Dracula
Dracula: Competition and the Social Adulterer;
Good vs. Evil
Throughout Stoker’s Dracula, a central theme is evident, Competition. The term competition refers to a test of skill or ability. Most of the competitions in Dracula are those between Dracula and the “good” men. Stoker’s novel can be seen as a similar version of the “Primal Horde” theory in which Freud created. A primal horde is a group of people arranged around a single dominant male, who has total authority over the group and holds claim over the females. Though this theory is also connected with incest, I would like to re think the sexual competition that takes place in this novel in terms of interracial competition. Though Dracula has his own women, he is interested in the women who belong to someone else. Dracula strives to be the single dominant male, by hoarding women around him and claiming them as his own. In this sense, Dracula can be seen as “the ultimate adulterer, whose purpose is nothing if it is not to turn good Englishwomen like Lucy and Mina away from their own kind and customs.” (Stevenson) Stoker does an amazing job of illustrating vampire sexuality as a “doubled phenomenon”. (Stevenson) In this essay I will look at the dual interpretations between “feeding” and “sex” and how they intertwine.
Stoker’s ability to illustrate the unfamiliar roles in which many in this novel take on proves to be helpful in understanding the relations between all the characters in the novel. In this essay I would like to argue that throughout Stoker’s novel there is a constant competition between good and evil. I believe Stoker set up Dracula like a competition between the band of men and Dracula. Who wins?
When Dracula is described throughout the novel he is always seen as a foreign being, strange to the eye.
“I knew him at once from the description of the others. The waxen face; the high aquiline nose, on which the light fell in a thin, white line; the parted red lips, with the sharp white
Good vs. Evil
Throughout Stoker’s Dracula, a central theme is evident, Competition. The term competition refers to a test of skill or ability. Most of the competitions in Dracula are those between Dracula and the “good” men. Stoker’s novel can be seen as a similar version of the “Primal Horde” theory in which Freud created. A primal horde is a group of people arranged around a single dominant male, who has total authority over the group and holds claim over the females. Though this theory is also connected with incest, I would like to re think the sexual competition that takes place in this novel in terms of interracial competition. Though Dracula has his own women, he is interested in the women who belong to someone else. Dracula strives to be the single dominant male, by hoarding women around him and claiming them as his own. In this sense, Dracula can be seen as “the ultimate adulterer, whose purpose is nothing if it is not to turn good Englishwomen like Lucy and Mina away from their own kind and customs.” (Stevenson) Stoker does an amazing job of illustrating vampire sexuality as a “doubled phenomenon”. (Stevenson) In this essay I will look at the dual interpretations between “feeding” and “sex” and how they intertwine.
Stoker’s ability to illustrate the unfamiliar roles in which many in this novel take on proves to be helpful in understanding the relations between all the characters in the novel. In this essay I would like to argue that throughout Stoker’s novel there is a constant competition between good and evil. I believe Stoker set up Dracula like a competition between the band of men and Dracula. Who wins?
When Dracula is described throughout the novel he is always seen as a foreign being, strange to the eye.
“I knew him at once from the description of the others. The waxen face; the high aquiline nose, on which the light fell in a thin, white line; the parted red lips, with the sharp white
Bibliography: Web. 16 May 2012.