There's More to that Mouth By: Isabella Hess

There's More to that Mouth

By Isabella Hess

Bram Stoker’s Dracula features different portrayals of men and woman from the idea of the new woman that can be seen in Lucy’s sexual awakening, to a more traditional idea of masculinity with the group of men constantly feeling the need to protect the women around them and shelter them from the dangers of the world.  Like Lucy, the three female vampires that live within the walls of Dracula’s castle also represent an expression of sexuality in women, but because they are vampires they are seen as evil temptresses, luring Johnathan in. He describes his feelings as “uneasy, some longing and at the same time some deadly fear” (42). I think the fear he has is due to their sexual advancement of him, when normally the man should be the one making the move and women should be the one in waiting. Another importance given to these women has to do with their teeth and their mouths. Stoker places a fixation on the physical appearance of the vampires “voluptuous lips” and their teeth that “shone like pearls” as well as other aspects of their body because women’s bodies are more important than any substance they have at this point (42). When I first read this chapter, I didn’t think about the importance of the mouths of these vampires and how it could be read to mean something different, but the more we’ve talked about it the more I see it’s sexual implications. Stoker uses “scarlet”, “ruby”, “softness, as well as many others to describe the lips of these women, but if you read into it, lips could also be read as if he was talking about a vagina. In contrast, words like “hard” and “sharp” are used to describe the teeth of the women which are used to penetrate the skin of individuals, this similarly could be read as phallic and the teeth being representative of a penis (42-43). Being opened to this different interpretation, I remembered our talk about Oscar Wilde and how he was put on trial for being gay and in engaging in romantic and sexual relationships with men. This made me wonder about how the portrayal of the female vampire’s penetrative teeth played into that and if maybe they were desired and feared because they represented, at least with Johnathan, this homosexual attraction, but also this knowledge that it could lead to problems because it wasn’t behavior that was praised within the society. Dracula’s vampire brides can be categorized as new women able to express their sexuality, but I argue that they can also represent the fear that surrounded the idea of homosexuality around that time. Dracula has a particular interest in the different ways the women expressing their sexuality are seen, especially when looking at how human women are looked at and how vampire women are seen. The vampire brides are alluring, but feared, and the human females are sick and in need of change. A major difference that can be seen between the two portrayals of the women in the novel ultimately comes down to their mouths, and the representations that go with them. 

Reference

Stoker, B. (2012). Dracula. New York, NY: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc