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108 REPRESENTATIONS
of insolentand loveless pride, but withthe passionate gentlenessof an infinitely
variable,because infinitely applicable, modestyof service-the true changeful-
ness of woman."6 Stoker, whose vampiricwomen exercise a far more dangerous
"changefulness"than Ruskin imagines,anxiouslyinvertsthisconventionalpat-
tern,as virileJonathanHarker enjoysa "feminine"passivityand awaitsa delicious
penetrationfroma woman whose demonismis figuredas the powerto penetrate.
A swooningdesire foran overwhelmingpenetrationand an intenseaversionto
the demonic potencyempoweredto gratifythatdesire compose the fundamental
motivatingaction and emotion in Dracula.
This ambivalence,alwaysexcitedbythe imminenceof thevampirickiss,finds
itsmostsensationalrepresentationin the image of the Vampire Mouth, the cen-
tral and recurringimage of the novel: "There was a deliberatevoluptuousness
which was both thrillingand repulsive ... I could see in the moonlightthe
moistureshiningon the red tongue as itlapped the whitesharp teeth"(52). That
is Harker describingone of the threevampirewomen at Castle Dracula. Here is
Dr. Seward'sdescriptionof the Count: "His eyesflamedred withdevilishpassion;
the great nostrilsof the white aquiline nose opened wide and quivered at the
edges; and the white sharp teeth, behind the full lips of the blood-dripping
mouth,champed togetherlike those of a wild beast" (336). As the primarysite
of eroticexperience in Dracula,thismouth equivocates,givingthe lie to the easy
separation of the masculine and the feminine.Luring at firstwith an inviting
orifice,a promise of red softness,but deliveringinstead a piercing bone, the
vampiremouth fusesand confuseswhatDracula's civilizednemesis,Van Helsing
and his Crew of Light,7worksso hard to separate -the gender-based categories
of the penetratingand the receptive,or,to use Van Helsing'slanguage, the com-
plementarycategories of "brave men" and "good women." With its soft flesh
barred by hard bone, itsred crossed bywhite,thismouthcompels opposites and
contrastsinto a frighteningunity,and it asks some disturbingquestions.Are we
male or are we female? Do we have penetratorsor orifices?And if both, what
does thatmean? And what about our bodilyfluids,the red and the white?What
are the relationsbetweenblood and semen, milkand blood? Furthermore,this
mouth,bespeaking the subversionof the stable and lucid distinctionsof gender,
is the mouth of all vampires,male and female.
Yetwe mustrememberthatthe vampiremouthis firstof all Dracula's mouth,
and that all subsequent versions of it (in Dracula all vampires other than the
Count are female)8merelyrepeat as diminishedsimulacrathedesire of theGreat
Original, that "fatheror furthererof a new order of beings" (360). Dracula
himself,calling his children"myjackals to do mybidding when I want to feed,"
identifiesthe systematiccreation of female surrogates who enact his will and
desire (365). This should remind us that the novel's opening anxiety,its first
articulationof the vampiricthreat,derives fromDracula's hoveringinterestin
110 REPRESENTATIONS
instead to pump him for his knowledge of English law,custom,and language.
Dracula, soon departing for England, leaves Harker to the weird sisters,whose
finalpenetrationof him,impliedbut neverrepresented,occurs in the dark inter-
space to which Harker'sjournal gives no access.
HereafterDracula will never representso directlya male's desire to be pen-
etrated; once in England Dracula, observinga decorous heterosexuality, vamps
only women, in particularLucy Westenraand Mina Harker. The novel, none-
theless,does not dismisshomoeroticdesire and threat;ratheritsimplycontinues
to diffuseand displaceit.Late in thetext,the Count himselfannouncesa deflected
homoeroticismwhen he admonishes the Crew of Light thus: "My revenge isjust
begun! I spread it over the centuries,and timeis on myside. Your girlsthatyou
all love are mine already; and throughthemyouand others shallyetbemine. . ." (365;
italicsadded). Here Dracula specifiesthe process of substitutionby which "the
girlsthat you all love" mediate and displace a more directcommunion among
males. Van Helsing, who provides for Lucy transfusionsdesigned to counteract
the dangerous influenceof the Count, confirmsDracula's declarationof surro-
gation; he knows that once the transfusionsbegin, Dracula drains fromLucy's
veins not her blood, but ratherblood transferredfromthe veins of the Crew of
Light: "even we four who gave our strengthto Lucy it also is all to him [sic]"
(244). Here, emphatically,is another instanceof the heterosexualdisplacement
of a desire mobile enough to elude the boundaries of gender.Everywherein this
textsuch desireseeksa strangelydeflectedheterosexualdistribution; onlythrough
women may men touch.
