"Kiss Me With Those Red Lips": Gender and Inversion in Bram Stoker's Dracula

CHRISTOPHER CRAFT
"Kiss Me withThose Red Lips": Gender

and Inversion in Bram Stoker'sDracula
WHEN JOSEPH SHERIDAN LE FANU observed in Carmilla(1872)

that"thevampireis prone to be fascinatedwithan engrossingvehemenceresem-
blingthe passion of love" and thatvampiricpleasure is heightened"bythe grad-
ual approaches of an artfulcourtship,"he identifiedclearlythe analogybetween
monstrosityand sexual desire that would prove, under a subsequent Freudian
stimulus,paradigmaticforfuturereadingsof vampirism. 1 Modern criticalaccounts
of Dracula, forinstance,almostuniversallyagree thatvampirismboth expresses
and distortsan originallysexual energy.That distortion,the representationof
desire under the defensive mask of monstrosity, betraysthe fundamentalpsy-
chological ambivalence identifiedby Franco Morettiwhen he writesthat "vam-
pirismis an excellentexample of theidentityof desireand fear."2This interfusion
of sexual desire and the fear thatthe momentof eroticfulfillment mayoccasion
the erasure of the conventionaland integralselfinformsboth the centralaction
in Dracula and the surcharged emotion of the charactersabout to be kissed by
"those red lips."3 So powerful an ambivalence, generatingboth errant erotic
impulses and compensatoryanxieties,demands a strict,indeed an almost sche-
maticformalmanagementof narrativematerial.In Dracula Stokerborrowsfrom
Mary Shelley'sFrankenstein and Robert Louis Stevenson'sDr Jekylland Mr Hyde
a narrativestrategycharacterizedby a predictable,if variable, triple rhythm.
Each of these textsfirstinvitesor admitsa monster,thenentertainsand is enter-
tained by monstrosityfor some extended duration,until in its closing pages it
expels or repudiates the monsterand all the disruptionthathe/she/it brings.4
Obviously enough, the firstelement in this triplerhythmcorresponds for-
mallyto the text'sbeginningor generativemoment,to its need to produce the
monster,while the thirdelement corresponds to the text'sterminalmoment,to
its need both to destroythe monsterit has previouslyadmittedand to end the
narrativethathouses the monster.Interposed betweentheseantitheticalgestures
of admissionand expulsion is the gothicnovel'sprolonged middle,5duringwhich
the textaffordsitsambivalencea degree of play intended to produce a pleasur-
able, indeed a thrillinganxiety.Within its extended middle, the gothic novel
entertainsits residentdemon-is, indeed, entertainedby it-and the monster,
REPRESENTATIONS 8 * Fall 1984 ? THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 107

now ascendent in its strength,seems for a time potent enough to invert the
"natural"order and overwhelmthe comfortingclosure of the text.That threat,
of course, is contained and finallynullifiedby the narrativerequirementthatthe
monsterbe repudiated and the world of normal relations restored; thus, the
gestureof expulsion,compensatingforthe originalirruptionof the monstrous,
brings the play of monstrosityto its predictable close. This narrativerhythm,
whose tripartitecycleof admission-entertainment-expulsion enacts sequentially
an essentiallysimultaneouspsychologicalequivocation,provides aestheticman-
agement of the fundamental ambivalence that motivatesthese texts and our
reading of them.
While such isomorphismof narrativemethodobviouslyimpliesaffinities and
similaritiesamong these differenttexts,it does not argue identityof meaning.
HoweversimilarFrankenstein, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde,and Dracula maybe, differ-
ences neverthelessobtain, and these differencesbear the impressof authorial,
historical,and institutionalpressures.This essay thereforeoffersnot a reading
of monstrosityin general, but rather an account of Bram Stoker's particular
articulationof the vampire metaphor in Dracula, a book whose fundamental
anxiety,an equivocationabout the relationshipbetweendesireand gender,repeats,
witha monstrousdifference,a pivotalanxietyof late Victorianculture.Jonathan
Harker,whose diaryopens the novel,providesDracula's mostprecisearticulation
of this anxiety.About to be kissed by the "weird sisters"(64), the incestuous
vampiricdaughterswho share Castle Dracula withthe Count, a supine Harker
thrillsto a double passion:
All threehad brilliant
whiteteeth,thatshonelikepearlsagainsttherubyof theirvolup-
tuouslips.Therewassomething aboutthemthatmademe uneasy,somelonging andat the
sametime somedeadlyfear;I feltin myhearta wicked,burningdesirethattheywouldkiss
me withthoseredlips.(51; emphasisadded)
Immobilizedby the competingimperativesof "wickeddesire" and "deadly fear,"

Harker awaitsan eroticfulfillment thatentailsboth the dissolutionof the bound-
aries of the self and the thoroughsubversionof conventionalVictoriangender
codes, which constrainedthe mobilityof sexual desire and varietiesof genital
behavior by according to the more active male the rightand responsibilityof
vigorousappetite,whilerequiringthe more passivefemaleto "sufferand be still."
John Ruskin,conciselyformulatingVictorianconventionsof sexual difference,
providesus witha usefulsynopsis:"The man'spoweris active,progressive,defen-
sive. He is eminentlythe doer, the creator,the discoverer,the defender. His
intellectis forspeculationand invention;his energyforadventure,forwar,and
for conquest...." Woman, predictablyenough, bears a differentburden: "She
mustbe enduringly,incorruptibly, good; instinctively,infalliblywise-wise, not
forself-development, but forself-renunciation. .. wise,not withthe narrowness
108 REPRESENTATIONS
of insolentand loveless pride, but withthe passionate gentlenessof an infinitely
variable,because infinitely applicable, modestyof service-the true changeful-
ness of woman."6 Stoker, whose vampiricwomen exercise a far more dangerous
"changefulness"than Ruskin imagines,anxiouslyinvertsthisconventionalpat-
tern,as virileJonathanHarker enjoysa "feminine"passivityand awaitsa delicious
penetrationfroma woman whose demonismis figuredas the powerto penetrate.
A swooningdesire foran overwhelmingpenetrationand an intenseaversionto
the demonic potencyempoweredto gratifythatdesire compose the fundamental
motivatingaction and emotion in Dracula.
This ambivalence,alwaysexcitedbythe imminenceof thevampirickiss,finds
itsmostsensationalrepresentationin the image of the Vampire Mouth, the cen-
tral and recurringimage of the novel: "There was a deliberatevoluptuousness
which was both thrillingand repulsive ... I could see in the moonlightthe
moistureshiningon the red tongue as itlapped the whitesharp teeth"(52). That
is Harker describingone of the threevampirewomen at Castle Dracula. Here is
Dr. Seward'sdescriptionof the Count: "His eyesflamedred withdevilishpassion;
the great nostrilsof the white aquiline nose opened wide and quivered at the
edges; and the white sharp teeth, behind the full lips of the blood-dripping
mouth,champed togetherlike those of a wild beast" (336). As the primarysite
of eroticexperience in Dracula,thismouth equivocates,givingthe lie to the easy
separation of the masculine and the feminine.Luring at firstwith an inviting
orifice,a promise of red softness,but deliveringinstead a piercing bone, the
vampiremouth fusesand confuseswhatDracula's civilizednemesis,Van Helsing
and his Crew of Light,7worksso hard to separate -the gender-based categories
of the penetratingand the receptive,or,to use Van Helsing'slanguage, the com-
plementarycategories of "brave men" and "good women." With its soft flesh
barred by hard bone, itsred crossed bywhite,thismouthcompels opposites and
contrastsinto a frighteningunity,and it asks some disturbingquestions.Are we
male or are we female? Do we have penetratorsor orifices?And if both, what
does thatmean? And what about our bodilyfluids,the red and the white?What
are the relationsbetweenblood and semen, milkand blood? Furthermore,this
mouth,bespeaking the subversionof the stable and lucid distinctionsof gender,
is the mouth of all vampires,male and female.
Yetwe mustrememberthatthe vampiremouthis firstof all Dracula's mouth,
and that all subsequent versions of it (in Dracula all vampires other than the
Count are female)8merelyrepeat as diminishedsimulacrathedesire of theGreat
Original, that "fatheror furthererof a new order of beings" (360). Dracula
himself,calling his children"myjackals to do mybidding when I want to feed,"
identifiesthe systematiccreation of female surrogates who enact his will and
desire (365). This should remind us that the novel's opening anxiety,its first
articulationof the vampiricthreat,derives fromDracula's hoveringinterestin
"Kiss Me withThose Red Lips" 109

Jonathan Harker; the sexual threat that this novel firstevokes, manipulates,
sustains,but never finallyrepresentsis thatDracula willseduce, penetrate,drain
another male. The suspense and power of Dracula's opening section, of that
phase of the narrativewhich we have called the invitationto monstrosity, pro-
ceeds preciselyfromthisunfulfilledsexual ambition.Dracula's desire to fusewith
a male, most explicitlyevoked when Harker cuts himselfshaving,subtlyand
dangerouslysuffusesthistext.Alwayspostponed and neverdirectlyenacted,this
desirefindsevasivefulfillmentin an importantseriesofheterosexualdisplacements.
Dracula's ungratifieddesire to vamp Harker is fulfilledinstead by his three
vampiricdaughters,whose anatomical femininity permits,because it masks,the
silentlyinterdictedhomoeroticembrace between Harker and the Count. Here,
in a displacementtypicalboth of thistextand the gender-anxiousculturefrom
whichitarose, an implicitlyhomoeroticdesire achieves representationas a mon-
strousheterosexuality,as a demonic inversionof normal gender relations.Dra-
cula's daughtersofferHarker a feminineformbut a masculine penetration:
Lowerand lowerwentherhead as thelipswentbelowtherangeof mymouthand chin

and seemedto fastenon mythroat.... I could feelthesoft,shivering
touchof thelips
on thesupersensitiveskinof mythroat,and theharddentsof thetwosharpteeth,just
touchingand pausingthere.I closedmyeyesin a langorousecstasyand waited-waited
witha beatingheart.(52)
This moment,constitutingthe text'smostdirectand explicitrepresentationof a

