ENGLISH: Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Englishness under threat
By Ruchira Webb
‘Socialism itself will be of value simply because it will lead to Individualism’ (Oscar Wilde). How does any one or more texts studied represent transformative change?
Published in 1897, Bram Stoker’s Dracula was written at a time of anxiety regarding a changing national identity. I argue that in Dracula, Stoker captures this fear of transformation and maps it onto the monstrous figure of the Transylvanian vampire. Dracula’s invasion of England from the East is demonstrative of fears surrounding immigration and the integration of immigrants into English life. While the vampire hunters attempt to maintain Western borders, Dracula’s attempts to fully blend in with English society calls contemporary conceptions of ‘Englishness’ into question. Additionally, his desire to propagate a vampire race in England acts as a threat to the ‘purity’ of the British protagonists. In this way, the vampiric transformation acts as a symbol for a transformation in English national identity and culture.
In Dracula, Stoker sets up Western civilisation in opposition to an Eastern ‘barbarism’, demonstrating a resistance to any transformation of Western ideals. The first section of the novel is told through the form of Jonathan Harker’s journal entries as he begins his travels into Transylvania, “leaving the West and entering the East” (Stoker, 7). This immediate binary of “West” and “East” creates a border between the two, indicating that for Harker, this is an expedition into the unknown. Stoker reinforces the differences between Western and Eastern society through Jonathan’s travelogue-like journal entries. His observations of the people he encounters are akin to descriptions of a different species. He pronounces the Slovaks “barbaric” yet “harmless” (9), dismissing the Transylvanians’ superstitions as “ridiculous” and “idolatrous” (11) and wondering “what kind of people” he was among (21). The phrasing of Jonathan’s observations continually isolate the Eastern “kind of people” from the West, implying that they are primitive and undeveloped in comparison. Dracula, too, reinforces this boundary between East and West, reminding Jonathan that “Transylvania is not England. Our ways are not your ways” (28). Stoker constantly draws a distinct boundary between Transylvania and England. Stephen Arata suggests that “the [Victorian] travel narrative concerns itself with boundaries - both with maintaining and with transgressing them” (626). Stoker illustrates the maintenance of these boundaries through Jonathan’s unfamiliarity with Transylvania and the difference in their ways of life. While Dracula’s knowledge of England is a transgression of this boundary, Jonathan reacts “with great delight” to his preoccupation with “England and English life and customs and manners” (26). This is suggestive of imperial ideology – while Jonathan belittles the Transylvanians for their own customs and beliefs, Dracula’s willingness to take on the English language and customs seems to elevate him above the rest of the population, making him impressive rather than “ridiculous” to Jonathan. Stoker therefore demonstrates the imperial mindset that English transformation of Eastern countries was inherently beneficial.
However, while England is allowed to transgress borders into Transylvania, any reciprocal transgression is treated with horror. The presence of Dracula in London is a threat in that he is not immediately identifiable as a foreigner; though Mina owns that he does not have “a good face” (183), he is still ultimately another “dark figure” (184) in London, indistinguishable from the masses. While Jonathan’s travelogue-journal entries draw clear distinctions between Western and Eastern people, separating them by mode of dress, accent and customs, Dracula in London is indistinguishable from other Englishmen. The realisation of Dracula’s aim to be “like the rest” (27) of Englishmen means that he is able to imperceptibly transgress the border from East to West and, in doing so, blurs the clear boundary setting the two apart. Consequently, Dracula’s ability to blend in once in London is representative of a potential transformation in the identity of the Englishman, demanding that the definition of what an Englishman looks like shifts to either include or exclude Dracula. This potential transformation reveals imperial hypocrisy, as while Stoker demonstrates that the infiltration of Englishness into Transylvania is positive, the idea of the Transylvanian ‘Other’ becoming fully integrated into English life (thereby transforming the meaning of ‘Englishness’) is a source of discomfort. Christopher Eaton pushes back at this idea, insisting that “cultural assimilation is usually admired and encouraged, especially in the early conversations between Dracula and Harker” (12). However, Eaton fails to distinguish that this “cultural assimilation” is only admired while Dracula remains in Transylvania, and that once he has crossed the cultural border into England, Jonathan sees it as his duty to “unmask him and hunt him out” (Stoker, 200), revealing him as ‘Other’. The idea of “unmasking” Dracula directly implies that he is in disguise, but beyond appearing younger, Dracula undergoes no physical changes, merely disguising his foreignness and ‘transforming’ into an Englishman. Therefore, the threat that Jonathan perceives here is the idea of Dracula blending in as native to England. While Eaton posits that the involvement of Van Helsing and Morris “dispels notions of xenophobia” (15) in the narrative, they serve a very different narrative role to Dracula: both are Western, and Stoker also writes both with a strong accent, marking them out as foreigners. Since both are openly foreign, no ‘transformation’ of English identity occurs, as they do not attempt to fully blend in with the native English population. Stoker therefore presents the threat of transformation as not inherent to immigration, but as becoming a threat when the ‘Other’ is indistinguishable from locals. In this way, the colonial interest in maintaining borders is highlighted. While these borders remain intact, the colonial education of supposedly underdeveloped countries is desirable, but when these borders collapse, they threaten to disturb and transform the understanding of English identity.