The representationof sexualityin Dracula,then,registersa powerfulambiv-
alence in its identificationof desire and fear. The text releases a sexualityso
mobile and polymorphicthatDracula maybe best representedas bat or wolfor
floatingdust; yet this effortto elude the restrictionsupon desire encoded in
traditionalconceptionsof gender then constrainsthatdesire througha seriesof
heterosexualdisplacements.Desire's excursivemobilityis alwaysfilteredin Dra-
cula throughthe mask of a monstrousor demonic heterosexuality.Indeed, Dra-
cula's missionin England is the creationof a race of monstrouswomen,feminine
demons equipped withmasculinedevices.This monstrousheterosexualityis apo-
tropaicfortworeasons: first,because itmasksand deflectstheanxietyconsequent
to a more direct representationof same sex eroticism;and second, because in
imagininga sexuallyaggressivewoman as a demonic penetrator,as a usurper of
a prerogativebelonging "naturally"to the other gender, itjustifies,as we shall
see later,a violentexpulsion of thisdeformed femininity.
In itsparticularformulationof eroticambivalence,in itscontraryneed both
to liberateand constraina desire indifferentto the prescriptionsof gender by
figuringsuch desire as monstrousheterosexuality, Dracula mayseem at firstidio-
syncratic,anomalous, merelyneurotic.This is not-thecase. Dracula presentsa
112 REPRESENTATIONS
A terminologicalmuddle ensued, the new names of theunnameable were legion:
"homosexuality," "sexual inversion,""intermediatesex," "homogenic love," and
"uranism"all coexistedand completed forterminologicalpriority.Until the sec-
ond or thirddecade of thiscentury,when the word "homosexuality," probably
because of its medical heritage,took the terminologicalcrown, "sexual inver-
sion"-as word, metaphor,taxonomic category-provided the basic tool with
which late Victorians investigated,and constituted,their problematic desire.
Symonds,more responsiblethanany otherwriterforthe establishmentof "inver-
sion" as VictorianEngland's preferredterm for same sex eroticism,considered
it a "convenientphrase" "whichdoes not prejudice the matterunder consider-
ation." Going further,he naivelyclaimed that "inversion"provided a "neutral
nomenclature"withwhich"the investigatorhas good reason to be satisfied.''l5
Symonds'sclaim of terminologicalneutralityignores the way in whichcon-
ventionalbeliefsand assumptionsabout gender inhabitboth thelabel "inversion"
and the metaphorbehind it.The exact historyof the word remainsobscure (the
OED Supplement defines sexual inversiontautologicallyas "the inversionof the
sex instincts"and provides two perfunctorycitations)but it seems to have been
employed firstin English in an anonymous medical review of 1871; Symonds
later adopted it to translatethe account of homoeroticdesire offeredby Karl
Ulrichs,an "inverted"Hanoverian legal officialwho wrotein the 1860s in Ger-
many "a series of polemical, analytical,theoretical,and apologetic pamphlets"
endorsingsame sex eroticism.16 As Ellis explains it,Ulrichs"regarded uranism,
or homosexual love, as a congenital abnormalityby which a female soul had
become united witha male body-anima muliebris in corporeviriliinclusa."'"7 The
explanationforthisimpropercorrelationof anatomyand desire is, accordingto
Symonds'ssynopsisof Ulrichs in ModernEthics,"to be found in physiology,in
that obscure department of natural science which deals with the evolution of
sex."18 Nature'sattemptto differentiate "the indeterminateground-stuff"of the
foetus-to produce, thatis, not merelythe "male and femaleorgans of procrea-
tion" but also the "corresponding male and female appetites"-falls short of
complete success: "Nature fails to complete her work regularlyand in every
instance. Having succeeded in differentiating a male with full-formedsexual
organs fromthe undecided foetus,she does not alwayseffectthe proper differ-
entiationof thatportionof the physicalbeing in whichresidesthesexual appetite.
There remains a female soul in a male body:"Since it holds nature responsible
for the "imperfectionin the process of development,"this explanation of ho-
moeroticdesire has obvious polemicalutility;in relievingthe individualof moral
responsibilityforhis or her anomalous development,itargues firstforthe decri-
minalizationand thenforthemedicalizationof inversion.Accordingto thisaccount,
same sex eroticism,although statistically deviant or abnormal, cannot then be
called unnatural. Inverts or urnings or homosexuals are therefore"abnormal,
114 REPRESENTATIONS
and source of desire formales is assumed to be feminine(animamuliebris). Implicit
in thisargumentis the submergedacknowledgmentof the sexuallyindependent
woman,whose eroticempowermentrefutesthe conventionalassumptionof fem-
inine passivity.Nonetheless,thisnascentredefinition of notionsof femininedesire
remained largelyunfulfilled.Symonds and Ellis did not escape their culture's
phallocentrism,and theirtextspredictablyreflectthisbias. Symonds,whose sex-
ual and aestheticinterestspivoted around the "pure & noble facultyof under-
standing & expressingmanly perfection,"2'seems to have been largelyuncon-
cerned with femininesexuality;his seventy-pageA Problemin GreekEthics,for
instance,offersonlya two-page"parentheticalinvestigation"of lesbianism.Ellis,
like Freud, certainlyacknowledged sexual desire in women, but nevertheless
accorded to masculine heterosexualdesire an ontologicaland practicalpriority:
"The femaleresponds to the stimulationof the male at the rightmomentjust as
the tree responds to the stimulationof the warmestdays in spring."22(Neither
did English law want to recognize the sexually self-motivatedwoman. The
Labouchere Amendment to the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885, the
statuteunderwhichOscar Wildewas convictedof "grossindecency,'simplyignored
the possibilityof erotic behavior between women.) In all of this we may see an
anxious defense against recognitionof an independent and activefemininesex-
uality.A submergedfearof thefeminizationof desire precluded thesepolemicists
fromfullydeveloping theirown argumentativeassumptionof an already sexu-
alized femininesoul.