male'sdesire to be penetrated,is governed bya double deflection:first,the agent
of penetrationis nominallyand anatomically(from the mouth down, anyway)
female; and second, thisdangerous moment,fusingthe maximumof desire and
the maximum of anxiety,is poised preciselyat the brink of penetration.Here
the "two sharp teeth,"just "touching" and "pausing" there, stop short of the
transgressionwhichwould unsex Harker and towardwhich thistextconstantly
aspires and then retreats:the actual penetrationof the male.
This momentis interrupted,thispenetrationdenied. Harker's pause at the
end of the paragraph ("waited-waited witha beating heart"), which seems to
anticipatean imminentpiercing,in factanticipatesnot the completionbut the
interruptionof the scene of penetration.Dracula himselfbreaks into the room,
drives the women away from Harker, and admonishes them: "How dare you
touch him,any of you? How dare you cast eyes on him when I had forbiddenit?
Back, I tellyou all! This man belongs to me" (53). Dracula's intercessionhere has
two obvious effects:by interruptingthe scene of penetration,it suspends and
disperses throughoutthe textthe desire maximizedat the brinkof penetration,
and it repeats the threatof a more direct libidinous embrace between Dracula
and Harker.Dracula's taunt,"This man belongs to me,"is suggestiveenough, but
at no point subsequent to this moment does Dracula kiss Harker, preferring
110 REPRESENTATIONS
instead to pump him for his knowledge of English law,custom,and language.
Dracula, soon departing for England, leaves Harker to the weird sisters,whose
finalpenetrationof him,impliedbut neverrepresented,occurs in the dark inter-
space to which Harker'sjournal gives no access.
HereafterDracula will never representso directlya male's desire to be pen-
etrated; once in England Dracula, observinga decorous heterosexuality, vamps
only women, in particularLucy Westenraand Mina Harker. The novel, none-
theless,does not dismisshomoeroticdesire and threat;ratheritsimplycontinues
to diffuseand displaceit.Late in thetext,the Count himselfannouncesa deflected
homoeroticismwhen he admonishes the Crew of Light thus: "My revenge isjust
begun! I spread it over the centuries,and timeis on myside. Your girlsthatyou
all love are mine already; and throughthemyouand others shallyetbemine. . ." (365;
italicsadded). Here Dracula specifiesthe process of substitutionby which "the
girlsthat you all love" mediate and displace a more directcommunion among
males. Van Helsing, who provides for Lucy transfusionsdesigned to counteract
the dangerous influenceof the Count, confirmsDracula's declarationof surro-
gation; he knows that once the transfusionsbegin, Dracula drains fromLucy's
veins not her blood, but ratherblood transferredfromthe veins of the Crew of
Light: "even we four who gave our strengthto Lucy it also is all to him [sic]"
(244). Here, emphatically,is another instanceof the heterosexualdisplacement
of a desire mobile enough to elude the boundaries of gender.Everywherein this
textsuch desireseeksa strangelydeflectedheterosexualdistribution; onlythrough
women may men touch.
The representationof sexualityin Dracula,then,registersa powerfulambiv-
alence in its identificationof desire and fear. The text releases a sexualityso
mobile and polymorphicthatDracula maybe best representedas bat or wolfor
floatingdust; yet this effortto elude the restrictionsupon desire encoded in
traditionalconceptionsof gender then constrainsthatdesire througha seriesof
heterosexualdisplacements.Desire's excursivemobilityis alwaysfilteredin Dra-
cula throughthe mask of a monstrousor demonic heterosexuality.Indeed, Dra-
cula's missionin England is the creationof a race of monstrouswomen,feminine
demons equipped withmasculinedevices.This monstrousheterosexualityis apo-
tropaicfortworeasons: first,because itmasksand deflectstheanxietyconsequent
to a more direct representationof same sex eroticism;and second, because in
imagininga sexuallyaggressivewoman as a demonic penetrator,as a usurper of
a prerogativebelonging "naturally"to the other gender, itjustifies,as we shall
see later,a violentexpulsion of thisdeformed femininity.
In itsparticularformulationof eroticambivalence,in itscontraryneed both
to liberateand constraina desire indifferentto the prescriptionsof gender by
figuringsuch desire as monstrousheterosexuality, Dracula mayseem at firstidio-
syncratic,anomalous, merelyneurotic.This is not-thecase. Dracula presentsa

characteristic,if hyperbolic,instanceof Victoriananxietyover the potentialflu-
idityof gender roles,9and thistext'sdefensivenesstoward the mobile sexuality
it nonethelesswantsto evoke parallels remarkablyother late Victorianaccounts
of same sex eroticism,of desire in which the "sexual instincts"were said to be,
in the wordsofJohnAddingtonSymonds,"improperlycorrelatedto [the]sexual
organs."10During the last decades of the nineteenthcenturyand the firstof the
twentieth, Englishwritersproduced theirfirstsustaineddiscourseabout the var-
iabilityof sexual desire, with a special emphasis upon male homoerotic love,
whichhad already received indirectand evasive endorsementfromTennysonin
"In Memoriam" and from Whitman in the "Calamus" poems. The preferred
taxonomiclabel under whichthesewriterscategorizedand examined such sexual
desire was not,as we mightanticipate,"homosexuality"but rather"sexual inver-
terminvolvinga complexnegotiationbetweensociallyencoded
sion,"a classificatory
gender norms and a sexual mobilitythat would seem at firstunconstrainedby
those norms. Central polemical texts contributingto this discourse include
Symonds'sA Problemin GreekEthics(1883), and his A Problemin ModernEthics
(1891); Havelock Ellis's Sexual Inversion,originallywrittenin collaborationwith
Symonds,publishedand suppressed in England in 1897, and laterto be included
as volume 2 of Ellis's Studiesin thePsychology of Sex (1901); and Edward Car-
penter'sHomogenicLove (1894) and his The Intermediate Sex (1908). Admittedly
polemical and apologetic,these textsargued, withconsiderable circumspection,
for the cultural acceptance of desire and behavior hithertocategorized as sin,
explained under the imprecisereligiousterm"sodomy,"1" and repudiated as "the
crimeinterChristianos nonnominandum."'12 Such texts,urbanelyarguing an extre-
mistposition,representa culture'sfirstattemptto admitthe inadmissible,to give
the unnamable a local habitationand a name, and as Michel Foucalt has argued,
to put sex into discourse.'3
"Those who read these lines will hardlydoubt what passion it is that I am
hintingat,"wrote Symonds in the introductionto A Problemin ModernEthics,a
book whose subtitle-An InquiryintothePhenomenon ofSexualInversion,Addressed
EspeciallytoMedical Psychologists and Jurists-providesthe OED Supplement with
itsearliestcitation(1896) for"inversion"in the sexual sense. Symonds'scoy ges-
ture,his hinthalf-guessed,has the forceof a necessarycircumlocution.Symonds,
Ellis, and Carpenter struggledto devise, and then to revise,a descriptivelan-
guage untarnished by the anal implications,by suggestionsof that "circle of
extensivecorruption,14 that so terrifiedand fascinatedlate Victorianculture.
Symonds"can hardlyfinda name thatwillnot seem to soil" his text"because the
accomplished languages of Europe in the nineteenthcenturyprovide no term
for this persistantfeatureof human psychologywithoutimportingsome impli-
cation of disgust,disgrace, vituperation."This need to supple a new term, to
inventan adequate taxonomiclanguage, produced more obscuritythan clarity.
112 REPRESENTATIONS
A terminologicalmuddle ensued, the new names of theunnameable were legion:
"homosexuality," "sexual inversion,""intermediatesex," "homogenic love," and
"uranism"all coexistedand completed forterminologicalpriority.Until the sec-
ond or thirddecade of thiscentury,when the word "homosexuality," probably
because of its medical heritage,took the terminologicalcrown, "sexual inver-
sion"-as word, metaphor,taxonomic category-provided the basic tool with
which late Victorians investigated,and constituted,their problematic desire.
Symonds,more responsiblethanany otherwriterforthe establishmentof "inver-
sion" as VictorianEngland's preferredterm for same sex eroticism,considered
it a "convenientphrase" "whichdoes not prejudice the matterunder consider-
ation." Going further,he naivelyclaimed that "inversion"provided a "neutral
nomenclature"withwhich"the investigatorhas good reason to be satisfied.''l5
Symonds'sclaim of terminologicalneutralityignores the way in whichcon-
ventionalbeliefsand assumptionsabout gender inhabitboth thelabel "inversion"
and the metaphorbehind it.The exact historyof the word remainsobscure (the
OED Supplement defines sexual inversiontautologicallyas "the inversionof the
sex instincts"and provides two perfunctorycitations)but it seems to have been
employed firstin English in an anonymous medical review of 1871; Symonds
later adopted it to translatethe account of homoeroticdesire offeredby Karl
Ulrichs,an "inverted"Hanoverian legal officialwho wrotein the 1860s in Ger-
many "a series of polemical, analytical,theoretical,and apologetic pamphlets"
endorsingsame sex eroticism.16 As Ellis explains it,Ulrichs"regarded uranism,
or homosexual love, as a congenital abnormalityby which a female soul had
become united witha male body-anima muliebris in corporeviriliinclusa."'"7 The
explanationforthisimpropercorrelationof anatomyand desire is, accordingto
Symonds'ssynopsisof Ulrichs in ModernEthics,"to be found in physiology,in
that obscure department of natural science which deals with the evolution of
sex."18 Nature'sattemptto differentiate "the indeterminateground-stuff"of the
foetus-to produce, thatis, not merelythe "male and femaleorgans of procrea-
tion" but also the "corresponding male and female appetites"-falls short of
complete success: "Nature fails to complete her work regularlyand in every
instance. Having succeeded in differentiating a male with full-formedsexual
organs fromthe undecided foetus,she does not alwayseffectthe proper differ-
entiationof thatportionof the physicalbeing in whichresidesthesexual appetite.
There remains a female soul in a male body:"Since it holds nature responsible
for the "imperfectionin the process of development,"this explanation of ho-
moeroticdesire has obvious polemicalutility;in relievingthe individualof moral
responsibilityforhis or her anomalous development,itargues firstforthe decri-
minalizationand thenforthemedicalizationof inversion.Accordingto thisaccount,
same sex eroticism,although statistically deviant or abnormal, cannot then be
called unnatural. Inverts or urnings or homosexuals are therefore"abnormal,