Dracula’s transformational threat to English society acts as a form of what Carol Senf refers to as “reverse colonisation”, or “the threat of the primitive trying to colonise the civilised world” (164). This is best demonstrated through Dracula’s attempt to transform others into vampires. The language that Jonathan uses to describe the idea of this vampiric colonisation – such as the fear of an “ever-widening circle of semi-demons” (Stoker, 60) – echoes the language used to describe the racial Other in Victorian England. Rudyard Kipling, for example, discusses “half-devil” (line 8) subjugated peoples in ‘The White Man’s Burden’. This gives the impression that the threat of the foreigner in England lies in the fear of the cultivation of a different race. The racialised language used to describe the “vampire kind” (254) contributes to this impression of vampirism as a representation of race ‘pollution’. Stoker literalises this racial pollution through the danger that Dracula poses to English blood. Arata explores how, since blood is used to symbolise racial identity, Dracula deracialises his victims and “they receive a new racial identity, one that marks them as literally ‘Other’” (630). In draining his victims of their English blood, Dracula undermines their English identity, and therefore the transformation to vampirism acts as a race transformation. Monika Tomaszweska points out the significance of the order in which Lucy’s blood transfusions occur, “as during the first transfusion Lucy is given the aristocratic blood of Lord Godalming” (5), then English blood from Seward, then Dutch blood from Van Helsing and American blood from Morris, before finally transforming into a vampire. This is, as Tomaszweska says, representative of “the gradual decline of the host race” (5). Arthur’s English, aristocratic blood is described as “so pure” (Stoker, 133) that Van Helsing can perform the transfusion to Lucy immediately and without treating the blood further. This implies that Arthur’s blood – and therefore the stock he comes from – is of the highest ‘quality’, and that Lucy, as a bastion of purity, matches this. The ‘degradation’ of the wealth and Englishness associated with the blood transfusions is therefore a representation of the ‘quality’ of Lucy’s English blood breaking down. As a result of Dracula’s invasion efforts, Lucy’s English blood gradually becomes more and more diluted, before ultimately being fully transplanted by the vampire race. This completes Dracula’s colonisation of Lucy’s body. The vampire hunters also discuss Dracula using colonial terminology, describing his scheme as a way to “invade a new land” (Stoker, 363). In this way, as Senf points out, Dracula acts as a colonial force against England, conquering the territory and transforming the racial identities of the people.