Sexual inversion,then, understands homoeroticdesire as misplaced heter-
osexualityand configuresits understandingof such desire according to what
George Chauncey has called "the heterosexual paradigm,"an analyticalmodel
requiringthatall love repeat the dyadic structure(masculine/feminine, husband/
wife,active/passive) embodied in the heterosexual norm.23 Desire between ana-
tomicalmales requires the interpositionof an invisiblefemininity, just as desire
betweenanatomicalfemalesrequiresthe mediationof a hidden masculinity. This
insistentideologyof heterosexualmediationand itscorollaryanxietyabout inde-
pendentfemininesexualityreturnus to Dracula,whereall desire,however,mobile,
is fixed withina heterosexual mask, where a mobile and hungeringwoman is
represented as a monstroususurper of masculine function,and where, as we
shall see in detail,all eroticcontactsbetweenmales, whetherdirectlylibidinalor
thoroughlysublimated,are fulfilledthrough a mediatingfemale, through the
surrogationof the other,"correct,"gender.Sexual inversionand Stoker'saccount
of vampirism,then, are symmetricalmetaphors sharing a fundamentalambiv-
alence. Both discourses, aroused by a desire that wants to elude or flauntthe
conventional prescriptionsof gender, constrain that desire by constitutingit
according to the heterosexual paradigm that leaves conventionalgender codes
intact.The differencebetweenthe two discourseslies in the particulararticula-
Engendering Gender
gamewillbe toplayourmasculineagainstherfeminine.
Our strong
-Stoker, THE LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM
The portionof the gothicnovel thatI have called the prolonged mid-
dle, during which the text allows the monstera certain dangerous play,corre-
sponds in Dracula to the durationbeginningwiththe Count's arrivalin England
and endingwithhis flightback home; thisextended middleconstitutesthenovel's
prolonged momentof equivocation,as itentertains,elaborates,and explores the
very anxieties it must later expel in the formulaicresolutionof the plot. The
actionwithinthissectionofDracula consists,simplyenough, in an extended battle
between two evidentlymasculine forces,one identifiablygood and the other
identifiably evil,forthe allegiance of a woman (two women actually-Lucy Wes-
tenra and Mina Harker nee Murray).24This competitionbetween alternative
potencies has the apparent simplicityof a black and whiteopposition. Dracula
ravages and impoverishesthese women, Van Helsing's Crew of Light restores
and "saves"them.As Dracula conductshis serialassaultsupon Lucy,Van Helsing,
in a prettycounterpointof penetration,respondswitha seriesof defensivetrans-
fusions; the blood that Dracula takes out Van Helsing then puts back. Dracula,
isolated and disdainfulof community, worksalone; Van Helsing entersthislittle
English community,immediatelyassumes authority,and then works through
surrogates to cement communal bonds. As criticshave noted, this pattern of
opposition distillsreadilyinto a competitionbetween antitheticalfathers."The
vampireCount, centuriesold," Maurice Richardsonwrotetwenty-five yearsago,
"is a fatherfigureof huge potency"who competes withVan Helsing, "the good
fatherfigure."25 The theme of alternatepaternitiesis, in short,simple,evident,
unavoidable.
This oscillationbetweenvampirictransgressionand medical correctionexer-
cises the text'sambivalencetowardthose fundamentaldualisms-life and death,
spiritand flesh,male and female-which have served traditionallyto constrain
and delimit the excursions of desire. As doctor,lawyer,and sometimespriest
116 REPRESENTATIONS
("The Host. I broughtit fromAmsterdam.I have an indulgence"), Van Helsing
stands as the protectorof the patriarchalinstitutionshe so emphaticallyrepre-
sentsand as the guarantorof the traditionaldualismshis religionand profession
promote and authorize.26 His largestpurpose is to reinscribethe dualities that
Dracula would muddle and confuse. Dualities require demarcations,inexorable
and ineradicablelinesof separation,but Dracula, as a borderbeingwho abrogates
demarcations,makes such distinctionsimpossible. He is nosferatu,neitherdead
nor alive but somehowboth,mobile frequenterof the graveand boudoir,easeful
communicantof exclusive realms,and as such as he toyswiththe separation of
the livingand the dead, a distinctioncriticalto physician,lawyer,and priestalike.