but natural,beings";theyconstitutetheclassof "thenaturallyabnormal."Symonds,
writingto Carpenter,makeshis pointsuccinctly:"The firstthingis to forcepeople
to see thatthe passions in question have theirjustificationin nature."19
As an extended psychosexualanalogyto themore palpable realityof physical
hermaphroditism, Ulrichs'sexplanationof homoeroticdesireprovidedthe English
polemicistswith the basic components for their metaphor of inversion,which
neverrelinquishedtheidea of a misalignment betweeninsideand outside,between
desire and the body,betweenthe hidden truthof sex and the false sign of ana-
tomicalgender.("Inversion,"derivedfromthe Latin verbvertere, "to turn,"means
literallyto turnin, and the OED citesthe followingmeaning frompathology:"to
turn outside in or inside out.") This argument'sintrinsicdoubleness-its insist-
ence of the simultaneousinscriptionwithinthe individualof two genders, one
anatomicaland one not,one visibleand one not-represents an accommodation
betweencontraryimpulses of liberationand constraint,as conventionalgender
normsare subtilizedand manipulatedbut neverfullyescaped. What thisaccount
of same sex eroticismcannot imagine is thatsexual attractionbetweenmembers
of the same gender may be a reasonable and natural articulationof a desire
whose excursivenessis simplyindifferent to thedistinctionsof gender,thatdesire
may not be gendered intrinsically as the body is, and thatdesire seeks itsobjects
according to a complicatedset of conventionsthatare culturallyand institution-
ally determined.So radical a reconstitutionof notionsof desire would probably
havebeen intolerableeven to an advanced readingpublicbecause itwould threaten
the moral priorityof the heterosexualnorm,as the followingsentencefromEllis
suggests: "It must also be pointed out that the argument for acquired or sug-
gestedinversionlogicallyinvolvestheassertionthatnormalsexualityis also acquired
or suggested."20 Unable or unwillingto deconstruct theheterosexualnorm,English
accounts of sexual inversioninstead repeat it; desire remains,despite appear-
ances, essentiallyand irrevocablyheterosexual.A male'sdesire foranothermale,
for instance,is from the beginning assumed to be a femininedesire referable
not to the gender of the body (corpore virili)but ratherto anotherinvisiblesexual
selfcomposed of the opposite gender (animamuliebris). Desire, according to this
explanation,is alwaysalready constitutedunder the regimeof gender-to want
a male cannot not be a femininedesire, and vice versa-and the body,having
become an unreliablesignifier, ceases to representadequately the invisibletruth
of desire, whichitselfnever deviates fromrespectableheterosexuality. Thus the
confusionthatthreatensconventionaldefinitionsof gender when confrontedby
same sex eroticismbecomes merelyillusory.The body,quite simply,is mistaken.
Significantly,thisdisplaced repetitionof heterosexualgender normscontains
withinit the undeveloped germ of a radical redefinitionof Victorianconventions
of femininedesire. The interpositionof a femininesoul betweeneroticallyasso-
ciated males inevitablyentailsa certainfeminizationof desire,since the verysite
114 REPRESENTATIONS
and source of desire formales is assumed to be feminine(animamuliebris). Implicit
in thisargumentis the submergedacknowledgmentof the sexuallyindependent
woman,whose eroticempowermentrefutesthe conventionalassumptionof fem-
inine passivity.Nonetheless,thisnascentredefinition of notionsof femininedesire
remained largelyunfulfilled.Symonds and Ellis did not escape their culture's
phallocentrism,and theirtextspredictablyreflectthisbias. Symonds,whose sex-
ual and aestheticinterestspivoted around the "pure & noble facultyof under-
standing & expressingmanly perfection,"2'seems to have been largelyuncon-
cerned with femininesexuality;his seventy-pageA Problemin GreekEthics,for
instance,offersonlya two-page"parentheticalinvestigation"of lesbianism.Ellis,
like Freud, certainlyacknowledged sexual desire in women, but nevertheless
accorded to masculine heterosexualdesire an ontologicaland practicalpriority:
"The femaleresponds to the stimulationof the male at the rightmomentjust as
the tree responds to the stimulationof the warmestdays in spring."22(Neither
did English law want to recognize the sexually self-motivatedwoman. The
Labouchere Amendment to the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885, the
statuteunderwhichOscar Wildewas convictedof "grossindecency,'simplyignored
the possibilityof erotic behavior between women.) In all of this we may see an
anxious defense against recognitionof an independent and activefemininesex-
uality.A submergedfearof thefeminizationof desire precluded thesepolemicists
fromfullydeveloping theirown argumentativeassumptionof an already sexu-
alized femininesoul.
Sexual inversion,then, understands homoeroticdesire as misplaced heter-
osexualityand configuresits understandingof such desire according to what
George Chauncey has called "the heterosexual paradigm,"an analyticalmodel
requiringthatall love repeat the dyadic structure(masculine/feminine, husband/
wife,active/passive) embodied in the heterosexual norm.23 Desire between ana-
tomicalmales requires the interpositionof an invisiblefemininity, just as desire
betweenanatomicalfemalesrequiresthe mediationof a hidden masculinity. This
insistentideologyof heterosexualmediationand itscorollaryanxietyabout inde-
pendentfemininesexualityreturnus to Dracula,whereall desire,however,mobile,
is fixed withina heterosexual mask, where a mobile and hungeringwoman is
represented as a monstroususurper of masculine function,and where, as we
shall see in detail,all eroticcontactsbetweenmales, whetherdirectlylibidinalor
thoroughlysublimated,are fulfilledthrough a mediatingfemale, through the
surrogationof the other,"correct,"gender.Sexual inversionand Stoker'saccount
of vampirism,then, are symmetricalmetaphors sharing a fundamentalambiv-
alence. Both discourses, aroused by a desire that wants to elude or flauntthe
conventional prescriptionsof gender, constrain that desire by constitutingit
according to the heterosexual paradigm that leaves conventionalgender codes
intact.The differencebetweenthe two discourseslies in the particulararticula-

tion of that paradigm. Sexual inversion,especiallyas argued by Symonds and
Ellis,representsan urbane and civilizedaccommodationof thecontraryimpulses
of liberationand constraint.Stoker'svampirism,altogethermore hystericaland
hyperbolic,imagines mobile desire as monstrosityand then devises a violent
correctionof that desire; in Dracula the vampiricabrogation of gender codes
inspires a defensivereinscriptionof the stabilizingdistinctionsof gender. The
siteof thatambivalentinterplayof desireand itscorrection,of mobilityand fixity,
is the text'sprolonged middle, to whichwe now turn.
Engendering Gender
gamewillbe toplayourmasculineagainstherfeminine.
Our strong
-Stoker, THE LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM
The portionof the gothicnovel thatI have called the prolonged mid-
dle, during which the text allows the monstera certain dangerous play,corre-
sponds in Dracula to the durationbeginningwiththe Count's arrivalin England
and endingwithhis flightback home; thisextended middleconstitutesthenovel's
prolonged momentof equivocation,as itentertains,elaborates,and explores the
very anxieties it must later expel in the formulaicresolutionof the plot. The
actionwithinthissectionofDracula consists,simplyenough, in an extended battle
between two evidentlymasculine forces,one identifiablygood and the other
identifiably evil,forthe allegiance of a woman (two women actually-Lucy Wes-
tenra and Mina Harker nee Murray).24This competitionbetween alternative
potencies has the apparent simplicityof a black and whiteopposition. Dracula
ravages and impoverishesthese women, Van Helsing's Crew of Light restores
and "saves"them.As Dracula conductshis serialassaultsupon Lucy,Van Helsing,
in a prettycounterpointof penetration,respondswitha seriesof defensivetrans-
fusions; the blood that Dracula takes out Van Helsing then puts back. Dracula,
isolated and disdainfulof community, worksalone; Van Helsing entersthislittle
English community,immediatelyassumes authority,and then works through
surrogates to cement communal bonds. As criticshave noted, this pattern of
opposition distillsreadilyinto a competitionbetween antitheticalfathers."The
vampireCount, centuriesold," Maurice Richardsonwrotetwenty-five yearsago,
"is a fatherfigureof huge potency"who competes withVan Helsing, "the good
fatherfigure."25 The theme of alternatepaternitiesis, in short,simple,evident,
unavoidable.
This oscillationbetweenvampirictransgressionand medical correctionexer-
cises the text'sambivalencetowardthose fundamentaldualisms-life and death,
spiritand flesh,male and female-which have served traditionallyto constrain
and delimit the excursions of desire. As doctor,lawyer,and sometimespriest
116 REPRESENTATIONS
("The Host. I broughtit fromAmsterdam.I have an indulgence"), Van Helsing
stands as the protectorof the patriarchalinstitutionshe so emphaticallyrepre-
sentsand as the guarantorof the traditionaldualismshis religionand profession
promote and authorize.26 His largestpurpose is to reinscribethe dualities that
Dracula would muddle and confuse. Dualities require demarcations,inexorable
and ineradicablelinesof separation,but Dracula, as a borderbeingwho abrogates
demarcations,makes such distinctionsimpossible. He is nosferatu,neitherdead
nor alive but somehowboth,mobile frequenterof the graveand boudoir,easeful
communicantof exclusive realms,and as such as he toyswiththe separation of
the livingand the dead, a distinctioncriticalto physician,lawyer,and priestalike.
His mobilityand metaphoric power deride the distinctionbetween spiritand
flesh,anotherof Van Helsing'ssanctifieddualisms.Potentenough to ignoredeath's
terminus,Dracula has a spirit'sfreedomand mobility, but thatmobilityis chained
to the mostmechanicalof appetites: he and his childrenrise and fallfora drink
and fornothingelse, fornothingelse matters.This con- or inter-fusionof spirit
and appetite, of eternityand sequence, produces a madness of activityand a
mania of unceasing desire. Dracula lives an eternityof sexual repetition,a lurid
wedding of desire and satisfactionthatparodies both.
But the traditionaldualism most vigorouslydefended by Van Helsing and
mostsubtlysubvertedby Dracula is, of course, sexual: the divisionof being into
gender,eithermale or female. Indeed, as we have seen, the vampirickissexcites
a sexualityso mobile,so insistent,thatit threatensto overwhelmthe distinctions
of gender,and the exuberant energywithwhich Van Helsing and the Crew of
Light counter Dracula's influencerepresentsthe text'sanxious defense against
the verydesire it also seeks to liberate.In counterposingDracula and Van Hels-
ing, Stoker'stextsimultaneouslythreatensand protectsthe line of demarcation
thatinsures the intelligibledivisionof being into gender. This ambivalentneed
to invitethe vampirickiss and then to repudiate it definesexactlythe dynamic
of the battlethatconstitutesthe prolonged middle of thistext.The fieldof this
battle,of thisequivocal competitionforthe rightto definethe possible relations
betweendesireand gender,is theinfinitely penetrablebodyof a somnolentwoman.
This interpositionof a woman between Dracula and Van Helsing should not
surpriseus; in England, as in Castle Dracula, a violentwrestlebetweenmales is
mediated througha feminineform.
The Crew of Light'sconscious conceptionof women is, predictablyenough,
idealized-the stuffof dreams. Van Helsing's concise descriptionof Mina may
serve as a representativeexample: "She is one of God's women fashionedby His
own hand to show us men and otherwomen thatthereis a heaven we can enter,
and that its lightcan be here on earth" (226). The impossible idealism of this
conceptionof women deflectsattentionfromthecomplex and complicitousinter-
action withinthis sentence of gender, authority,and representation.Here Van

