M3DICINE SHOW CIN3MA

Pg. 203: “We have just received intelligence that another child, missed last night, was only discovered late in the morning under a furze bush at the Shooter’s Hill side of Hampstead Heath, which is, perhaps, less frequented than the other parts. It has the same tiny wound in the throat as has been noticed in other cases. It was terribly weak, and looked quite emaciated. It too, when partially restored, had the common story to tell of being lured away by the “bloofer lady.”

In Stoker’s time, sexual behaviour was endorsed only as a means of procreation within the respectable institution of marriage (Colatrella 181). In rebelling against societal norms pertaining to sexuality, and in luring women away from their roles as wives and mothers, Dracula directly threatens families and even attempts to take control over civilized society by overcoming traditional procreation and populating the world with duplicates of himself through vampiric replication (Colatrella 187). Lucy and Mina have value in their abilities to birth and rear children; however, Dracula threatens these abilities in a frightening way. While Mina’s desire to be a good wife makes explicit her need to become the mother of Jonathan’s future children rather than a wife of Dracula’s, Lucy’s sexual desires make her Dracula’s willing victim and prevent her from being saved (Colatrella 180). In becoming a vampire, Lucy sheds her potential to be a nurturing mother and instead becomes a savage, devouring mother who drinks the blood of innocent children.

At the beginning of the novel, Jonathan Harker becomes traumatized after nearly being ravaged by Dracula’s brides and then witnessing Dracula delivering to the female vampires a “half-smothered child” (Stoker 51) in a bag. A link between female sexuality and cruelty to children becomes promptly established, showing that women who refuse to repress their sexuality are unable to nurture children, but will prey on them instead (Senf 65). Upon becoming a voluptuous vampire, Lucy’s choice of prey is also young children. While Mina’s commitment to traditional marriage, motherhood, and sexual repression makes her fit to be a mother, Lucy’s desires and inevitable vampirism turn her into a devouring mother who lures children to her only to nourish herself. A nurturing mother who contributes to the progress of civilized society puts her family and her children before herself, giving them all that they require to succeed in life. Here, this relationship is completely reversed, revealing the danger of mothers who dare to put their own needs before those of their children. Lucy literally drinks the blood of little children in order to sustain herself and handles them roughly and inhumanely. All of her gentleness, sweetness, and nurturing behaviour disappears upon her transformation into a sexually aggressive vampire.

Upon witnessing Lucy as voluptuous, uncivilized, and devouring rather than passive and submissive to male authority, those who previously wanted to marry her quickly decide to destroy her instead (Senf 68). Lucy’s frightening self-assertion and rejection of traditional social roles is fought off through her violent and sexualized destruction. Dijkstra argues that Lucy’s exorcism resembles a rape scene in which masculine self-assertion triumphs over the lusts of the victim. Lucy is given new status as a proper woman because she finally becomes dead to her senses (Dijkstra 120). She is castrated and made non-threatening, thus restoring order to civilized society. While Dracula poses the initial threat to women and family, the real monstrosity lies not in him but in the vampiric women who abandon the discipline of society and their roles as wives and mothers in order to pursue their own desires and to tempt men to their downfall.