His mobilityand metaphoric power deride the distinctionbetween spiritand
flesh,anotherof Van Helsing'ssanctifieddualisms.Potentenough to ignoredeath's
terminus,Dracula has a spirit'sfreedomand mobility, but thatmobilityis chained
to the mostmechanicalof appetites: he and his childrenrise and fallfora drink
and fornothingelse, fornothingelse matters.This con- or inter-fusionof spirit
and appetite, of eternityand sequence, produces a madness of activityand a
mania of unceasing desire. Dracula lives an eternityof sexual repetition,a lurid
wedding of desire and satisfactionthatparodies both.
But the traditionaldualism most vigorouslydefended by Van Helsing and
mostsubtlysubvertedby Dracula is, of course, sexual: the divisionof being into
gender,eithermale or female. Indeed, as we have seen, the vampirickissexcites
a sexualityso mobile,so insistent,thatit threatensto overwhelmthe distinctions
of gender,and the exuberant energywithwhich Van Helsing and the Crew of
Light counter Dracula's influencerepresentsthe text'sanxious defense against
the verydesire it also seeks to liberate.In counterposingDracula and Van Hels-
ing, Stoker'stextsimultaneouslythreatensand protectsthe line of demarcation
thatinsures the intelligibledivisionof being into gender. This ambivalentneed
to invitethe vampirickiss and then to repudiate it definesexactlythe dynamic
of the battlethatconstitutesthe prolonged middle of thistext.The fieldof this
battle,of thisequivocal competitionforthe rightto definethe possible relations
betweendesireand gender,is theinfinitely penetrablebodyof a somnolentwoman.
This interpositionof a woman between Dracula and Van Helsing should not
surpriseus; in England, as in Castle Dracula, a violentwrestlebetweenmales is
mediated througha feminineform.
The Crew of Light'sconscious conceptionof women is, predictablyenough,
idealized-the stuffof dreams. Van Helsing's concise descriptionof Mina may
serve as a representativeexample: "She is one of God's women fashionedby His
own hand to show us men and otherwomen thatthereis a heaven we can enter,
and that its lightcan be here on earth" (226). The impossible idealism of this
conceptionof women deflectsattentionfromthecomplex and complicitousinter-
action withinthis sentence of gender, authority,and representation.Here Van
118 REPRESENTATIONS
or transformeddesire ("imaginary"),empowered by a gender-biased societal
agreement ("conventional"),imposes itselfupon a person in order to create a
"character.""Character" of course functionsin at least three senses: who and
what one "is,"the role one plays in society'ssuperveningscript,and the sign or
letterthat is intelligibleonly withinthe constraintsof a larger sign system.Van
Helsing'sexegesis of "God's women" createsjust such an imaginaryand conven-
tional character.Mina's body/character may indeed be feminine,but the signifi-
cation it bears is writtenand interpretedsolelyby males. As Susan Hardy Aiken
has written,such a symbolicsystemtakes "for granted the role of women as
passive objects or signs to be manipulated in the grammar of privilegedmale
interchanges." 30
Yet exactlythe passivityof thisobject and the ease of thismanipulationare
at question in Dracula. Dracula, afterall, kissesthesewomen out of theirpassivity
and so endangers the stabilityof Van Helsing's symbolicsystem.Both the pre-
scriptiveintentionof Van Helsing's exegesis and the emphatic methodology
(hypodermicneedle, stake,surgeon'sblade) he employsto insure the durability
of his interpretation of gender suggestthe potentialunreliabilityof Mina as sign,
an instabilitythat provokes an anxietywe may call fear of the mediatrix.If, as
Van Helsing admits,God's women provide the essentialmediation("the lightcan
be here on earth") betweenthe divine but distantpatriarchand his earthlysons,
then God's intentionmay be distortedby its potentiallychangeable vehicle. If
woman-as-signifier wanders,thenVan Helsing'swhole cosmology,withitsfound-
ing dualisms and supporting texts,collapses. In short,Van Helsing's interpre-
tationof Mina, because endangered bytheprolepticfearthathis mediatrixmight
destabilizeand wander, necessarilyimposes an a prioriconstraintupon the sig-
nificativepossibilitiesof the sign "Mina." Such an authorialgesture,intended to
forestallthe semioticwandering that Dracula inspires,indirectlyacknowledges
woman's dangerous potential.Late in the text,while Dracula is vamping Mina,
Van Helsing willadmit,veryuneasily,that"Madam Mina, our poor,dear Madam
Mina is changing" (384). The potential for such a change demonstrateswhat
Nina Auerbach has called thiswoman's "mysteriousamalgam of imprisonment
and power.?3'
Dracula's authorizingkiss,like thatof a demonic Prince Charming,triggers
the release of thislatentpower and excitesin these women a sexualityso mobile,
so aggressive,thatit thoroughlydisruptsVan Helsing's compartmentalconcep-
tionof gender.Kissed intoa sudden sexuality,32 Lucy grows"voluptuous"(a word
used to describe her onlyduringthe vampiricprocess),her lips redden, and she
kisseswitha new interest.This sexualizationof Lucy,metamorphosingwoman's
"sweetness"to "adamantine, heartless cruelty,and [her] purityto voluptuous
wantonness"(252), terrifiesher suitorsbecause it entailsa reversalor inversion
of sexual identity;Lucy, now toothed like the Count, usurps the functionof
120 REPRESENTATIONS
by requiring that the child be discarded that the husband may be embraced,
Stokerprovides a littleemblem of thisnovel'sanxious protestationthatappetite
in a woman ("My arms are hungryfor you") is a diabolic ("callous as a devil")
inversionof naturalorder,and of the novel'sfantasticbut futilehope thatmater-
nityand sexualitybe divorced.
