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Dracula 29
who want us (to eat us, to seduce us, to kill us). Despite the projections,
we should recall that almost all the on-stage killing is done by
the “good guys”: that of Lucy, the vampire women, and Dracula. The
projection of the wish to kill onto the vampires wears thinnest perhaps
when Dr. Seward, contemplating the condition of Lucy, asserts that
“had she then to be killed I could have done it with savage delight”
(236). Even earlier, when Dr. Seward is rejected by Lucy, he longs
for a cause with which to distract himself from the pain of rejection:
“Oh, Lucy, Lucy, I cannot be angry with you. . . . If I only could have
as strong a cause as my poor mad friend there [significantly, he refers
to Renfield]—a good, unselfish cause to make me work—that would
be indeed happiness” (84). Seward’s wish is immediately fulfilled by
Lucy’s vampirism and the subsequent need to destroy her. Obviously,
the acting out of such murderous impulses is threatening: in addition
to the defenses mentioned above, the use of religion not only to
exorcise the evil but to justify the murders is striking. In other words,
Christianity is on our side, we must be right. In this connection, it is
helpful to mention Wasson’s observation 19 of the significance of the
name “Lord Godalming” (the point is repeated). Additional justification
is provided by the murdered themselves: the peace into which
they subside is to be read as a thank you note. Correlated with the
religious defense is one described by Freud in Totem and Taboo in
which the violator of the taboo can avert disaster by Lady Macbethlike
compulsive rituals and renunciations. 20 The repeated use of the
Host, the complicated ritual of the slaying of the vampires, and the
ostensible, though not necessarily conscious, renunciation of sexuality
are the penance paid by those in Dracula who violate the taboos
against incest and the murder of parents.
Since we now see that Dracula acts out the repressed fantasies of
the others, since those others wish to do what he can do, we have no
difficulty in recognizing an identification with the aggressor on the
part of characters and reader alike. It is important, then, to see what
it is that Dracula is after.
The novel tells of two major episodes, the seduction of Lucy
and of Mina, to which the experience of Harker at Castle Dracula
provides a preface, a hero, one whose narrative encloses the others and
with whom, therefore, one might readily identify. This, however, is a
defense against the central identification of the novel with Dracula
and his attacks on the women. It is relevant in this context to observe