Braham Stoker's Dracula and The Distrust Between the Sexes

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Dracula and The Distrust Between the Sexes

"Unpleasant experiences with the opposite sex seem to be unavoidable" (Horney 342). This quote from Karen Horney's essay The Distrust Between the Sexes seems to be discussing Dracula. Though her essay, (a lecture originally given to the German's Women Medical Association in November 1930), does not mention Dracula directly, the points that she argued can be transposed onto Bram Stoker's Dracula. In her essay, Horney asserts that men are very concerned with self-preservation, and also that men have an innate fear of women in power positions and therefore do what they can to prevent women from obtaining "power positions,"; these two points are applicable to Dracula.

Karen Horney observes that "because of our instinct for self-preservation, we all have a natural fear of losing ourselves in another person" (340). This is evident in Dracula when Lucy knows that her "bad dreams" (Stoker 109) come at night so she has "the pain of sleeplessness, or the pain of the fear of sleep" (Stoker 132). She has the fear that if she sleeps Dracula will appear and cause her to "lose herself." Stoker's Dracula character defies Horney's above statement, presumably because he is not "human." He has "a heart that knew [sic] no fear and no remorse" (302). However, the self-preservation clause still applies. He was very adamant in his desire to study John Harker, in order that he could pass as a native Londoner. Harker realized his place in the Count's plan, while staying at the castle. Harker says "this was the being I was helping to transfer to London, where, he might, amongst its teeming millions, satiate his lust for blood, and create a new and ever widening circle of semi-demons to batten o...

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...e processes?" (348).

Though Dracula was written a full 30 years before Horney's essay, it is most fascinating re-analyzing the novel after having read the essay. We can see Horney's two assertions (that men are very concerned with self-preservation, and than men have an innate fear of women in power positions) come to life in Dracula. She even mentions "vampires" in her essay (343), but it is a different context; she's not referring to Stoker's novel. These two works, analyzed together, make a most engaging gothic classic that much more interesting.

Works Cited:

Horney, Karen. "The Distrust Between the Sexes." A World of Ideas: Essential Readings for College Writers. 5th ed. Ed. Lee A. Jacobus. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1998. 337-351.

Stoker, Bram. Dracula. (London: 1897) introduction by George Statde. New York: Bantam Books, 1981.

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