Helsing's exegesis of God's natural textreifiesMina into a stable sign or symbol
("one of God's women") performinga fixedand comfortablefunctionwithina
masculine sign system.Having received fromVan Helsing's exegesis her divine
impress,Mina signifiesboth a masculineartisticintention("fashionedby His own
hand") and a definitedidacticpurpose ("to show us men and otherwomen" how
to enter heaven), each of which constitutesan enormous constraintupon the
significativepossibilitiesof the sign or symbolthatMina here becomes. Van Hel-
sing'sreading of Mina, like a dozen other instancesin which his interpretation
of the sacred determinesand delimitsthe range of activitypermittedto women,
encodes woman with a "natural" meaning composed according to the textual
imperativesof anxious males. Preciselythiscomplicitybetweenmasculineanxiety,
divine textualauthority, and a fixedconceptionof femininity-whichmayseem
benignenough in the passage above-will soon be used tojustifythe destruction
of Lucy Westenra,who, havingbeen successfullyvamped by Dracula, requires a
correctivepenetration.To Arthur'sanxious importunity"Tell me what I am to
do," Van Helsing answers: "Take this stakein your lefthand, ready to place the
point over the heart, and the hammer in your right.Then when we begin our
prayerforthe dead-I shall read him; I have here the book, and the othersshall
follow-strike in God's name . . ." (259). Here four males (Van Helsing, Seward,
Holmwood, and Quincey Morris) communallyread a masculine text (Van Hel-
sing'smangled English even permitsStokerthe unidiomaticpronominalization
of thegenderlesstext:"I shall read him").27in order tojustifythe fatalcorrection
of Lucy'sdangerous wandering,her insolentdisregardforthesexual and semiotic
constraintencoded in Van Helsing'sexegesis of "God's women."
The process by which women are construed as signs determined by the
interpretiveimperativesof authorizingmales had been brilliantly identifiedsome
fiftyyearsbefore the publicationof Dracula byJohn Stuart Mill in The Subjection
ofWomen. "What is now called the natureof women,"Mill writes,"is an extremely
artificialthing-the result of forced repression in some directions,unnatural
stimulationin others."28Mill'ssentence,deftlyidentifying "thenatureof women"
as an "artificial"constructformed (and deformed) by "repression"and "uninat-
ural stimulation," quietlyunties the lacings thatbind somethingcalled "woman"
to somethingelse called "nature."Mill furthersuggeststhata correctreading of
gender becomes almost impossible,since the natural differencebetween male
and female is subject to culturalinterpretation:". . . I deny thatanyone knows,
or can know,the nature of the two sexes, as long as theyhave only been seen in
theirpresent relation to one another."Mill'sagnosticismregarding "the nature
of the sexes" suggests the societal and institutionalquality of all definitionsof
the natural,definitionswhichultimatelyconspireto produce "the imaginaryand
conventionalcharacter of women."29 This last phrase, like the whole of Mill's
essay,understandsand criticizes theauthoritarian nexus thatariseswhena deflected
118 REPRESENTATIONS
or transformeddesire ("imaginary"),empowered by a gender-biased societal
agreement ("conventional"),imposes itselfupon a person in order to create a
"character.""Character" of course functionsin at least three senses: who and
what one "is,"the role one plays in society'ssuperveningscript,and the sign or
letterthat is intelligibleonly withinthe constraintsof a larger sign system.Van
Helsing'sexegesis of "God's women" createsjust such an imaginaryand conven-
tional character.Mina's body/character may indeed be feminine,but the signifi-
cation it bears is writtenand interpretedsolelyby males. As Susan Hardy Aiken
has written,such a symbolicsystemtakes "for granted the role of women as
passive objects or signs to be manipulated in the grammar of privilegedmale
interchanges." 30
Yet exactlythe passivityof thisobject and the ease of thismanipulationare
at question in Dracula. Dracula, afterall, kissesthesewomen out of theirpassivity
and so endangers the stabilityof Van Helsing's symbolicsystem.Both the pre-
scriptiveintentionof Van Helsing's exegesis and the emphatic methodology
(hypodermicneedle, stake,surgeon'sblade) he employsto insure the durability
of his interpretation of gender suggestthe potentialunreliabilityof Mina as sign,
an instabilitythat provokes an anxietywe may call fear of the mediatrix.If, as
Van Helsing admits,God's women provide the essentialmediation("the lightcan
be here on earth") betweenthe divine but distantpatriarchand his earthlysons,
then God's intentionmay be distortedby its potentiallychangeable vehicle. If
woman-as-signifier wanders,thenVan Helsing'swhole cosmology,withitsfound-
ing dualisms and supporting texts,collapses. In short,Van Helsing's interpre-
tationof Mina, because endangered bytheprolepticfearthathis mediatrixmight
destabilizeand wander, necessarilyimposes an a prioriconstraintupon the sig-
nificativepossibilitiesof the sign "Mina." Such an authorialgesture,intended to
forestallthe semioticwandering that Dracula inspires,indirectlyacknowledges
woman's dangerous potential.Late in the text,while Dracula is vamping Mina,
Van Helsing willadmit,veryuneasily,that"Madam Mina, our poor,dear Madam
Mina is changing" (384). The potential for such a change demonstrateswhat
Nina Auerbach has called thiswoman's "mysteriousamalgam of imprisonment
and power.?3'
Dracula's authorizingkiss,like thatof a demonic Prince Charming,triggers
the release of thislatentpower and excitesin these women a sexualityso mobile,
so aggressive,thatit thoroughlydisruptsVan Helsing's compartmentalconcep-
tionof gender.Kissed intoa sudden sexuality,32 Lucy grows"voluptuous"(a word
used to describe her onlyduringthe vampiricprocess),her lips redden, and she
kisseswitha new interest.This sexualizationof Lucy,metamorphosingwoman's
"sweetness"to "adamantine, heartless cruelty,and [her] purityto voluptuous
wantonness"(252), terrifiesher suitorsbecause it entailsa reversalor inversion
of sexual identity;Lucy, now toothed like the Count, usurps the functionof

penetrationthatVan Helsing'smoralizedtaxonomyof gender reservesformales.
Dracula, in thus figuringthe sexualization of woman as deformation,parallels
exactlysome of the more extreme medical uses of the idea of inversion.Late
Victorianaccountsof lesbianism,forinstance,superscribedconventionalgender
norms upon sexual relationshipsto whichthose norms were anatomicallyirrel-
evant.Again theheterosexualnormproved paradigmatic.The female"husband"
in such a relationshipwas understoodto be dominant,appetitive,masculine,and
"congenitallyinverted";the female "wife"was understood to be quiescent,pas-
sive,only "latently"homosexual, and, as Havelock Ellis argued, unmotivatedby
genitaldesire.33Extremedeploymentof the heterosexualparadigm approached
the ridiculous,as George Chauncey explains:
The earlymedicalcase historiesoflesbiansthuspredictablypaidenormousattention
to theirmenstrual flowand thesizeof theirsexualorgans.Severaldoctorsemphasized
thattheirlesbianpatientsstoppedmenstruating at an earlyage, iftheybeganat all,or
had unusuallydifficult and irregularperiods.They also inspectedthewoman'ssexual
organs,oftenclaimingthatinvertshad unusuallylargeclitorises, whichtheysaid the
invertsused in sexualintercourseas a manwouldhispenis.34
This rather pathetic hunt for the penis-in-absentiadenotes a double anxiety:

first,that the penis shall not be erased, and if it is erased, that it shall be rein-
scribedin a perversesimulacrum;and second, thatall desire repeat,even under
the duress of deformity,the heterosexual norm that the metaphor of inversion
alwaysassumes. Medical professionalshad in factno need to pursue thisfantas-
ized amazon of the clitoris,this"unnatural"penetrator,so vigorously,since Sto-
ker,whose imaginationwas at least deftenough to displace thatdangerous simu-
lacrum to an isomorphic orifice,had by the 1890s already invented her. His
sexualized women are men too.
Stoker emphasizes the monstrosityimplicitin such abrogation of gender
codes by invertinga favoriteVictorianmaternal function.His New Lady Vam-
pires feed at firstonly on small children,workingtheirway up, one assumes, a
demonic pleasure thermometeruntiltheymayfeed at laston full-bloodedmales.
Lucy'sdietaryindiscretionsevoke the deepest disgustfromthe Crew of Light:
Witha carelessmotion,she flungto theground,callousas a devil,thechildthatup
to nowshe had clutchedstrenuouslyto herbreast,growlingoveritas a dog growlsover
a bone.The childgavea sharpcry,and laytheremoaning.Therewasa cold-bloodedness
intheactwhichwrunga groanfromArthur;whensheadvancedtohimwithoutstretched
armsand a wantonsmile,he fellbackand hid hisfacein hishands.
She stilladvanced,however,
and witha langorous,voluptuousgrace,said:
"Cometo me Arthur.Leave thoseothersand cometo me. Myarmsare hungryfor
you.Come,and wecan resttogether. Come,myhusband,come!"(253-254)
Stokerhere givesus a tableaumordant of gender inversion:thechild Lucy clutches
"strenuouslyto her breast"is not being fed,but is being fed upon. Furthermore,
120 REPRESENTATIONS
by requiring that the child be discarded that the husband may be embraced,
Stokerprovides a littleemblem of thisnovel'sanxious protestationthatappetite
in a woman ("My arms are hungryfor you") is a diabolic ("callous as a devil")
inversionof naturalorder,and of the novel'sfantasticbut futilehope thatmater-
nityand sexualitybe divorced.
The aggressivemobilitywithwhich Lucy flauntsthe encasementsof gender
norms generates in the Crew of Light a terrificdefensiveactivity, as these men
race to reinscribe,witha series of pointed instruments,the line of demarcation
which enables the definitionof gender. To save Lucy from the mobilizationof
desire,Van Helsing and the Crew of LightcounteractDracula's subversiveseries
of penetrationswitha more conventionalseries of theirown, that sequence of
transfusionsintendedto provide Lucy withthe "braveman'sblood" which"is the
best thingon earth when a woman is in trouble" (180). There are in fact four
transfusions,which begin with Arthur,who as Lucy's accepted suitor has the
rightof firstinfusion,and include Lucy'sother two suitors(Dr. Seward, Quincey
Morris)and Van Helsing himself.One of the establishedobservationsof Dracula
criticismis thatthese therapeuticpenetrationsrepresentdisplaced marital(and
martial) penetrations;indeed, the text is emphatic about this substitutionof
medical for sexual penetration.Afterthe firsttransfusion,Arthurfeels as if he
and Lucy "had been reallymarriedand thatshe was his wifein the sightof God"
(209); and Van Helsing, afterhis donation, calls himselfa "bigamist"and Lucy
"thisso sweet maid . . . a polyandrist"(211-212). These transfusions,in short,
are sexual (blood substitutesforsemen here)35and constitute,in Nina Auerbach's
superb phrase, "the mostconvincingepithalamiumsin the novel.36
These transfusionsrepresentthe text'sfirstanxious reassertionof the con-
ventionallymasculine prerogativeof penetration;as Van Helsing tells Arthur
before the firsttransfusion,"You are a man and it is a man we want" (148).
Counteringthe dangerous mobilityexcited by Dracula's kiss,Van Helsing's pen-
etrationsrestoreto Lucy both the stillnessappropriate to his sense of her gender
and "the regular breathingof healthysleep,"a necessarycorrectionof the loud
"stertorous"breathing,the animal snorting,thatthe Count inspires.This repet-
itivecontest(penetration,withdrawal;penetration,infusion),itselfan image of
Dracula'sambivalentneed to evoke and then to repudiate the fluidpleasures of
vampiricappetite,continuesto be waged upon Lucy'sinfinitely penetrablebody
until Van Helsing exhausts his store of "brave men,"whose generous giftsof
blood, however efficacious,fail finallyto save Lucy from the mobilizationof
desire.
But even the loss of this much blood does not finallyenervate a masculine
energy as indefatigableas the Crew of Light's,especiallywhen it stands in the
service of a traditionof "good women whose lives and whose truthsmay make
good lesson [sic]forthe childrenthatare to be" (222). In the name of those good

