)

to gain dominance in London and its habitants. Dracula is driven by desires which he transmits

to his infected humans and give way to his animalistic traits, desires to human society.

Standard dreams and desires for human kind are natural but Dracula demonstrates

Freuds psychoanalysis on the unconscious desires of the human mind. The perspective of the Id,

Ego, and Superego. The Id is driven by desires mostly libidinal (sexual) desires, Ego being a

battle between Id and Superego (moral and desires), and Superego driven by the conscious mind

of moral standards. Dracula unlike humans is driven by his sexual desires and desire to expand

his vampirism in London. Dracula with his liberations, he demonstrates his monstrous ways by

showing human kind of alternative ways of living. In He is English and therefore adventurous

by Troy Boone, the article describes an animalistic desire, Vampirism transforms people into

more bestial versions of themselves, driven by their id. While Dracula is a monstrous being who

shows a liberating living standard, he demonstrates this with his three mistresses he has for

unlimited sexual desires and no gender limitations. When the mistresses discover Jonathan

sleeping outside his room, they immediately want a taste but when Dracula finds out he specifies

This man belongs to me! Beware how you meddle with him (Stoker 33), how Jonathan is his

and is not to be touched. By giving his mistresses to be driven my their hungry he turned them

into animalistic beings. Common knowledge society associates animalistic to monstrous animals

driven by hunger and dominance.

Everybody has desires, the main characters in Dracula have different needs and wants.

Jonathan Harker a lawyer with dreams of being successful, intrigued by traveling, and marrying

his fianc Mina Murray. Once in Count Draculas castle Jonathan encounters the mistresss, I

felt in my heart a wicked, burning desire that they would kiss me with those red lips (Stoker 31-
 Morataya 3

32), describing how his Id took control just like Count Dracula. When Stoker talks about Mina

Murray who later becomes Mina Harker has dreams of being a wife, modern woman, and being

educated. The desire to be a modern woman Mina describes a time when you can be with your

partner before marriage, Some of the New Woman writers will someday start an idea that

men and woman should be allowed to see each other asleep before proposing or accepting

(Stoker 77). These two characters share a glimpse of a liberating society which was not accepted

during the Victorian Era. Being driven my desires is not the proper way to live in the culture

world, it is considered barbaric and monstrous.

Desire in many species drive animals to have more than one mate and by displaying their

dominance. When the word monstrous comes to mind there is a certain taboo which comes to

mind. In the Victorian Era a description of a time of social standards in which sexualization was

forbidden and taboo. Women were held to higher standards and seen as angelic beings, in

Staking Salvation: The Reclamation of Monstrous Female in Dracula, written by Jennifer

Swartz-Levine, she emphasizes the Victorian womanhood concept, the pure, virtuous, non-

sexualized female. Dracula sexualizes his victims, Lucy and Mina with mind control and taints

these women with his blood by creating them into vampires. Lucy being his first victim he takes

advantage of her sleep walking, controls her mind, and by biting her neck he nourishes himself.

She a beautiful young girl who the Count torments and takes her purity by turning her into a

vampire. With Mina the act is more dramatic, in which, Dracula does an exchange of blood by

cutting his chest and forcing Mina to drink his blood, his right hand gripped her by the back of

the neck forcing her face down on his bosom (Stoker 242). Mina is not only linked through

blood but through the mind, she is able to spy on the Count to find his next move.
 Morataya 4

The sexualization in the novel is the act of biting, he pierces the neck like a lovers kiss

and holds them close. Dracula pierces their throat with his fangs, symbolizing intercourse. In

Dracula critic review it states, the drinking of blood has been regarded as a metaphor for

sexual intercourse, and the mind manipulation very much considered sexual assault. Once the

women are transformed their physical looks entice humans with the beauty. Eric Kwan-Wai Yu

in, Productive Fear: Labor, Sexuality, and Mimicry in Bram Stokers Dracula, writes about the

sexual perversity and monstrosity in Dracula. A sexual beauty which is arousing and despising,

the most erotic scene ends with utter revulsion and the chilling recognition of demonic threats

(Yu). When the men find Lucy turned into a vampire they are transpired by her beauty but

disgusted; The sweetness was turned to adamantine, heartless cruelty, and the purity to

voluptuous wantonness (Stoker 180). Count Dracula by biting Lucy has taken her purity, her

blood, and turned her into a vampire to terrorize London. He is spreading his dominance and

vampirism to a new country, where Dracula can once again reign as ruler of the night.

