Dracula’s Blood: (Sexual) Morality

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Blood is obviously a really prevalent and important symbol in Dracula. Not only is blood a staple for vampire novels, blood in Victorian society held a lot of meaning. In the late 19th century, there were scientific breakthroughs that linked blood to genetics. If blood could determine your genetic code, then it could theoretically determine everything: race, sexuality, morality, and sanity (Hollingsworth). When Bram Stoker created Dracula as a vampire, this monster was the pinnacle of every Victorian fear imaginable. Dracula needs human blood to survive. As he drains the other characters, he grows more powerful while they slowly start to lose their minds. However, Dracula also does have his own blood inside his body. If blood determines everything about a person, Dracula’s blood signals that he is inherently a villain with no hint of redemption. When other characters are forced to drink his blood, something within them changes that can only be undone by killing Dracula for good.

The Problem of Lucy

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If blood was so essential that it determined everything about a person, then a person being drained of blood would change everything about that person — not just their living status. Victorians believed that if a person lost blood, they were also losing their morality and sanity (Hollingsworth). This shows up with every point of view character that has been fed on, but none more so than Lucy.

Lucy is first introduced through her letters to Mina. Lucy has just been offered three marriage proposals by three separate men. She laments to Mina over how she wishes she could just choose all of the men under the guise of not wanting to insult any of them. However, based on how Lucy expresses affection for each of the men, it’s hard to believe that Lucy isn’t expressing a type of fantasy she has. Like Jonathan’s diary and letters to Mina show a formal restraint, Lucy’s descriptions of the men don’t delve into physical attraction. As Stoker continues to write Lucy, though, there are parallels between her initial sexual fantasies and the physical changes she undergoes throughout the story.

We’ve talked a lot in previous posts about how Victorian society viewed all forms of sexuality as evil. This actually has to do with the blood-as-genetics theory. Geared toward a male-dominated society, part of the theory was that a decrease in sperm led to a decrease in blood. This made all forms of sexuality, from masturbation to intercourse, immoral because in essence it depleted a person’s moral compass and sanity (Hollingsworth). When Lucy undergoes not one, not two, but four blood transfusions in the story, even the men who volunteered to save her have judgments reserved for the status of her morality.

Lucy is the first of Dracula’s prey in the main cast. She starts off as a kind, gentle woman who is clearly charming and attractive enough to get three men to propose to her. Though she does enjoy the attention, she ultimately decides to accept Arthur Holmwood’s proposal. As she is celebrating her engagement, she starts to feel like she can’t get enough sleep, and gradually deteriorates physically. By the time Dr. Seward and Van Helsing try giving her a blood transfusion, the damage has already been done.

Though blood transfusions were very morally conflicting for Victorians, Van Helsing and Dr. Seward decide to try anything to save Lucy because they know her body being drained of blood will not sustain her. Dr. Seward was also one of the men who was in love with Lucy. Both of the men, with Arthur Holmwood, and Quincey, another one of Lucy’s former suitors, all give their blood to her. Arthur, her fiancee, even sees this act as a way of marrying Lucy, depicting blood donation as an act of consummating a marriage. Van Helsing, using this same line of thinking, calls Lucy a “polyandrist.”

Even though the men tried to save Lucy, her body fails and she becomes a vampire. Devoid of her normal human blood, vampire Lucy is unapologetic with her sexuality, as well as her desire for blood. When the reader sees Lucy as a vampire, she is feeding off of a child, and throws the child aside as if she has no regard for anyone’s feelings. Then she tries to seduce Arthur with what Dr. Seward calls “voluptuous wantonness.” The main male cast has to kill vampire Lucy, and they don’t feel remorse because she has been wholly changed by Dracula’s blood.

Under Dracula’s influence, Lucy loses her sense of morality and sanity. Even with the help of the good men’s blood transfusions, it was too late for her. Her friend Mina does not share the same fate, though. Before diving into that, let’s explore why Stoker didn’t give Lucy as much of a chance for redemption.

Lucy enjoys the attention of three good men, and potentially had led each of them on until she has to make her final decision. She gets sick soon after her engagement, after committing to one man. This is because Dracula arrives and starts feeding on her. However, it is interesting that Lucy is portrayed as a good woman who seemed to fall victim to temptation, rather than die defending her morals. Did Dracula choose to feed on her because he found a kinship with her? Or was she an easy target because she did not perfectly fit into the conventions of morality at the time. Even when four different men give her blood transfusions, Van Helsing’s remarks of her “polyandry” put the blame entirely on her. After all, as was hinted earlier in the novel, Lucy enjoyed being in the center of a love square.

Mina, The Perfect Victim?

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Perhaps Dracula’s blood brought out the very worst inside of Lucy. However, does his blood affect every character the same?

Mina is the only one of Dracula’s captives or victims to not have repressed sexual desires. At the start of the novel, Mina appears to be the perfect Victorian woman. She is content with her engagement, she is not lusting after other men, and she is an overall kind woman and friend. Something that distinguishes Mina from Lucy, however, is her stark independence.

Mina is a schoolteacher, able to earn money on her own. Though Mina makes a few somewhat sarcastic comments about the “New Woman,” she exemplifies many of the traits of a New Woman herself. The New Woman was the name used to describe progressive women who wanted financial independence, as well as women who wanted to break conventional stereotypes, such as through sports and, of course, sexual liberation. Mina exemplifies the New Woman when it comes to financial independence. In fact, though Mina is always very complimentary of all the virtuous male characters in the story, she does not seem to depend on men within her personal life. The male characters also commend Mina for having a “man’s brain.” Even though the New Woman posed a threat to Victorian society, Stoker did leave some room for acceptance for women being able to have the same independent freedoms as men.

What is unquestionably bad throughout the novel is sexual immorality. When Dracula targets Mina, he is found forcing Mina’s head to his chest to drink his blood. Dracula’s usual mind tricks and temptations were not enough to sway Mina, so he assaults her in her bedroom. Dracula chose Mina as his next victim to pollute the virtuous Victorian woman. Unfortunately, to everyone’s horror, Mina is burned by the Holy Wafer. Though she is not a vampire yet, and her wits appear mostly unchanged, Mina’s body specifically is no longer pure. Her blood is now mixed with Dracula’s morally insane blood.

The parallel between Dracula force-feeding his blood and sexual assault is easy to draw. In a Victorian society, even if a woman was raped, she would still be considered “tainted” in some way. Only after Dracula is killed does her body and blood return to normal. In this way, Stoker was showing that the only way to keep a Victorian society pure was to destroy any chance of invasion, whether it be from a foreign race, or new ideas of sexual freedom.

Of course, it’s also possible that Bram Stoker wrote Dracula as just an entertaining scary story. Regardless of what Stoker intended, the influences from the time period are blatant in his work. Dracula’s physical attributes covered in this blog series represent the collective fears of race, sexuality, and sexual morality in Victorian society, and that is ultimately what makes him a terrifying villain.

Works Cited

Hollingsworth, Alexis. “Fear of Progress:” Medium, Medium, 9 Jan. 2019, medium.com/@lexiloulee/fear-of-progress-b42fc00c023a.

Stoker, Bram. “DRACULA.” The Project Gutenberg eBook of Dracula, by Bram Stoker, 1995, www.gutenberg.org/files/345/345-h/345-h.htm.