women and futurechildren(verymuch the same childrenwhose throatsLucy is
now penetrating),Van Helsing willrepeat,withan added emphasis,his assertion
that penetrationis a masculine prerogative.His logic of correctivepenetration
demands an escalation,as the failureof the hypodermicneedle necessitatesthe
stake.A woman is betterstillthan mobile,betterdead than sexual:
Arthurtookthestakeand thehammer, and whenonce his mindwas seton action

hishandsnevertrembled norevenquivered.Van Helsingopenedhismissaland began
toread,and Quinceyand I followed as wellas wecould.Arthurplacedthepointoverthe
heart,and as I lookedI couldsee itsdintin thewhiteflesh.Then he struckwithall his
might.
The Thingin thecoffinwrithed;and a hideous,blood-curdling screechcamefrom
theopened red lips.The bodyshookand quiveredand twistedin wildcontortions; the
sharpwhiteteethchampedtogethertillthelips werecut and themouthwas smeared
witha crimsonfoam.ButArthurneverfaltered.He lookedlikethefigureofThoras his
untrembling armroseand fell,driving deeperand deeperthemercy-bearing stake,whilst
thebloodfromthepiercedheartwelledand spurtedup aroundit.His facewasset,and
highdutyseemedto shinethroughit; thesightof it gaveus courage,so thatour voices
seemedto ringthroughthelittlevault.
And thenthewrithing and quiveringof thebodybecameless,and theteethceased
tochamp,and thefaceto quiver.Finallyitlaystill.The terrible
taskwasover.(258-259)
Here is the novel's real-and the woman's only-climax, its most violent and
misogynisticmoment,displaced roughlyto the middle of the book, so that the
sexual threatmay be repeated but its ultimatesuccess denied: Dracula will not
win Mina, second in his series of English seductions.The murderousphallicism
of thispassage clearlypunishes Lucy forher transgressionof Van Helsing'sgen-
der code, as she finallyreceives a penetrationadequate to insure her future
quiescence. Violence against the sexual woman here is intense,sensuallyimag-
ined, ferociousin its detail. Note, for instance,the terribledimple, the "dint in
the whiteflesh,"thatrecallsJonathanHarker'sswoon at Castle Dracula ("I could
feel ... the hard dents of the two sharp teeth,just touchingand pausing there")
and anticipatesthe technicolorconsummationof the next paragraph. That para-
graph,maskingmurderas "highduty,"completesVan Helsing'spenetrativether-
apy by "drivingdeeper and deeper the mercy-bearingstake."One mightquestion
a mercythisdestructive,thisfatal,but Van Helsing'sactions,alwayssanctifiedby
the patriarchaltextualtraditionsignifiedby "his missal,"manage to "restoreLucy
to us as a holy and not an unholy memory"(258). This enthusiasticcorrection
of Lucy's monstrosityprovides the Crew of Light witha double reassurance: it
effectivelyexorcises the threatof a mobile and hungering femininesexuality,
and it countersthe homoeroticismlatentin the vampiricthreatby reinscribing
(upon Lucy's chest) the line dividing the male who penetratesand the woman
who receives. By discipliningLucy and restoringeach gender to its "proper"
122 REPRESENTATIONS
function,Van Helsing'spacificationprogramcompensatesforthe threatof gen-
der indefinitionimplicitin the vampirickiss.
The vigorand enormityof thispenetration(Arthurdrivingthe"roundwooden
stake,"which is "some two and a half or three inches thickand about three feet
long,"resembles"the figureof Thor") do not bespeak merelyStoker'spersonal
or idiosyncraticanxietybut suggest as well a whole culture'suncertaintyabout
the fluidityof gender roles. Consider,for instance,the followingpassage from
Ellis's contemporaneous Studiesin thePsychology of Sex. Ellis, writingon "The
Mechanism of Detumescence" (i.e., ejaculation), employs a figure that Stoker
would have recognized as his own:
Detumescence is normally linkedto tumescence.Tumescenceis thepilingon of the
fuel;detumescence is theleapingoutof thedevouringflamewhenceis lightedthetorch
of lifeto be handedon fromgeneration The wholeprocessis doubleyet
to generation.
single;itis exactlyanalogousto thatbywhicha pileis drivenintotheearthbytheraising
and thelettinggo of a heavyweightwhichfallson thehead of thepile. In tumescence
theorganismis slowlywoundup and forceaccumulated; in theactofdetumescence the
accumulated forceis letgo and byitsliberationthesperm-bearing instrumentis driven
home.37
Both Stokerand Ellis need to imagine so homelyan occurrence as penile pene-
trationas an event of mythic,or at least seismographic,proportions.Ellis's pile
driver,representingthe powerful"sperm-bearinginstrument," maydwarfeven
Stoker'salreadyoutsized member,but both servea similarfunction:theychannel
and finally"liberate"a tremendous"accumulated force"that itselfrepresentsa
trans-or supra-naturalintention.Ellis,employinga Darwinian principleof inter-
pretationto explain that intention,reads woman's body (much as we have seen
Van Helsing do) as a natural sign-or, perhaps better,as a sign of nature'sover-
ridingreproductiveintention:
There can be littledoubtthat,as one or twowritershave alreadysuggested,the
hymenowesitsdevelopment is on thesideofeffective
to thefactthatitsinfluence fertil-
ization.It is an obstacleto theimpregnation of theyoungfemalebyimmature, aged,or
feeblemales.Thehymen is thusan anatomical offorcewhich
ofthatadmiration
expression marks
thefemaleinherchoice ofa mate.So regarded,itis an interestingexampleof theintimate
matterin whichsexualselectionis reallybasedon naturalselection.38 (italicsadded)
Here, as evolutionaryteleologysupplants divine etiologyand as Darwin's texts

assume the primacyVan Helsing would reservefor God's, natural selection,not
God's original intention,becomes the interpretiveprinciplegoverningnature's
text.As a sign or "anatomicalexpression"withinthattext,the hymensignifiesa
woman's presumablynatural "admirationof force" and her invitationto "the
sperm-bearinginstrument."Woman's body, structurallyhostile to "immature,
Lucy'sbody,too,
aged, or feeble males,"simplybegs for "effectivefertilization."
reassures the Crew of Light withan anatomicalexpression of her admirationof

force.Once fatallystaked,Lucy is restoredto "the so sweetthatwas."Dr. Seward
describesthe change:
Therein thecoffin layno longerthefoulThingthatwe had so dreadedand grown
to hatethattheworkofherdestruction wasyieldedtotheone bestentitled
toit,butLucy
as we had seenherin herlife,withherfaceof unequalledsweetness
and purity....One
and all wefeltthattheholycalmthatlaylikesunshineoverthewastedfaceand formwas
onlyan earthlytokenand symbolof thecalmthatwasto reignforever.(259)
This post-penetrativepeace39 denotes not merely the final immobilizationof

