Dracula: Is He Bisexual? By: Imran Blackall

          In Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the antagonist, Dracula, portrayed a demon that stole the blood of the innocent by biting necks to maintain his immortality. Though he sought out females such as Lucy and Wilhelmina, evidence showed his acceptance of males such as Jonathan, Arthur, Quincey, and Dr. Seward. For example, when Jonathan Harker encountered the three female vampires in Count Dracula’s castle, Dracula emerged, ridiculed the women for their actions, and said, “How dare you touch him…This man belongs to me!” (40). That comment in which Dracula claimed ownership of Jonathan could be interpreted in multiple ways. Personally, I believe it was a hint towards Dracula’s open sexuality towards men. By stating that Jonathan was “his”, it showed Dracula’s affection and acceptance towards the male gender. Later, the female vampires accused Dracula of never loving in which Dracula responded: “I too can love…when I am done with him you shall kiss him at your will” (40) This implies further affection towards men specifically towards Jonathan. When Dracula stated that the female vampires can have Jonathan after he has fulfilled his needs with Jonathan, it implied that Dracula planned on sucking his blood. This blood-sucking was a sexual innuendo of the male-to-male sexual interaction. Further evidence showed Dracula’s bisexuality with the incident with Lucy. After showing a severe white complexion with symptoms of weakness and lethargy, Lucy underwent numerous blood transfusions from the blood of several men to regain her strength. One specific example was when Dr. Van Helsing spoke with Dr. Seward: “We must begin again. There is no young Arthur here now. I have to call on you yourself this time, friend John” (140). This indicated that Lucy had a previous blood transfusion from Arthur, her fiancé. Because another transfusion was performed on Lucy using Dr. Seward’s blood, it can be deduced that Dracula sucked the blood from Lucy previously; additional transfusions later occurred even with Dr. Van Helsing’s blood. These numerous transfusions implied that Dracula was fond with both Lucy’s blood and the blood of men. Continuously seeping the men’s blood from Lucy was a form of acceptance of his sexuality towards men. If Dracula was homophobic, he would have immediately stopped sucking the blood from Lucy after her first transfusion with Arthur’s blood. On the contrary, he continued his escapade until Lucy passed. Another clue towards Dracula’s bisexuality was during the men’s encounter with Dracula at his home in Carfax. The men waited for Dracula to return to his home and attacked him. The plan failed, and before escaping Dracula stated, “Your girls that you all love are mine already. And through them you and others shall yet be mine” (325). Dracula claimed ownership of both females and males; it was a form of dominance towards them. At this point Lucy died, and Mina has drunk his blood to show his ownership of her. He further comments that the men will be his property through the females. Because Dracula has sucked the men’s blood through Lucy, he already dominated over the men showing his tolerance to the male gender. Overall, I think Dracula was a bisexual monster who fed on both genders to show his openness in his sexuality.

Reference

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

Mina vs Lucy - Angel of the House vs the New Woman

Throughout the novel Dracula women, more specifically Lucy and Mina, are portrayed in contrasting ways in order to represent two extremes in regards to Victorian Women: the “Angel in the House” and the “New Woman”.

Angel in the House	The New Woman
Women are expected to join in a monogamous relationship and have children. Mina demonstrates this ideal by marrying Jonathan Harker and later having his child. As mentioned in the last chapter, “It is an added joy to Mina and to me that our boy’s birthday is the same day as that on which Quincey Morris died,” (326). Mina fulfils her role as a woman not only by having a mutually exclusive relationship with him through marriage, but also by bearing him a child, a son no less.	Lucy never formally gets married before she dies and has trouble choosing a man to marry. She writes to Mina telling her of her three proposals (57) and whines, asking, “why can’t they let a girl marry three men or as many as want her and save all this trouble,” (60). Lucy mentions little about any plans to have children and the only interaction with children that she has in the novel is when she becomes a vampire and feeds off children. As the novel states, “During the past two or three days several cases have occurred of young children straying from home or neglecting to return from their playing on the Heath. In all these cases the children were too young to give any properly intelligible account of themselves, but the consensus of their excuses is that they had been with a ‘bloofer lady’, (159). Instead of having children of her own Lucy begins to prey on children, draining the life of them instead of bringing life to them. In both ways Lucy represents a direct contrast to Mina as not only does she not want to settle down with just one man and have his children, but she wants to marry more than one man and shows no apparent interest in having children. In fact, she hurts children instead of having them.
The Angel of the House of the ideal woman also spends her time exclusively in the domestic sphere. Once she is married Mina is almost always at Jonathan’s side, bound to follow him except when he and the other men go, in which case she is left alone. The one time Mina leaves the home is when she is chasing after Lucy, which she wants to keep quiet, because she writes, “not a soul did I see; I rejoiced that it was so, for I wanted no witness of Lucy’s condition” (88). This could refer to Lucy sleepwalking, or the fact that she is walking around at night in just a nightgown and without any shoes. The shock is not only that Lucy is barely dressed and sleepwalking, but also that she is out of the house and barefoot, likely to get herself into trouble. Mina does as she is supposed to and looks after her friend, only leaving the house in an extreme case, and all the while worried about the virtue and safety of her female friend Lucy.	Lucy is a lot more likely to leave the house than Mina and does so on her own quite often, even if she is sleepwalking. As mentioned in the column to the left, one night Lucy, sleepwalking, leaves the house, the domestic sphere. Although Lucy is unable to control her trips outside, she still leaves the home and in conditions that would have been shocking to any passerby and no doubt shameful, hence why Mina worries that someone will see her friend in such a state.

- Courtney Sellars