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Bram Stoker
published perceive Dracula as the consistent success it has been
because, in the words of Royce MacGillwray, “Such a myth lives
not merely because it has been skillfully marketed by entrepreneurs
[primarily the movie industry] but because it expresses something
that large numbers of readers feel to be true about their own lives.” 1
In other words, Dracula successfully manages a fantasy which is
congruent with a fundamental fantasy shared by many others. Several
of the interpretations of Dracula either explicitly or implicitly indicate,
that this “core fantasy” 2 derives from the Oedipus complex—indeed,
Maurice Richardson calls Dracula “a quite blatant demonstration of
the Oedipus complex . . . a kind of incestuous, necrophilous, oralanal-sadistic
all-in wrestling match” 3 and this reading would seem to
be valid.
Nevertheless, the Oedipus complex and the critics’ use of it does
not go far enough in explaining the novel: in explaining what I see to
be the primary focus of the fantasy content and in explaining what
allows Stoker and, vicariously, his readers, to act out what are essentially
threatening, even horrifying wishes which must engage the most
polarized of ambivalences. I propose, in the following, to summarize
the interpretations to date, to indicate the pre-Oedipal focus of the
fantasies, specifically the child’s relation with and hostility toward the
mother, and to indicate how the novel’s fantasies are managed in such
a way as to transform horror into pleasure. Moreover, I would emphasize
that for both the Victorians and twentieth century readers, much
of the novel’s great appeal derives from its hostility toward female
sexuality. In “Fictional Convention and Sex in Dracula,” Carrol Fry
observes that the female vampires are equivalent to the fallen women
of eighteenth and nineteenth century fiction. 4
The facile and stereotypical dichotomy between the dark woman
and the fair, the fallen and the idealized, is obvious in Dracula.
Indeed, among the more gratuitous passages in the novel are those
in which the “New Woman” who is sexually aggressive is verbally
assaulted. Mina Harker remarks that such a woman, whom she holds
in contempt, “will do the proposing herself.” 5 Additionally, we must
compare Van Helsing’s hope “that there are good women still left to
make life happy” (207) with Mina’s assertion that “the world seems
full of good men—even if there are monsters in it” (250). A remarkable
contrast! 6