Lucy's body,but also the correspondingstabilizationof the dangerous signifier
whose wanderinghad so threatenedVan Helsing'sgendercode. Here a masculine
interpretivecommunity("One and all we felt")reassertsthe semioticfixitythat
allows Lucy to functionas the "earthlytoken and symbol"of eternal beatitude,
of the heaven we can enter.We may say thatthislast penetrationis doubly effi-
cacious: in a single strokeboth the sexual and the textualneeds of the Crew of
Light finda sufficientsatisfaction.
Despite itsplacementin the middle of the text,thisscene, whichsuccessfully
pacifiesLucy and demonstratesso emphaticallythe efficacyof the technology
Van Helsing employs to correctvampirism,corresponds formallyto the scene
of expulsion, which usually signals the end of the gothic narrative. Here, of
course, thisscene signalsnot the end of the storybut the continuationof it,since
Dracula willnow repeat his assaulton anotherwoman. Such displacementof the
scene of expulsion requires explanation. Obviouslythisdisplacementsubserves
the text'sanxietyabout the direct representationof eroticismbetween males:
Stokersimplycould notrepresentso explicitly a violentphallicinterchangebetween
the Crew of Light and Dracula. In a by now familiarheterosexual mediation,
Lucy receives the phallic correctionthat Dracula deserves. Indeed, the actual
expulsion of the Count at novel'send is a disappointinganticlimax.Two rather
perfunctoryknifestrokessufficeto dispatch him, as Dracula simplyforgetsthe
elaborate ritualof correctionthatvampirismpreviouslyrequired. And the dis-
placementof thisscene performsat least two other functions:first,by establish-
ing earlythe ultimateefficacyof Van Helsing'scorrectivetechnology,it reassures
everyone-Stoker, his characters,the reader-that vampirismmay indeed be
vanquished, that its sexual threat,however powerful and intriguing,may be
expelled; and second, in doing so, in establishingthisreassurance,it permitsthe
textto prolong and repeat its flirtationwithvampirism,its ambivalentpetition
of that sexual threat.In short,the displacementof the scene of expulsion pro-
vides a heterosexual locale for Van Helsing's demonstrationof compensatory
phallicism,while it also extends the durationof the text'sambivalentplay.
This extensionof the text'sflirtationwithmonstrosity, duringwhich Mina is
threatenedby but not finallyseduced into vampirism,includes the novel'sonly
124 REPRESENTATIONS
explicitscene of vampiricseduction. Important enough to be twicepresented,
firstby Seward as spectatorand thenby Mina as participant,the scene occurs in
the Harkerbedroom,whereDracula seduces Mina while"on thebed layJonathan
Harker, his face flushed and breathingheavilyas if in a stupor."The Crew of
Light burstsinto the room; the voice is Dr. Seward's:
Withhislefthand he heldbothMrs.Harker'shands,keepingthemawaywithherarms
at fulltension;hisrighthandgrippedherbythebackoftheneck,forcing herfacedown
on hisbosom.Her whitenightdress was smearedwithblood,and a thinstreamtrickled
downtheman'sbarebreast,whichwasshownbyhistorn-open dress.The attitude
of the
twohad a terribleresemblance nose intoa saucerof milkto
to a childforcinga kitten's
compelitto drink.(336)
In thisinitiationscene Dracula compels Mina intothe pleasure of vampiricappe-

titeand introducesher to a worldwhere gender distinctionscollapse, where male
and femalebodilyfluidsintermingleterribly. For Mina's drinkingis double here,
both a "symbolicact of enforced fellation"40and a lurid nursing.That thisis a
scene of enforcedfellationis made even clearerby Mina's own descriptionof the
scene a few pages later; she adds the graphic detail of the "spurt":
Withthathe pulledopen his shirt,and withhis long sharpnailsopened a veinin his
breast.Whenthebloodbegantospurtout,he tookmyhandsinone ofhis,holdingthem
tight,and withtheotherseizedmyneckand pressedmymouthto thewound,so thatI
musteithersuffocateor swallowsomeof the-Oh, myGod,myGod! WhathaveI done?
(343)
That "Oh, myGod, myGod!" is deftlyplaced: Mina'sverbalejaculationsupplants

the Count's liquid one, leaving the fluidunnamed and encouraging us to voice
the substitutionthatthe textimplies-this blood is semen too. But thisscene of
fellationis thoroughlydisplaced. We are at the Count's breast,encouraged once
again to substitutewhiteforred, as blood becomes milk:"the attitudeof the two
had a terribleresemblanceto a child forcinga kitten'snose intoa saucer of milk."
Such fluidityof substitutionand displacemententails a confusionof Dracula's
or an interfusionof masculineand femininefunctions,as Dracula
sexual identity,
here becomes a lurid mother offeringnot a breast but an open and bleeding
wound. But if the Count's sexualityis double, then the open wound maybe yet
another displacement (the reader of Dracula must be as mobile as the Count
himself).We are back in the genitalregion,thistimea woman's,and we have the
suggestionof a bleeding vagina. The image of red and voluptuouslips,withtheir
slow trickleof blood, has, of course, alwaysharbored thispotential.
We may read thisscene, in whichanatomical displacementsand the conflu-
ence of blood, milk,and semen forcefullyerase the demarcationseparatingthe
masculineand the feminine,as Dracula'smostexplicitrepresentationof the anx-
ietiesexcited by the vampirickiss.Here Dracula definesmostclearlyvampirism's

threatof gender indefinition.Significantly, this scene is postponed untillate in
the text. Indeed, thisis Dracula's last great moment,his finaldemonstrationof
dangerous potency;afterthis,he willvamp no one. The novel,havingpresented
most explicitlyits deepest anxiety,its fear of gender dissolution,now moves
mechanicallyto repudiate that fear. Aftera hundred rather tedious pages of
pursuitand flight,Draculaperfunctorily expels theCount. The worldof "natural"
gender relationsis happilyrestored,or at least seems to be.
A Final Dissolution
If my last sentence ends with an equivocation, it is because Dracula

does so as well; the reader should leave this novel witha troubled sense of the
differencebetweenthe forcesof darknessand the forcesof light.Of course the
plot of Dracula,by grantingultimatevictoryto Van Helsing and a dustydeath to
the Count, emphaticallyratifiesthe simplisticopposition of competingconcep-
tionsof forceand desire, but even a briefreflectionupon the details of the war
of penetrationscomplicatesthiscomforting schema.A perversemirroringoccurs,
as puncture for puncture the Doctor equals the Count. Van Helsing's doubled
penetrations,firstthe morphineinjectionthatimmobilizesthe woman and then
the infusionof masculine fluid,repeat Dracula's spatiallydoubled penetrations
of Lucy's neck. And that morphine injection,which subdues the woman and
improvesher receptivity, curiouslyimitatesthe Count's strangehypnoticpower;
both men preferto immobilizea woman before riskinga penetration.41 More-
over, each penetrationannounces through its displacementthis same sense of
danger.Dracula entersat the neck,Van Helsing at the limb;each evades available
orificesand refuses to submit to the dangers of vaginal contact. The shared
displacement is telling: to make your own holes is an ultimatearrogance, an
assertionof penetrativeprowessthatnonethelessacknowledges,in the flightof
its evasion, the threateningpower imagined to inhabitwoman's available open-
ings. Woman'sbody readilyaccommodates masculine fear and desire, whether
directlylibidinal or culturallyrefined. We may say that Van Helsing and his
traditionhave polished teethintohypodermicneedles, a culturalrefinementthat
masksviolationas healing. Van Helsing himself,calling his medical instruments
"the ghastlyparaphernalia of our beneficialtrade,"employs an adjectival oxy-
moron (ghastly/beneficial) that itselfglosses the troubled relationshipbetween
paternalismand violence (146). The medical professionlicenses the power to
penetrate,devises a delicate instrumentation, and definescanons of procedure,
while the religioustradition,withits insistentidealizationof women, encodes a
restrictionon the mobilityof desire (who penetrateswhom) and then licenses a
tremendouspunishmentforthe violationof the code.
126 REPRESENTATIONS
But it is all penetrativeenergy,whetherre-fangedor refined,and it is all
libidinal; the two strategiesof penetrationare but differentarticulationsof the
same primitiveforce.Dracula certainlyproblematizes,if it does not quite erase,
the line of separation signifyinga meaningfuldifferencebetween Van Helsing
and the Count. In other words, the text itself,in its imagisticidentificationof
Dracula and the Crew of Light, in its ambivalentpropensityto subvertits own
fundamentaldifferences, sympathizeswithand finallydomesticatesvampiricdesire;
the uncanny,as Freud brilliantlyobserved, always comes home. Such textual
irony,composed of simultaneousbut contraryimpulses to establishand subvert
the fundamentaldifferencesbetween violence and culture,between desire and
its sublimations,recalls Freud's late speculations on the troubled relationship
betweenthe id and the superego (or ego ideal). In the two briefpassages below,
takenfromhis late workTheEgo and theId, Freud complicatesthe differentiation
betweenthe id and its unexpected effluent,the superego:
Thereare twopathsbywhichthecontents oftheid can penetrateintotheego. The
one is direct,theotherleadsbywayof theego ideal.
And:
Fromthepointofviewofinstinctual control,ofmorality,itmaybe saidoftheid that
itis totally of theego thatitstrivesto be moral,and of thesuper-egothatit
non-moral,
can be supermoraland thenbecomeas cruelas onlytheid can be.42
It is so easy to rememberthe id as a risingenergy and the superego as a sup-

pressiveone, thatwe forgetFreud'ssubtlerargument.These passages,eschewing
as too facile the simple opposition of the id and superego, suggest instead that
the id and the superego are variantarticulationsof the same primitiveenergy.
We are already familiarwith the "two paths by which the contents of the id
penetratethe ego." "The one is direct,"as Dracula's penetrationsare directand
unembarrassed, and the other,leading "by way of the ego ideal," recalls Van
Helsing's way of repressionand sublimation.In providingan indirectpath for
the "contentsof the id" and in being "as cruel as onlythe id can be,"the superego
maybe said to be, in the words of Leo Bersani, "the id whichhas become itsown
mirror."43 This mutual reflectivityof the id and superego, of course, constitutes
one of vampirism'smostdisturbingfeatures,as JonathanHarker,standingbefore
his shaving glass, learns early in the novel: "This time there could be no error,
for the man was close to me, and I could see him over my shoulder. But there
was no reflectionof himin the mirror!The whole room behind me was displayed;
but there was no sign of a man in it, except myself"(37). The meaning of this
littlevisual allegory should be clear enough: Dracula need cast no reflection
because his presence, already established in Harker's image, would be simply
redundant;the monster,indeed, is no one "exceptmyself." A dangerous sameness