The aggressivemobilitywithwhich Lucy flauntsthe encasementsof gender
norms generates in the Crew of Light a terrificdefensiveactivity, as these men
race to reinscribe,witha series of pointed instruments,the line of demarcation
which enables the definitionof gender. To save Lucy from the mobilizationof
desire,Van Helsing and the Crew of LightcounteractDracula's subversiveseries
of penetrationswitha more conventionalseries of theirown, that sequence of
transfusionsintendedto provide Lucy withthe "braveman'sblood" which"is the
best thingon earth when a woman is in trouble" (180). There are in fact four
transfusions,which begin with Arthur,who as Lucy's accepted suitor has the
rightof firstinfusion,and include Lucy'sother two suitors(Dr. Seward, Quincey
Morris)and Van Helsing himself.One of the establishedobservationsof Dracula
criticismis thatthese therapeuticpenetrationsrepresentdisplaced marital(and
martial) penetrations;indeed, the text is emphatic about this substitutionof
medical for sexual penetration.Afterthe firsttransfusion,Arthurfeels as if he
and Lucy "had been reallymarriedand thatshe was his wifein the sightof God"
(209); and Van Helsing, afterhis donation, calls himselfa "bigamist"and Lucy
"thisso sweet maid . . . a polyandrist"(211-212). These transfusions,in short,
are sexual (blood substitutesforsemen here)35and constitute,in Nina Auerbach's
superb phrase, "the mostconvincingepithalamiumsin the novel.36
These transfusionsrepresentthe text'sfirstanxious reassertionof the con-
ventionallymasculine prerogativeof penetration;as Van Helsing tells Arthur
before the firsttransfusion,"You are a man and it is a man we want" (148).
Counteringthe dangerous mobilityexcited by Dracula's kiss,Van Helsing's pen-
etrationsrestoreto Lucy both the stillnessappropriate to his sense of her gender
and "the regular breathingof healthysleep,"a necessarycorrectionof the loud
"stertorous"breathing,the animal snorting,thatthe Count inspires.This repet-
itivecontest(penetration,withdrawal;penetration,infusion),itselfan image of
Dracula'sambivalentneed to evoke and then to repudiate the fluidpleasures of
vampiricappetite,continuesto be waged upon Lucy'sinfinitely penetrablebody
until Van Helsing exhausts his store of "brave men,"whose generous giftsof
blood, however efficacious,fail finallyto save Lucy from the mobilizationof
desire.
But even the loss of this much blood does not finallyenervate a masculine
energy as indefatigableas the Crew of Light's,especiallywhen it stands in the
service of a traditionof "good women whose lives and whose truthsmay make
good lesson [sic]forthe childrenthatare to be" (222). In the name of those good
Here is the novel's real-and the woman's only-climax, its most violent and
misogynisticmoment,displaced roughlyto the middle of the book, so that the
sexual threatmay be repeated but its ultimatesuccess denied: Dracula will not
win Mina, second in his series of English seductions.The murderousphallicism
of thispassage clearlypunishes Lucy forher transgressionof Van Helsing'sgen-
der code, as she finallyreceives a penetrationadequate to insure her future
quiescence. Violence against the sexual woman here is intense,sensuallyimag-
ined, ferociousin its detail. Note, for instance,the terribledimple, the "dint in
the whiteflesh,"thatrecallsJonathanHarker'sswoon at Castle Dracula ("I could
feel ... the hard dents of the two sharp teeth,just touchingand pausing there")
and anticipatesthe technicolorconsummationof the next paragraph. That para-
graph,maskingmurderas "highduty,"completesVan Helsing'spenetrativether-
apy by "drivingdeeper and deeper the mercy-bearingstake."One mightquestion
a mercythisdestructive,thisfatal,but Van Helsing'sactions,alwayssanctifiedby
the patriarchaltextualtraditionsignifiedby "his missal,"manage to "restoreLucy
to us as a holy and not an unholy memory"(258). This enthusiasticcorrection
of Lucy's monstrosityprovides the Crew of Light witha double reassurance: it
effectivelyexorcises the threatof a mobile and hungering femininesexuality,
and it countersthe homoeroticismlatentin the vampiricthreatby reinscribing
(upon Lucy's chest) the line dividing the male who penetratesand the woman
who receives. By discipliningLucy and restoringeach gender to its "proper"
122 REPRESENTATIONS
function,Van Helsing'spacificationprogramcompensatesforthe threatof gen-
der indefinitionimplicitin the vampirickiss.
