Andrew: Well, we’re in the home stretch, and I have a confession to make.

I hate Dracula.

Oh, the book has its moments, chapters and scenes that that entertain by virtue of being eerily fascinating: Jonathan Harker’s ordeal in Dracula’s castle, the logbook of the Demeter, and the confrontation with vampire Lucy outside her grave. But for the most part, I’ve come to think of Bram Stoker’s novel as a small handful of interesting scenes linked by pages upon pages of filler.

There’s a point in chapter 17 where Mina Harker tells Van Helsing that her journal contains “everything, however trivial,” and asks him if it must really become part of the official record of their exploits. I know exactly how she feels. There’s a compelling story here, but it’s packaged with so much dull minutia that it’s sometimes hard to get past Jonathan Seward’s multiple updates on Renfield’s shifting mental condition, Mina’s opinions on the strength and goodness of men, Van Helsing’s interminable speeches, and everyone’s constant proclamations of admiration and love and dedication to one another. Most absurd of all, for me, are the descriptions of characters reading each other’s journals—journals we, the readers, are already amply familiar with—the reading of which must then be recorded in the official record which must later be read and OH MY GOD JUST KILL THE FUCKING VAMPIRE ALREADY.

So, I’m not much enjoying the novel at the moment. Meanwhile, when it comes to the interpretations and meanings that the text generates, all I can see when I look at Dracula are the ickiest, most objectionable aspects of Victorian society: racism, sexism, and hypocritical moral panic about sexuality.

Let’s take the racism first. In the very beginning of the book, Jonathan Harker says that he has the impression “that we were leaving the West and entering the East” when he crossed the Danube—an impression that’s geographically suspect, but whatever, let’s go with it. Harker’s impression immediately put me in mind of Edward Said’s analysis of Orientalism, an imperialist ideology that perceives “the East” as a wild, enchanting, backward, and dangerous place. It’s basically the colonial oppressor’s imaginative image of the oppressed.

So, what does Harker find in the East? A monstrous, foreign Other, of course! Dracula’s foreignness is presented as a kind of disease; in a bizarre and fascinating monologue in chapter 3, the count describes his heritage as coming from “the whirlpool of European races,” the blood of many tribes, warlords, and even rumored devils and witches flowing in Dracula’s veins. Diseased blood that, by virtue of Dracula’s emigration to England, now threatens to poison Harker’s home country.

And what does the foreign Other do once he gets to England? What foreigners always do—he goes after “our” women. Stoker takes great pains to establish Lucy and Mina as virtuous English women, pure and modest and eminently fit for a good middle-class marriage. Here the racist fear of foreign “disease” blends with misogyny as Dracula’s prolonged victimization of Lucy inexorably turns her into the stereotypical Victorian “ruined woman,” diseased in her own right by her symbolically sexual contact with the foreign monster.

Van Helsing and Dr. Seward attempt to save Lucy, it’s true—but I can’t help but view their attempts as something more sinister. Van Helsing’s efforts are completely useless in helping Lucy. What they do accomplish, however, is allowing Dr. Seward to control and police the body of a woman who had previously rejected him, and symbolically have sex with her through a blood transfusion. (Van Helsing later jokes that the multiple transfusions from different donors makes Lucy a “polyandrist,” making the procedure explicitly sexual.) And finally, the icing on this misogynist cake, once Lucy becomes undead, completely taken over by Dracula’s foreign and sexual disease, Van Helsing insists it be Arthur who drives the stake—a man violently punishing the “ruined woman” he was to marry for the sin of being victimized! On the surface, it’s all very prim and proper and shrouded in the highest Victorian scruples. But underneath, what’s going on is disgusting.

And now, worst of all, the men are making the same sexist mistakes with Mina: treating her like a child, sending her to bed early so that they can talk about man things, basically colluding with Dracula! It all just makes me crazy.

Catherine, Chris—am I wrong here? Tell me why Dracula is more than a couple of good scenes linked by pages upon pages of dull minutia. Show me that there’s more in this text aside from these ugly attitudes about foreigners, and women, and sex.