waitsbehind difference:tooth,stake,and hypodermicneedle, it would seem, all
share a point.
This blendingor interfusionof fundamentaldifferenceswould seem, in one
respect at least, to contradictthe progress of my argument.We have, afterall,
establishedthatthe Crew of Light'spenetrativestrategy, subservingVan Helsing's
ideology of gender and his heterosexual account of desire, countersjust such
interfusionswith emphatic inscriptionsof sexual difference.Nonetheless, this
penetrativestrategy, quietlyerases itsown
despite its purposive heterosexuality,
fundamentaldifferences,its own explicitassumptionsof gender and desire. It
would seem at firstthatdesire forconnectionamong males is both expressed in
and constrainedby a traditionalarticulationof such fraternalaffection,as rep-
resented in this text'sblaring theme of heroic or chivalricmale bonding. The
obvious male bonding in Dracula is precipitatedby action-a good fight,a proud
ethic,a great victory.Dedicated to a falselyexalted conception of woman, men
combine fraternallyto fulfillthe collective"highduty"thatmotivatestheir"great
quest" (261). Van Helsing, alwaysthe ungrammaticalexegete, provides the apt
analogy: "Thus we are ministersof God's own wish.... He have allowed us to
redeem one soul already,and we go out as the old knightsof the Cross to redeem
more" (381). Van Helsing'schivalricanalogy establishesthisfraternity withinan
impeccable lineage signifyingboth moral rectitudeand adherence to the limi-
tationupon desire thatthistraditionencodes and enforces.
Yet beneath this screen or mask of authorized fraternitya more libidinal
bonding occurs as male fluids find a protected pooling place in the body of a
woman. We return,fora last time,to those serial transfusionswhich,while they
pretendto serve and protect"good women,"actuallyenable the otherwiseincon-
ceivableinterfusionof theblood thatis semen too. Here displacement(a woman's
body) and sublimation(these are medical penetrations)permitthe unpermitted,
just as in gang rape men share theirsemen in a location displaced sufficiently to
divertthe anxietyexcited by a more direct union. Repeating its subversivesug-
gestionthattherefinedmoralconceptionsof Van Helsing'sCrew of Lightexpress
obliquelyan excursivelibidinalenergy,an energymuch like the Count's,Dracula
again employsan apparentlyrigorousheterosexualityto representanxious desire
for a less conventionalcommunion.The parallel here to Dracula's taunt("Your
girlsthatyou all love are mine already; and throughthemyou . .. shall be mine")
is inescapable; in each case Lucy,the woman in the middle, connectslibidinous
males. Here, as in the Victorian metaphor of sexual inversion,an interposed
difference-an image of manipulable femininity-mediates and deflects an
otherwiseunacceptable appetite forsameness. Men touchingwomen touch each
other,and desire discoversitselfto be more fluidthan the Crew of Light would
consciouslyallow.
128 REPRESENTATIONS
Indeed, so insistentis thistextto establishthispatternof heterosexualmedia-
tion that it repeats the patternon its finalpage. Jonathan Harker,writingin a
postscriptthat compensates clearly for his assumption at Castle Dracula of a
"feminine"passivity, announces the text'slast efficaciouspenetration:
Sevenyearsago we all wentthroughtheflames;and the happinessof someof us
wellworththepainweendured.It is an addedjoy to Minaand to
sincethenis,we think,
me thatour boy'sbirthday is thesame day as thaton whichQuinceyMorrisdied. His
motherholds,I know,thesecretbeliefthatsomeof our bravefriend'sspirithas passed
butwe call him
intohim.His bundleof nameslinksall our littlebandof mentogether;
Quincey.(449)
As offspringof Jonathanand Mina Harker,LittleQuincey,whose introduction
so late in the narrativeinsureshis emblematicfunction,seeminglyrepresentsthe
restorationof "natural" order and especially the rectificationof conventional
gender roles. His officialgenesis is, obviouslyenough, heterosexual,but Stoker's
prose quietlysuggestsan alternativepaternity:"His bundle of names links all
our littleband of men together."This is the fantasychild of those sexualized
transfusions,son of an illicitand nearly invisiblehomosexual union. This sug-
gestion,reinforcedby the precedingpun of "spirit,"constitutesthistext'slastand
subtlestarticulationof its "secretbelief" that "a brave man's blood" may meta-
morphose into"our brave friend'sspirit."But the real curiosityhere is the novel's
last-minutedisplacement,its substitutionof Mina, who ultimatelyrefused sexu-
alization by Dracula, for Lucy,who was sexualized, vigorouslypenetrated,and
consequentlydestroyed.We maysay thatLittleQuincey was luridlyconceived in
the veins of Lucy Westenraand then deftlyrelocated to the purer body of Mina
Harker. Here, in the last of its many displacements,Dracula insists,first,that
successfulfiliationimpliesthe expulsion of all "monstrous"desire in women and,
second, thatall desire, howevermobile and omnivorousit maysecretlybe, must
subject itselfto the heterosexualconfigurationthatalone defined the Victorian
sense of the normal. In this regard, Stoker'sfable, howeverhyperbolicits anx-
ieties,representshis age. As we have seen, even polemicistsof same sex eroticism
like Symonds and Ellis could not imagine such desire withoutrepeatingwithin
theirmetaphor of sexual inversionthe basic structureof the heterosexual par-
adigm. Victorian culture'sanxiety about desire's potential indifferenceto the
prescriptionsof gender produces everywherea predictablerepetitionand a pre-
dictabledisplacement:the heterosexualnorm repeats itselfin a mediatingimage
of femininity-theCount's vampiricdaughters,Ulrichs'sand Symonds'sanima
muliebris, Lucy Westenra'spenetrable body-that displaces a more direct com-
munion among males. Desire, despite its propensityto wander,stayshome and
retainsan essentiallyheterosexualand familialdefinition.The resultin Dracula
is a child whose conceptionis curiouslyimmaculate,yetdisturbinglylurid: child

Van Helsing'sprophecyof "the
of his fathers'violations.LittleQuincey,fulfilling
children that are to be," may be the text'semblem of a restorednatural order,
but his paternityhas its unofficialaspect too. He is the unacknowledged son of
the Crew of Light'sdisplaced homoeroticunion, and his name, linkingthe "little
band of men together,"quietly)remembersthatsecretgenesis.
Notes
1. Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Carmilla,in TheBestGhostStoriesofJ.S. Le Fanu (New York,

1964), p. 337; thisnovella of lesbian vampirism,whichappeared firstin Le Fanu'sIn
A GlassDarkly(1872), predatesDracula by twenty-five years.
2. Franco Moretti,SignsTakenfor Wonders (Thetford, 1983), p. 100.
3. Brain Stoker,Dracula (New York,1979), p. 51. All furtherreferencestoDracula appear
withinthe essay in parentheses.
4. The paradigmaticinstanceof thistriplerhythmis Mary Shelley'sFrankenstein, a text
that creates-bit by bit, and stitchby stitch-its residentdemon, then equips that
demon witha powerfulMiltonicvoice withwhichto petitionboth itscreatorand the
novel'sreaders,and finallydrivesitsmonsterto polar isolationand suicide. Stevenson's
Dr.Jekylland Mr.Hyderepeats the pattern:HenryJekyll'schemicalinvitationto Hyde
corresponds to the gesture of admission; the serial alternationof contraryperson-
alitiesconstitutesthe ambivalentplay of the prolonged middle; and Jekyll'ssuicide,
whichexpels both the monsterand himself,corresponds to the gestureof expulsion.
5. Readers of Tzvetan Todorov'sTheFantastic(Ithaca, 1975) willrecognizethatmyargu-
ment about the gothic text'sextended middle derives in part fromhis idea thatthe
essentialconditionof fantasticfictionis a durationcharacterizedby readerlysuspen-
sion of certainty.
6. John Ruskin,Sesameand Lilies (New York, 1974), pp. 59-60.
7. This group of crusaders includes Van Helsing himself,Dr. John Seward, Arthur
Holmwood, Quincey Morris,and laterJonathan Harker; the titleCrew of Light is
mine, but I have taken mycue fromStoker: Lucy,lux,light.
8. Renfield,whose "zoophagy" precedes Dracula's arrivalin England and who is never
vamped by Dracula, is no exception to thisrule.
9. The complicationof gender roles in Dracula has of course been recognized in the
criticism.See, for instance, Stephanie Demetrakopoulos, "Feminism, Sex Role
Exchanges, and Other Subliminal Fantasies in Brain Stoker'sDracula," Frontiers, 2
(1977), pp. 104-113. Demetrakopoulos writes:"These two figuresI have traced so
far-the male as passive rape victimand also as violator-brutalizer-reflectthe polar-
ized sex roles and the excessiveneeds thispolarizingengendered in Victorianculture.
Goldfarbrecountsthe brothelsthatcatered to masochists,sadists,and homosexuals.
The latteraspect of sexualityobviouslydid not interestStoker...." I agree withthe
firstsentence here and, as this essay should make clear, emphaticallydisagree with
the last.
10. John Addington Symonds,A Problemin ModernEthics(London, 1906), p. 74.
11. The semanticimprecisionof the word "sodomy" is best explained byJohn Boswell,
and Homosexuality
Social Tolerance,
Christianity, (Chicago, 1980), pp. 91-116. "Sodomy,"
130 REPRESENTATIONS
notes Boswell, "has connoted in various times and various places everythingfrom
ordinaryheterosexualintercoursein an atypicalpositionto oral sexual contactwith
animals" (93).
12. This is the traditionalChristiancircumlocutionby which sodomy was both named
and unnamed, both specifiedin speech and specifiedas unspeakable. It is the phrase,
according to JeffreyWeeks,"withwhichSir Robert Peel forboreto mentionsodomy
in Parliament,"quoted in Weeks,ComingOut (London, 1977), p. 14.
13. Michel Foucault,TheHistoryofSexuality(New York, 1980). My argumentagrees with
Foucault'sassertionthat"the techniquesof power exercised over sex have not obeyed
a principleof rigorous selection,but ratherone of disseminationand implantation
of polymorphoussexualities" (12). Presumablymembers of the same gender have
been copulating togetherfor uncounted centuries,but the invertand homosexual
were not inventeduntilthe ninteenthcentury.
14. I cite this phrase, spoken by Mr.JusticeWills to Oscar Wilde immediatelyafterthe
latter'sconvictionunder the Labouchfre Amendmentto the Criminal Law Amend-
mentAct of 1885, as an oblique referenceto the orificethatso threatenedthe hom-
ophobic Victorianimagination;thatWilde was neveraccused of anal intercourse(only
oral copulation and mutual masturbationwere charged against him) seems to me to
confirm,rather than to undermine this interpretationof the phrase. Wills'sentire
sentence reads: "And that you, Wilde, have been the centre of a circle of extensive
corruptionof the most hideous kind among young men, it is equally impossibleto
doubt"; quoted in H. MontgomeryHyde, The TrialsofOscarWilde(New York, 1962),
p. 272. The Labouchere Amendment,sometimescalled the blackmailer'scharter,
punished "any act of gross indecency"between males, whetherin public or private,
withtwo years'imprisonmentand hard labor. Symonds,Ellis,and Carpenter argued
strenuouslyfor the repeal of thislaw.
15. Symonds,A Problemin ModernEthics,p. 3.
16. Ibid., p. 84. To my knowledge, the earliest English instance of "inversion"in this
specificsense is the phrase "Inverted Sexual Proclivity"fromTheJournalofMental
Science(October, 1871), where it is used anonymouslyto translateCarl Westphal's
neologismdie contrdre Sexualempfindung, the term thatwould dominate German dis-
course on same gender eroticism.I have not yetbeen able to date preciselySymonds's
firstuse of "inversion."
17. Havelock Ellis, Sexual Inversion,volume 2 of Studiesin thePsychologyofSex (Philadel-
phia, 1906), p. 1.
18. This and the two subsequent quotations are fromSymonds'sModernEthics,pp. 86,
90, and 85 respectively.
19. Symonds'sletterto Carpenter,December 29, 1893, in The LettersofJohnAddington
Symonds, volume 3, eds. H. M. Shueller and R. L. Peters(Detroit, 1969), p. 799; also
quoted in Weeks,p. 54.
20. Ellis, SexualInversion,p. 182.
21. Symonds in Letters, volume 2, p. 169.
22. Ellis, quoted in Weeks,p. 92.
23. George Chauncey,Jr.,"From Sexual Inversion to Homosexuality:Medicine and the
Changing Conceptualization of Female Deviance," Salamagundi,58-59 (1982), pp.
114-146.
24. This bifurcationof woman is one of the text'smost evident features,as criticsof
Dracula have been quick to notice.See PhyllisRoth,"SuddenlySexual Womenin Brain
"Kiss Me with Those Red Lips" 13 1