The vigorand enormityof thispenetration(Arthurdrivingthe"roundwooden
stake,"which is "some two and a half or three inches thickand about three feet
long,"resembles"the figureof Thor") do not bespeak merelyStoker'spersonal
or idiosyncraticanxietybut suggest as well a whole culture'suncertaintyabout
the fluidityof gender roles. Consider,for instance,the followingpassage from
Ellis's contemporaneous Studiesin thePsychology of Sex. Ellis, writingon "The
Mechanism of Detumescence" (i.e., ejaculation), employs a figure that Stoker
would have recognized as his own:
Detumescence is normally linkedto tumescence.Tumescenceis thepilingon of the
fuel;detumescence is theleapingoutof thedevouringflamewhenceis lightedthetorch
of lifeto be handedon fromgeneration The wholeprocessis doubleyet
to generation.
single;itis exactlyanalogousto thatbywhicha pileis drivenintotheearthbytheraising
and thelettinggo of a heavyweightwhichfallson thehead of thepile. In tumescence
theorganismis slowlywoundup and forceaccumulated; in theactofdetumescence the
accumulated forceis letgo and byitsliberationthesperm-bearing instrumentis driven
home.37
Both Stokerand Ellis need to imagine so homelyan occurrence as penile pene-
trationas an event of mythic,or at least seismographic,proportions.Ellis's pile
driver,representingthe powerful"sperm-bearinginstrument," maydwarfeven
Stoker'salreadyoutsized member,but both servea similarfunction:theychannel
and finally"liberate"a tremendous"accumulated force"that itselfrepresentsa
trans-or supra-naturalintention.Ellis,employinga Darwinian principleof inter-
pretationto explain that intention,reads woman's body (much as we have seen
Van Helsing do) as a natural sign-or, perhaps better,as a sign of nature'sover-
ridingreproductiveintention:
There can be littledoubtthat,as one or twowritershave alreadysuggested,the
hymenowesitsdevelopment is on thesideofeffective
to thefactthatitsinfluence fertil-
ization.It is an obstacleto theimpregnation of theyoungfemalebyimmature, aged,or
feeblemales.Thehymen is thusan anatomical offorcewhich
ofthatadmiration
expression marks
thefemaleinherchoice ofa mate.So regarded,itis an interestingexampleof theintimate
matterin whichsexualselectionis reallybasedon naturalselection.38 (italicsadded)
124 REPRESENTATIONS
explicitscene of vampiricseduction. Important enough to be twicepresented,
firstby Seward as spectatorand thenby Mina as participant,the scene occurs in
the Harkerbedroom,whereDracula seduces Mina while"on thebed layJonathan
Harker, his face flushed and breathingheavilyas if in a stupor."The Crew of
Light burstsinto the room; the voice is Dr. Seward's:
Withhislefthand he heldbothMrs.Harker'shands,keepingthemawaywithherarms
at fulltension;hisrighthandgrippedherbythebackoftheneck,forcing herfacedown
on hisbosom.Her whitenightdress was smearedwithblood,and a thinstreamtrickled
downtheman'sbarebreast,whichwasshownbyhistorn-open dress.The attitude
of the
twohad a terribleresemblance nose intoa saucerof milkto
to a childforcinga kitten's
compelitto drink.(336)
A Final Dissolution
126 REPRESENTATIONS
But it is all penetrativeenergy,whetherre-fangedor refined,and it is all
libidinal; the two strategiesof penetrationare but differentarticulationsof the
same primitiveforce.Dracula certainlyproblematizes,if it does not quite erase,
the line of separation signifyinga meaningfuldifferencebetween Van Helsing
and the Count. In other words, the text itself,in its imagisticidentificationof
Dracula and the Crew of Light, in its ambivalentpropensityto subvertits own
fundamentaldifferences, sympathizeswithand finallydomesticatesvampiricdesire;
the uncanny,as Freud brilliantlyobserved, always comes home. Such textual
irony,composed of simultaneousbut contraryimpulses to establishand subvert
the fundamentaldifferencesbetween violence and culture,between desire and
its sublimations,recalls Freud's late speculations on the troubled relationship
betweenthe id and the superego (or ego ideal). In the two briefpassages below,
takenfromhis late workTheEgo and theId, Freud complicatesthe differentiation
betweenthe id and its unexpected effluent,the superego:
Thereare twopathsbywhichthecontents oftheid can penetrateintotheego. The
one is direct,theotherleadsbywayof theego ideal.