Or, if you prefer, just tell me off like Renfield cursing Van Helsing: “Damn all thick-headed Dutchmen!”

Catherine: You raise some great points, Andrew, and I’m mostly in agreement but my conclusions are a bit different so let’s dive right in.

You summed up Dracula and the Victorians perfectly when you said, “On the surface, it’s all very prim and proper and shrouded in the highest Victorian scruples. But underneath, what’s going on is disgusting.” This is a huge problem with Victorian society and culture and this novel. Victorians were a group that strongly upheld “family values” but then went on to employ a staggering high amount of prostitutes nationwide. It’s a prim, proper, and Christian group that threw the disabled and insane into, what were for all intents and purposes, dungeons. And it’s a group that treated white men as the highest achievement of God and everyone else as imbeciles and idiots.

In this way, Dracula is the perfect horror story from this generation. Not only is it prim and proper and painfully boring to read at times but it’s vile underneath the white mask of God and Duty the heroes hide behind. And isn’t that the ultimate horror of this book? It calls the battle against Dracula as a battle against good and evil but a powerful evil resides within the hearts of those that fight against him. Theirs is a terrible transgression because they parade their racism, misogyny, and xenophobia under the white banners of God’s love, duty, and protecting women. Dracula is blatantly evil. He is what he is. Dracula is doing what organisms do- grow, be strong, and create others like him. He’s not strutting around his living room, pronouncing his blood sucking good and right. The heroes justify their offenses (sexism towards Mina, racism towards Eastern Europeans, etc.) and pronounce it good.

But anyway, hypocrisy is what the Victorians excelled at and what I find so compelling about Dracula. Because let’s face it, we’re not so far from this. We constantly see racism, sexism, xenophobia, and religious extremism paraded as family values or God’s will or whatever other justification you would like to fill in here. Horrific and prejudiced behavior is causally justified on a constant basis. It is in the air we breath and the water we drink and we have to work damn hard to overcome this.

When I look at Van Helsing and the gang, they’re pretty laughable and frustrating but in all their silly behavior, they come across complex and human to me. They’re trying to fight evil and their own issues are screwing everything up and that seems about right.

But there is the problem of Stoker’s obsession with non-essential details (Victorian editors were No Help here) whichs bogs down the narrative and it’s surprising this novel is as popular as it is. But I think it’s this idea in Dracula- the majorly flawed fighting the slightly more majorly flawed that makes this an extremely compelling read, particularly for the modern reader.

One of my favorite scenes in this section is the stand off with undead Lucy in the cemetery. We finally get a good image of what she now looks like. I read this scene a few times and marveled how it play out like a movie in my mind. Everything is there- the drama, the horror, the descriptions and the imagery. First she’s growling over her child prey, then she’s cast it aside and sensuously claiming Arthur for her own. And at last, when she’s refused, she turns into a demon and particle-izes into her tomb.

I equally liked and disliked that Arthur staked Lucy. Poetically, it rings right- he has to lay her to rest. More than anyone else, she must truly die to him. But on another level, it’s annoying. Does he really need to suffer through this? Does he really need to prove his manhood? And by the way, every young man in this book is described as full of “manhood” by his friends or by the women except one young man and that’s Jonathan. It’s like hanging out with Dracula and the brides demasculinized him in the eyes of his friends and family.

Andrew, you brought up the book’s patronizing tone towards the East (aka Orientalism). I do agree there’s an “oh aren’t you so cute” regard to the East but mingled up with that is some respect. This happens a few times. The first time is when Jonathan is on his long tortured route to Castle Dracula. He runs into a female peasant and she’s worried about where Jon’s off to and she warns him not to go but also blesses him after he refuses her advice and gives him a rosary too. If he had listened to this peasant, and all the local inhabitants actually, he would have not gotten in this huge mess. They knew what they were talking about and he brushed them off as superstitious.

And then as regards to Dracula’s lineage and history, I saw Van Helsing regarding Dracula as a hero in fighting back the Turks during his day. He recounts the original Count Dracula as a man who was a true wonder in any age in regards to intellect and (ruthless) will. And it’s that intellect and will perverted that makes Dracula such a terrifying vampire. So while I agree that Orientalism is there, there’s also a curious respect running in tandem- though that partial respect may be part of imperialism’s patronizing enchantment with the East.

