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Dracula 27
be “voluptuous,” yet she must have been so long before, judging
from her effect on men and from Mina’s descriptions of her. (Mina,
herself, never suffers the fate of voluptuousness before or after being
bitten, for reasons which will become apparent later.) Clearly, then,
vampirism is associated not only with death, immortality and orality;
it is equivalent to sexuality. 11
Moreover, in psychoanalytic terms, the vampirism is a disguise for
greatly desired and equally strongly feared fantasies. These fantasies, as
stated, have encouraged critics to point to the Oedipus complex at the
center of the novel. Dracula, for example, is seen as the “father-figure
of huge potency.” 12 Royce MacGillwray remarks that:
Dracula even aspires to be, in a sense, the father of the band
that is pursuing him. Because he intends, as he tells them,
to turn them all into vampires, he will be their creator and
therefore “father.” 13
The major focus of the novel, in this analysis, is the battle of the
sons against the father to release the desired woman, the mother, she
whom it is felt originally belonged to the son till the father seduced
her away. Richardson comments:
the set-up reminds one rather of the primal horde as pictured
somewhat fantastically perhaps by Freud in Totem and Taboo,
with the brothers banding together against the father who has
tried to keep all the females to himself. 14
The Oedipal rivalry is not, however, merely a matter of the Van Helsing
group in which, as Richardson says, “Van Helsing represents the good
father figure” 15 pitted against the Big Daddy, Dracula. Rather, from
the novel’s beginning, a marked rivalry among the men is evident.
This rivalry is defended against by the constant, almost obsessive,
assertion of the value of friendship and agape among members of
the Van Helsing group. Specifically, the defense of overcompensation
is employed, most often by Van Helsing in his assertions of esteem
for Dr. Seward and his friends. The others, too, repeat expressions of
mutual affection ad nauseum: they clearly protest too much. Perhaps
this is most obviously symbolized, and unintentionally exposed, by
the blood transfusions from Arthur, Seward, Quincey Morris, and