And:
Fromthepointofviewofinstinctual control,ofmorality,itmaybe saidoftheid that
itis totally of theego thatitstrivesto be moral,and of thesuper-egothatit
non-moral,
can be supermoraland thenbecomeas cruelas onlytheid can be.42
128 REPRESENTATIONS
Indeed, so insistentis thistextto establishthispatternof heterosexualmedia-
tion that it repeats the patternon its finalpage. Jonathan Harker,writingin a
postscriptthat compensates clearly for his assumption at Castle Dracula of a
"feminine"passivity, announces the text'slast efficaciouspenetration:
Sevenyearsago we all wentthroughtheflames;and the happinessof someof us
wellworththepainweendured.It is an addedjoy to Minaand to
sincethenis,we think,
me thatour boy'sbirthday is thesame day as thaton whichQuinceyMorrisdied. His
motherholds,I know,thesecretbeliefthatsomeof our bravefriend'sspirithas passed
butwe call him
intohim.His bundleof nameslinksall our littlebandof mentogether;
Quincey.(449)
As offspringof Jonathanand Mina Harker,LittleQuincey,whose introduction
so late in the narrativeinsureshis emblematicfunction,seeminglyrepresentsthe
restorationof "natural" order and especially the rectificationof conventional
gender roles. His officialgenesis is, obviouslyenough, heterosexual,but Stoker's
prose quietlysuggestsan alternativepaternity:"His bundle of names links all
our littleband of men together."This is the fantasychild of those sexualized
transfusions,son of an illicitand nearly invisiblehomosexual union. This sug-
gestion,reinforcedby the precedingpun of "spirit,"constitutesthistext'slastand
subtlestarticulationof its "secretbelief" that "a brave man's blood" may meta-
morphose into"our brave friend'sspirit."But the real curiosityhere is the novel's
last-minutedisplacement,its substitutionof Mina, who ultimatelyrefused sexu-
alization by Dracula, for Lucy,who was sexualized, vigorouslypenetrated,and
consequentlydestroyed.We maysay thatLittleQuincey was luridlyconceived in
the veins of Lucy Westenraand then deftlyrelocated to the purer body of Mina
Harker. Here, in the last of its many displacements,Dracula insists,first,that
successfulfiliationimpliesthe expulsion of all "monstrous"desire in women and,
second, thatall desire, howevermobile and omnivorousit maysecretlybe, must
subject itselfto the heterosexualconfigurationthatalone defined the Victorian
sense of the normal. In this regard, Stoker'sfable, howeverhyperbolicits anx-
ieties,representshis age. As we have seen, even polemicistsof same sex eroticism
like Symonds and Ellis could not imagine such desire withoutrepeatingwithin
theirmetaphor of sexual inversionthe basic structureof the heterosexual par-
adigm. Victorian culture'sanxiety about desire's potential indifferenceto the
prescriptionsof gender produces everywherea predictablerepetitionand a pre-
dictabledisplacement:the heterosexualnorm repeats itselfin a mediatingimage
of femininity-theCount's vampiricdaughters,Ulrichs'sand Symonds'sanima
muliebris, Lucy Westenra'spenetrable body-that displaces a more direct com-
munion among males. Desire, despite its propensityto wander,stayshome and
retainsan essentiallyheterosexualand familialdefinition.The resultin Dracula
is a child whose conceptionis curiouslyimmaculate,yetdisturbinglylurid: child
Notes
130 REPRESENTATIONS
notes Boswell, "has connoted in various times and various places everythingfrom
ordinaryheterosexualintercoursein an atypicalpositionto oral sexual contactwith
animals" (93).
12. This is the traditionalChristiancircumlocutionby which sodomy was both named
and unnamed, both specifiedin speech and specifiedas unspeakable. It is the phrase,
according to JeffreyWeeks,"withwhichSir Robert Peel forboreto mentionsodomy
in Parliament,"quoted in Weeks,ComingOut (London, 1977), p. 14.
13. Michel Foucault,TheHistoryofSexuality(New York, 1980). My argumentagrees with
Foucault'sassertionthat"the techniquesof power exercised over sex have not obeyed
a principleof rigorous selection,but ratherone of disseminationand implantation
of polymorphoussexualities" (12). Presumablymembers of the same gender have
been copulating togetherfor uncounted centuries,but the invertand homosexual
were not inventeduntilthe ninteenthcentury.
14. I cite this phrase, spoken by Mr.JusticeWills to Oscar Wilde immediatelyafterthe
latter'sconvictionunder the Labouchfre Amendmentto the Criminal Law Amend-
mentAct of 1885, as an oblique referenceto the orificethatso threatenedthe hom-
ophobic Victorianimagination;thatWilde was neveraccused of anal intercourse(only
oral copulation and mutual masturbationwere charged against him) seems to me to
confirm,rather than to undermine this interpretationof the phrase. Wills'sentire
sentence reads: "And that you, Wilde, have been the centre of a circle of extensive
corruptionof the most hideous kind among young men, it is equally impossibleto
doubt"; quoted in H. MontgomeryHyde, The TrialsofOscarWilde(New York, 1962),
p. 272. The Labouchere Amendment,sometimescalled the blackmailer'scharter,
punished "any act of gross indecency"between males, whetherin public or private,
withtwo years'imprisonmentand hard labor. Symonds,Ellis,and Carpenter argued
strenuouslyfor the repeal of thislaw.