How Mina is deliberately put aside and left out of the fight against Dracula is one of the most upsetting parts of the book. There’s no excuse for the men’s behavior. And not only do they pay for their mistake but Mina pays for it most of all. That was the hardest part for me- how she suffers and how she sees herself as an outcast after Dracula uses her. “Unclean!” she cries. It’s horrific and unforgivable. But it also makes for an excellent plot point and pushes everyone along at a quicker pace.

Right now, I’m loving Dracula but it does have its downsides. It’s a perfect product of its time which is both wonderful and ire inducing. So what do you make of all of this, Chris?

Chris: “On the surface, it’s all very prim and proper and shrouded in the highest Victorian scruples. But underneath, what’s going on is disgusting.” Andrew said this and Catherine you hit on it too. I think it’s a key piece in this conversation.

Though this feels like an accurate description, I don’t agree with that sentiment at all. Because Dracula is not all prim and proper on the surface. The surface level action of this novel is very disgusting. Stoker describes it in the language of the Victorian Novel, but unlike many of his Victorian predecessors, he does not leave the less savory stuff for the subtext. It’s in the text. The scene Catherine describes at the tomb with Lucy, who is about to kill a child and drink its blood before she tries to seduce her attackers before she is staked through the heart by her weeping husband is not underneath anything. That shit is harsh.

I think on this I agree with Catherine. You’re probably not wrong, Andrew, but what you’re saying is one of the levels the book is working with, and it’s one I tend to appreciate rather than find annoying (or worse). Yes, there’s a level on which the text is doing boring, obvious and dated things. It’s just not the only one.

The xenophobia and fear of the other, for example, seems more complicated than you’re allowing. I don’t disagree with your assessment of Stoker’s treatment of east/west Andrew, and reading the novel, I don’t think Stoker would either. Doesn’t it seem the Irish Stoker would be well aware of the the English tendency to treat non-English as “others” that are not really considered equals? Maybe that’s optimistic. But the surface level interactions and treamtent of the Romanian Dracula and the the Dutch Van Helsing and the English Harker and the Texan Morris must be something Stoker recognize; the Irish Stoker has got a more complicated mixture of nationalism and fear of foreigners than he’s letting on in the Eastern Monster Invades Western Power, Attacks Women headline.

Or, if that is the headline, it’s not the actual story. The actual story seems to be that Dracula, like Catherine says, is a noble man who lost his soul and does what a soulless monster does. I have never found the Count to be a particularly evil character. Everyone keeps saying it, but everyone also says that every person they’ve ever met besides Dracula is perfectly perfect and good and lovely and sweet and intelligent and just oh so lovely. And no one is right about anyone in those descriptions-they’re all bumblers and bravado and know-it-alls. Why would they be right about the D?

All this said, however, I do think this section of the book is the overall weakest. The thematic richness seems to be draining away as the action picks up. Give me the tedium of the details. The whole fantasy of Dracula slows to a halt when Van Helsing organizes the team for the hunt of Dracula. Everything before that, from the opening pages to the scene in Lucy’s tomb just held me in wonder. Then it all just slows down so much.

One of the pleasures of Dracula as a reader is working through the the passage of information from one person to another. The way Stoker creates gaps in time and stories, and in doing so withholds and reveals information, is in large part responsible for the creepiness and suspense. Now that everyone in the story is together and working towards the same goals at the same time, I’ve been left largely in the cold. (Lucy’s tomb scene notwithstanding).

Andrew, you’re absolutely right about the collection of the diaries and letters. Holy moley is that boring. We don’t need to read about Mina writing in her diary about listening to Dr. Seward’s diary.

Catherine, you’re absolutely right about the treatment of Mina. Not only is it obnoxious and disheartening, but it’s BORING. Don’t lock your most interesting character in a room separate from the action, ya dummies.

Anyway. Next week we’ll have finished the book and Andrew, we’ll see if you’re right in your Stoker assessment. Until then, keep reading, and sleep tight.

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