Stoker'sDracula,"Literature 27 (1977), p. 117, and her full-lengthstudy
and Psychology,
BramStoker(Boston, 1982). Roth, in an argumentthat emphasizes the pre-Oedipal
element in Dracula, makes a similar point: ". . . one recognizes that Lucy and Mina
are essentiallythe same figure:the Mother. Dracula is, in fact,the same storytold
twicewithdifferentoutcomes" Perhaps the most extensivethematicanalysisof this
splitin Stoker'srepresentationof womenis Carol A. Senf's"Dracula:Stoker'sResponse
to the New Woman,"Victorian Studies,26 (1982), pp. 33-39, which sees thissplit as
Stoker's"ambivalentreactionto a topical phenomenon-the New Woman."
25. Maurice Richardson,"The Psychoanalysisof GhostStories,"TheTwentieth Century,166
(1959), p. 427-428.
26. On thispoint see Demetrakopoulos,p. 104.
27. In this instanceat least Van Helsing has an excuse for his ungrammaticalusage; in
Dutch, Van Helsing's nativetongue, the noun bijbel(Bible) is masculine.
28. John Stuart Mill, The Subjectionof Womenin Essayson Sex Equality,ed. Alice Rossi
(Chicago, 1970), p. 148.
29. Ibid., p. 187.
30. Susan Hardy Aiken,"Scriptureand PoeticDiscoursein TheSubjection ofWomen," PMLA,
98 (1983), p. 354.
31. Nina Auerbach, Womanand theDemon,(Cambridge, 1982), p. 11.
32. Roth, "Suddenly Sexual Women,"p. 116.
33. An adequate analysisof theideologicaland politicalimplicationsof the terminological
shiftfrom "inversion"to "homosexuality"is simplybeyond the scope of this essay,
and the problem is furthercomplicated by a certain imprecisionor fluidityin the
employmentby these writersof an already unstableterminology.Ellis used the word
"homosexuality"under protestand Carpenter,citingthe evidentbastardyof any term
compounded of one Greek and one Latin root, preferred the word "homogenic"
However, a provisional if oversimplifieddiscriminationbetween "inversion" and
"homosexuality"maybe useful: "true"sexual inversion,Ellis argued, consistsin "sex-
ual instinctturned byinbornconstitutional abnormalitytowardpersons of the same sex"
(Sexual Inversion,p. 1; italicsadded), whereas homosexualitymay referto same sex
eroticismgeneratedby spurious,circumstantial(fautede mieux),or intentionally perv-
erse causality.The pivotalissue here is willor choice: the "true"invert,whose "abnor-
mality"is biologicallydetermined and therefore"natural,"does not choose his/her
desire but is instead chosen by it; the latent or spurious homosexual, on the other
hand, does indeed choose a sexual object of the same gender. Such a taxonomic
distinction(or, perhaps better,confusion) representsa polemical and politicalcom-
promisethatallows,potentiallyat least,forthe medicalizationof congenitalinversion
and the criminalizationof willfulhomosexuality.I repeat the cautionthatmydescrip-
tion here entails a necessary oversimplification of a terminologicalmuddle. For a
more complete and particularanalysissee Chauncey,pp. 114-146; for the applica-
bilityof such a taxonomyto lesbian relationshipssee Ellis, SexualInversion,pp. 131-
141.
34. Chauncey,p. 132.
35. The symbolicinterchangeability of blood and semen in vampirismwas identifiedas
early as 1931 by ErnestJones in On TheNightmare (London, 1931), p. 119: "in the
unconscious mind blood is commonlyan equivalent forsemen....
36. Auerbach, p. 22.
37. Havelock Ellis,EroticSymbolism, volume 5 of Studiesin thePsychology ofSex (Philadel-
phia, 1906), p. 142.
132 REPRESENTATIONS
38. Ibid., 140.
39. Roth correctlyreads Lucy'scountenance at thismomentas "a thankyou note" forthe
correctivepenetration;"Suddenly Sexual Women,"p. 116.
40. C. E Bentley,"The Monster in the Bedroom: Sexual Symbolismin Brain Stoker's
Dracula,"Literature and Psychology,22 (1972), p. 30.
41. Stoker'sconfigurationof hypnotismand anaesthesia is not idiosyncratic.Ellis, for
instance,writingat exactly this time, conjoins hypnosis and anaesthesia as almost
identical phenomena and subsumes them under a single taxonomic category: "We
may use the term 'hypnoticphenomena' as a convenientexpression to include not
merelythe conditionof artificially-produced sleep, or hypnotismin the narrowsense
of the term,but all those groups of psychicphenomena which are characterizedby
a decreased controlof the highernervouscentres,and increased activityof the lower
centres."The qualitythatdeterminesmembershipin this"convenient"taxonomyis,
to put mattersbaldly,ap elvis pumped up by the "increased activityof the lower
centres'"Ellis,in an earlierfootnote,explains the antitheticalrelationshipbetweenthe
"higher" and "lower" centers: The persons best adapted to propagate the race are
those withthe large pelves,and as the pelvis is the seat of the greatcentresof sexual
emotion the developmentof the pelvis and its nervous and vascular supply involves
the greaterheighteningof the sexual emotions.At the same timethe greateractivity
of the cerebralcentresenables them to subordinateand utiliseto theirown ends the
increasinglyactive sexual emotions,so thatreproductionis checked and the balance
to some extent restored" The pelvic superiorityof women, necessitatedby an evo-
lutionaryimperative(betterbabies withbiggerheads require broader pelves),implies
a corresponding danger-an engorged and hypersensitivesexualitythat must be
actively"checked" by the "activityof the cerebral centres"so that "balance" may be
"to some extentrestored:"Hypnotismand anaesthesia threatenexactlythisdelicate
balance, and especiallyso in women because "the lower centresin women are more
rebelliousto controlthan thoseof men,and more readilybroughtintoaction."Anaes-
thesiology,it would seem, is not withoutits attendantdangers: "Thus chloroform,
ether,nitrousoxide, cocaine, and possiblyotheranaesthetics,possess the propertyof
excitingthe sexual emotions.Womenare especiallyliable to theseerotichallucinations
during anaesthesia, and it has sometimesbeen almost impossibleto convince them
thattheirsubjectivesensationshave had no objectivecause. Those who have to admin-
ister anaestheticsare well aware of the risks they may thus incur."Ellis's besieged
physician,like Stoker'smastermonsterand his monstermaster,stands here as a male
whose empowermentanxiouslyreflectsa prior endangerment.What if thiswoman's
lower centers should take the opportunity-to use another of Ellis's phrases-"of
indulgingin an orgy"?Dracula'skiss,Van Helsing'sneedle and stake,and Ellis's"higher
centres"all seek to modify,constrain,and controlthe articulationof femininedesire
(But, it mightbe counter-argued,Dracula comes preciselyto excitesuch an orgy,not
to constrainone. Yes, but withan importantqualification:Dracula's kiss,because it
authorizesonly repetitionsof itself,clearlyarticulatesthe destinyof femininedesire;
Lucy will only do what Dracula has done before.) Havelock Ellis, Man and Woman
(New York, 1904), pp. 299, 73, 316, and 313 respectively.I have used the fourth
edition; the firstedition appeared in England in 1895.
42. Sigmund Freud, TheEgo and theId (New York, 1960), pp. 44-45.
43. Leo Bersani, Baudelaireand Freud(Berkeley,1977), p. 92.
"Kiss Me with Those Red Lips" 133

"Kiss Me With Those Red Lips": Gender and Inversion in Bram Stoker's Dracula

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"Kiss Me With Those Red Lips": Gender and Inversion in Bram Stoker's Dracula

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CHRISTOPHER CRAFT

"Kiss Me withThose Red Lips": Gender

WHEN JOSEPH SHERIDAN LE FANU observed in Carmilla(1872)

REPRESENTATIONS 8 * Fall 1984 ? THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 107

Immobilizedby the competingimperativesof "wickeddesire" and "deadly fear,"

"Kiss Me withThose Red Lips" 109

Lowerand lowerwentherhead as thelipswentbelowtherangeof mymouthand chin

This moment,constitutingthe text'smostdirectand explicitrepresentationof a

"Kiss Me withThose Red Lips" 111

"Kiss Me withThose Red Lips" 113

"Kiss Me withThose Red Lips" 115

"Kiss Me withThose Red Lips" 117

"Kiss Me withThose Red Lips" 119

This rather pathetic hunt for the penis-in-absentiadenotes a double anxiety:

"Kiss Me withThose Red Lips" 12

Arthurtookthestakeand thehammer, and whenonce his mindwas seton action

Here, as evolutionaryteleologysupplants divine etiologyand as Darwin's texts

"Kiss Me withThose Red Lips" 123

This post-penetrativepeace39 denotes not merely the final immobilizationof

In thisinitiationscene Dracula compels Mina intothe pleasure of vampiricappe-

That "Oh, myGod, myGod!" is deftlyplaced: Mina'sverbalejaculationsupplants

"Kiss Me withThose Red Lips" 125

If my last sentence ends with an equivocation, it is because Dracula

It is so easy to rememberthe id as a risingenergy and the superego as a sup-

"Kiss Me withThose Red Lips" 127

"Kiss Me withThose Red Lips" 129

1. Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Carmilla,in TheBestGhostStoriesofJ.S. Le Fanu (New York,

"Kiss Me with Those Red Lips" 13 1

"Kiss Me with Those Red Lips" 133

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