Dracula is showing his dominance over human kind but throughout the novel male

dominance is shown, even though Stoker tries to incorporate the New Woman theory.

Jonathan primarily mentions Mina while his travel to Transylvania to meet the Count. When he

talks about Mina, he relates her to housewife and cooking, a chicken done up some way with

red pepper, which was good but thirsty. (Mem., get recipe for Mina). The Victorian Era was all

about moral ideals, in which the man would work, and woman would stay home. Jonathan is

relieved when Minas work is done, I am glad she consented to hold back and let us men to the

work (Stoker 213), while she is strong minded, Jonathan wants to protect his wife. Not giving

Mina much choice she agrees to not be involved on Draculas search.

 Morataya 5

Mina is thought of as bright and educated, a brain that a man should have were he much

gifted (Stoker 201) as expressed by Professor Van Helsing. Later in the novel Mina is protected

by the men and kept in the dark from their plans. This is when Dracula attacks Mina, from her

throat trickled a thin stream of blood (Stoker 242), and is exposed to even more danger. The

men think her mind is fragile, but Mina has pieced the mystery together for the men. The men

are impressed by her but wish to keep her purity and safe from harms way. By going after

Dracula, the men want to kill him, this is the only way to save Mina and save her purity.

When Stoker describes Dracula on having a human physique but animalistic

characteristics, there is a sense of similarities to humanity. Humans are driven by their superego,

the moral standards, and libidinal desires. Count Dracula is uncanny being free from societies

standards, showing humanity the liberation from moral standards and listen to their desires.

Dracula is monstrous because he takes life to stay alive, his superego is non-existent, which

drives his animal instincts. Dracula phases an extreme dilemma of living and spreading his

contamination with no regard to the pile of dead bodies. Dracula demonstrates how humans are

capable of this because vampires where once humans infected by vampirism.

Even though Dracula is conveying a message of dominance on humanity by showing us

he can shapeshift, control the weather, has super strength, and mind control. He still is showing a

liberation of the human mind desires, not only sexual, but shows Minas brightness in being a

motherly, angelic friend and wife. The sexualization of being free to choose a partner of your

liking and knowing what type of person you would marry. That sexism still exists but it is

enlightened by love and care from family and friends. Dracula gives the Victorian Era something

to think about and focus on a modern world. The mind is free to wonder but controlled by moral

standards.
 Morataya 6

Dracula is a classic novel that still today is being used throughout the world to bring

many issues to light but also, to really understand the evolution of the mind. Knowing the

monstrous beings exist and how they can control us, but having a free mind to range and really

expanded the knowledge to better assist our future morality. Dracula is an evil being who is

finally killed but does gain some dominance over human kind because of what the mind is

unable to process and how society has created that type of thought process.
 Morataya 7

Work Cited

Boone, Troy. "'He is English and therefore adventurous': politics, decadence, and 'Dracula.'." Studies in

the Novel, vol. 25, no. 1, 1993, p. 76+. Literature Resource Center. Accessed 5 Nov. 2017.

"Dracula." Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, edited by Janet Witalec, vol. 144, Gale, 2004. Literature

Resource Center, Accessed 10 Nov. 2017.

Swartz-Levine, Jennifer A. "Staking Salvation: The Reclamation of the Monstrous Female in

Dracula." The Midwest Quarterly, vol. 57, no. 4, 2016, p. 345+. Literature Resource Center.

Accessed 8 Nov. 2017.

Yu, Eric Kwan-Wai. "Productive fear: labor, sexuality, and mimicry in Bram Stoker's Dracula." Texas

Studies in Literature and Language, vol. 48, no. 2, 2006, p. 145+. Literature Resource Center.

Accessed 5 Nov. 2017.