This reverse-colonialism is furthered through the threat that Dracula poses to the English ‘way of life’ that Lucy and the Harkers live by. Dracula is presented as an archaic invader, hailing from a different age in ‘primitive’ Transylvania. Stoker also shows the vampire hunters as firmly rooted in the modern world, setting up Transylvanian and Western values in opposition to each other. From the outset of the novel, Jonathan’s commentary on how “the further East you go the more unpunctual are the trains” (8) establishes Western modernity against Eastern society. Dracula’s age and immortality differentiate him further from the modern, Western protagonists: he exists outside of modernity, instead inhabiting prehistory. This is reflected in the methods of vampire-hunting that the protagonists must take on. The treatments that Seward and Van Helsing first administer to Lucy – their “qualitative analysis” (122) of her blood, the transfusions and narcotics – are a demonstration of scientific and technological modernity. Van Helsing even explains to Arthur what a transfusion is (132), highlighting it as a current advancement. However, since Dracula exists entirely outside the sphere of the “scientific, matter-of-fact nineteenth century” (254), these modern advancements are powerless against him. Consequently, “all that [the protagonists] have to go upon are traditions and superstitions” (254). Jonathan’s earlier observations as to the superiority of modernity over “idolatrous” Transylvanian superstition are rendered meaningless. This triumph of superstition over science forces the protagonists to abandon the modernity that they so prize and take on Dracula’s language of superstition and myth instead. This acts as a form of reverse colonialism in that the vampire-hunters must undergo a cultural transformation in regards to the way they combat Dracula, forgoing all their modern technology in favour of the garlic and crucifixes that define the world Dracula inhabits. The very fact of Dracula’s arrival in contemporary London threatens to destabilise Western modernity, as this signifies a covert transfer of Transylvanian values into England.
Edward Said contends that nineteenth-century Western society drew parallels “between the Orient and the freedom of licentious sex” (213). I argue that this attitude is similarly demonstrated through the Eastern European ‘Other’. Stoker consistently shows the vampires as being sexually aggressive, and this aggression has a transformative, corruptive potential. When Dracula attacks Mina, he rips open his shirt and “opened a vein in his breast” (307) with just his nails in a startling display of aggressive hypermasculinity, before compelling Mina to drink. Though Senf argues that Mina “did not want to prevent his advances” (163), Mina’s own account of her “mortal peril” (Stoker, 307) is more suggestive of sexual assault. Stoker’s use of the word “pollution” (307) to describe Mina’s ordeal insinuates that, through Dracula’s invasion of her body, she has been in some way transformed. Similarly, the “deliberate voluptuousness” (Stoker, 45) of the vampire sisters, too, sparks “a wicked, burning desire” (45) in Jonathan. This sexual aggression is presented as almost contagious, posing a danger to the protagonists through the threat of transforming them into ‘sexual deviants’ too. When Lucy is converted to vampirism, her “sweet purity” (228) is transformed into “voluptuous wantonness” (225), and she calls out to Arthur, attempting to corrupt or transform him too. The sexually promiscuous ‘Other’ therefore poses a threat to Western society, threatening a transformation from purity to “unspiritual” (228) sexuality. Dracula and vampirism therefore invade both English land and English bodies, threatening to transform others through the transferral of the perverse sexuality associated with vampirism.
Stoker’s Dracula presents transformative change as something fundamentally dangerous, threatening to upset the status quo. To preserve the status quo, the protagonists must preserve the Western border, because Dracula, as the Eastern European ‘Other’, undermines the very definition of ‘Englishness’ through his invasion of England. The change undergone through vampirism is reflective of nineteenth-century beliefs about the ‘purity’ of Othered racial groups, and so the transformation into a vampire is dangerous both racially and culturally.
Works cited
Arata, Stephen D. “The Occidental Tourist: ‘Dracula’ and the Anxiety of Reverse Colonisation.” Victorian Studies 33.4 (1990): 621-645.
Eaton, Christopher. “Enemies or Allies? Fear, Terror and Xenophobia in Dracula.” Journal of Dracula Studies 19.1 (2017): 5-24.
Halsall, Paul. “Modern History Sourcebook: Rudyard Kipling, The White Man’s Burden, 1899”. Internet History Sourcebooks. Fordham University. 1996. Web. Date Accessed 01/ 03/ 2023.
Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books, 1979.
Senf, Carol. “‘Dracula’: The Unseen Face in the Mirror.” The Journal of Narrative Technique 9.3 (1979): 160-170.
Stoker, Bram. Dracula. London: Penguin Books, 2003.
Tomaszweska, Maria. “Vampirism and the Degeneration of the Imperial Race – Stoker’s Dracula as the Invasive Degenerate Other.” Journal of Dracula Studies 6.1 (2004): 1-8.