15. Symonds,A Problemin ModernEthics,p. 3.
16. Ibid., p. 84. To my knowledge, the earliest English instance of "inversion"in this
specificsense is the phrase "Inverted Sexual Proclivity"fromTheJournalofMental
Science(October, 1871), where it is used anonymouslyto translateCarl Westphal's
neologismdie contrdre Sexualempfindung, the term thatwould dominate German dis-
course on same gender eroticism.I have not yetbeen able to date preciselySymonds's
firstuse of "inversion."
17. Havelock Ellis, Sexual Inversion,volume 2 of Studiesin thePsychologyofSex (Philadel-
phia, 1906), p. 1.
18. This and the two subsequent quotations are fromSymonds'sModernEthics,pp. 86,
90, and 85 respectively.
19. Symonds'sletterto Carpenter,December 29, 1893, in The LettersofJohnAddington
Symonds, volume 3, eds. H. M. Shueller and R. L. Peters(Detroit, 1969), p. 799; also
quoted in Weeks,p. 54.
20. Ellis, SexualInversion,p. 182.
21. Symonds in Letters, volume 2, p. 169.
22. Ellis, quoted in Weeks,p. 92.
23. George Chauncey,Jr.,"From Sexual Inversion to Homosexuality:Medicine and the
Changing Conceptualization of Female Deviance," Salamagundi,58-59 (1982), pp.
114-146.
24. This bifurcationof woman is one of the text'smost evident features,as criticsof
Dracula have been quick to notice.See PhyllisRoth,"SuddenlySexual Womenin Brain
132 REPRESENTATIONS
38. Ibid., 140.
39. Roth correctlyreads Lucy'scountenance at thismomentas "a thankyou note" forthe
correctivepenetration;"Suddenly Sexual Women,"p. 116.
40. C. E Bentley,"The Monster in the Bedroom: Sexual Symbolismin Brain Stoker's
Dracula,"Literature and Psychology,22 (1972), p. 30.
41. Stoker'sconfigurationof hypnotismand anaesthesia is not idiosyncratic.Ellis, for
instance,writingat exactly this time, conjoins hypnosis and anaesthesia as almost
identical phenomena and subsumes them under a single taxonomic category: "We
may use the term 'hypnoticphenomena' as a convenientexpression to include not
merelythe conditionof artificially-produced sleep, or hypnotismin the narrowsense
of the term,but all those groups of psychicphenomena which are characterizedby
a decreased controlof the highernervouscentres,and increased activityof the lower
centres."The qualitythatdeterminesmembershipin this"convenient"taxonomyis,
to put mattersbaldly,ap elvis pumped up by the "increased activityof the lower
centres'"Ellis,in an earlierfootnote,explains the antitheticalrelationshipbetweenthe
"higher" and "lower" centers: The persons best adapted to propagate the race are
those withthe large pelves,and as the pelvis is the seat of the greatcentresof sexual
emotion the developmentof the pelvis and its nervous and vascular supply involves
the greaterheighteningof the sexual emotions.At the same timethe greateractivity
of the cerebralcentresenables them to subordinateand utiliseto theirown ends the
increasinglyactive sexual emotions,so thatreproductionis checked and the balance
to some extent restored" The pelvic superiorityof women, necessitatedby an evo-
lutionaryimperative(betterbabies withbiggerheads require broader pelves),implies
a corresponding danger-an engorged and hypersensitivesexualitythat must be
actively"checked" by the "activityof the cerebral centres"so that "balance" may be
"to some extentrestored:"Hypnotismand anaesthesia threatenexactlythisdelicate
balance, and especiallyso in women because "the lower centresin women are more
rebelliousto controlthan thoseof men,and more readilybroughtintoaction."Anaes-
thesiology,it would seem, is not withoutits attendantdangers: "Thus chloroform,
ether,nitrousoxide, cocaine, and possiblyotheranaesthetics,possess the propertyof
excitingthe sexual emotions.Womenare especiallyliable to theseerotichallucinations
during anaesthesia, and it has sometimesbeen almost impossibleto convince them
thattheirsubjectivesensationshave had no objectivecause. Those who have to admin-
ister anaestheticsare well aware of the risks they may thus incur."Ellis's besieged
physician,like Stoker'smastermonsterand his monstermaster,stands here as a male
whose empowermentanxiouslyreflectsa prior endangerment.What if thiswoman's
lower centers should take the opportunity-to use another of Ellis's phrases-"of
indulgingin an orgy"?Dracula'skiss,Van Helsing'sneedle and stake,and Ellis's"higher
centres"all seek to modify,constrain,and controlthe articulationof femininedesire
(But, it mightbe counter-argued,Dracula comes preciselyto excitesuch an orgy,not
to constrainone. Yes, but withan importantqualification:Dracula's kiss,because it
authorizesonly repetitionsof itself,clearlyarticulatesthe destinyof femininedesire;
Lucy will only do what Dracula has done before.) Havelock Ellis, Man and Woman
(New York, 1904), pp. 299, 73, 316, and 313 respectively.I have used the fourth
edition; the firstedition appeared in England in 1895.
42. Sigmund Freud, TheEgo and theId (New York, 1960), pp. 44-45.
43. Leo Bersani, Baudelaireand Freud(Berkeley,1977), p. 92.