DRACULA CRITICS

ARATA occidential tourist

reverse colonisation

said - orietalism

west exotices the other and the east

how would a queer theorist see harkr;s digust at dracula’s deisre to feat on his body

harker has a fear of homosexuality

arata’s kiss me with those red lips -

fear of homosexual urge

gail griffins

‘underlying misogyn’ as the ‘real heart of dracula’

morretti - dracula and capitalism

women defined by matieral circumstances and economic status rather than gender

suddenly sexual women in dracula - roth

‘for the victorians and twenty century readers, much of the novel’s great appeal derives from its hostility towards female sexuality

feminist interpreation of violence on lucy

sybmilic of misogtn which derives patriachary, punishment for unregulated secualuty

bentley 1992 says that attack on lucy is symbolic of

gang rape

gender inversion in craft kiss me with those red kips

relation between the vampire and bodily fluids

a disease wtih a bite: vampirism and infedction theories in bram stokers dracula - dang

diease and infection - hsitorial and medical context

in return of the repressed/oppressed halten

dracula must be destroyed as he embodies the other

technoloiges of monstrosity - halberstam

vampire and jew are realted

empire and colonisation - context

fin-de-siècle fears: concerns about national degeneration, racial mixing, and loss of control,

"civilised" West

interest in and fear of immigration

Colonial guilt was starting to seep into British culture

Changing Role of Women

Sarah Grand and Mona Caird

legal changes that began improving women's status, like the Married Women’s Property Acts (1870 and 1882), which allowed women to own and control property.

New Woman”

Sexuality was becoming more openly discussed

angel of the house patmore

Gender and Sexuality – Context

• Victorian society had strict gender roles: men = rational and dominant; women = pure, passive, and domestic.

• The "New Woman" challenged traditional roles by being educated, independent, and sexually aware — this caused cultural anxiety.

• Female sexuality was heavily repressed in public but feared and fixated on privately; sexually liberated women were seen as dangerous.

• Lucy’s transformation into a vampire symbolises fear of female sexual desire and loss of innocence — she becomes "voluptuous" and predatory.

• Mina balances modern traits (intelligence, typing, reason) with traditional values (loyalty, motherhood), showing tension between change and control.

• Rise of homosexual panic in the 1890s (e.g. Oscar Wilde’s trial, 1895) contributed to fears about non-heteronormative desire.

• Dracula’s interactions with Harker contain homoerotic undertones, reflecting Victorian anxieties about male sexuality and masculinity.

• The novel uses horror as a metaphor for gender nonconformity and repressed sexual fears in late Victorian society.

disease and infection context

• The late 19th century was a time of medical advancement but also deep anxiety about disease. Germ theory was becoming accepted, but many diseases (like tuberculosis and syphilis) still had no cure and were widespread.

• Infection was linked to moral panic — people often viewed disease as a punishment for immorality or sexual transgression, especially with diseases like syphilis, which carried heavy stigma.

• Vampirism in Dracula acts as a metaphor for contagious disease. Dracula spreads his condition through the exchange of blood — echoing real-world fears about how disease passes from body to body.

• The novel reflects concern about bodily contamination, especially from foreign sources. Dracula, an Eastern European figure, infecting English women plays into anxieties about immigration, invasion, and degeneration.

• Blood transfusion, a new and experimental medical practice at the time, is featured in the novel but carries disturbing undertones — especially with Lucy receiving blood from multiple men, suggesting blurred boundaries and anxieties about sexual and biological mixing.

• Madness and illness were also poorly understood. Renfield’s mental illness and Seward’s psychological studies reflect how medicine tried to "explain" the abnormal — while still fearing it.

• The idea of a hidden infection — something invisible and spreading quietly — fits with fin-de-siècle fears about social, moral, and physical decline.

what does serf say

dracula is a primarily sexual threat, missionary of human desire whose only true kingdom will be the human body

what does roth say about women

‘suddenly sexual women’

what does roth say about female sexuality

‘much of the novel’s great appeal derives from its hostility towards female sexuality

watson

“warn the 20th century of the dangers it faces”

weissman

‘fight to destroy dracula and restore mina to her purity is really the fight for control over women

arata quote on reverse colonsation

‘anxiety of reverse colonisation’

hatlan

he is everything that was socially ‘other’

arata on social

‘continualy calls our attention to the cultural surrounding and informing the texts and insists that we take context into account