Vampiric Relations: An Argument on Gender Paradigms

In late nineteenth century Europe, Vampirism became an increasingly popular theme in Gothic novels. While Bram Stoker’s Dracula is by far the most popular from this time, it is neither the first nor the most progressive of its kind. In fact, in 1872, J. Sheridan Le Fanu published “Carmilla”, a short story featuring a female vampire that preys upon young women. This progressive story shows many scenes of homosexual exchange between Carmilla and the protagonist, Laura. Their relationship is meant to symbolize a new paradigm, where men no longer control the exchange of women. While it is often argued that Stoker’s Dracula denies Le Fanu’s paradigm and suggests a return to the previous male dominant system, this may not be entirely accurate. In reality, Stoker suggests a new, terrifying paradigm that allows men to succeed despite their feminine characteristics, while women are brutally punished for poor behaviour, and rewarded only when they possess male characteristics.

Firstly, the portrayals of male characters differ greatly in the two works. In Carmilla, the men are displayed as powerless, unintelligent individuals that are incapable of realizing Carmilla’s power. For example, after Carmilla first attacks Laura in what she assumes is a nightmare, her father calms his daughter, “patting [her] on the shoulder, and kissing [her] and telling [her] not to be frightened, that it was nothing but a dream and could not hurt [her]” (Le Fanu, p.75). This shows her father’s passivity and naiveté, and foreshadows his lack of comprehension of what is actually happening around him. Her father also “enjoyed the picturesque [view], [while Laura] stood looking in silence over the expanse beneath [them]” (p. 78.) This passage shows the gender rever...

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...females, and Mina, who is good only because of her masculine mind, Stoker uses a strict and dominantly patriarchal paradigm where men have freedom to be feminine, but women have freedom only in their masculinity to argue against Le Fanu. Stoker’s argument denies the possibility of the matriarchal paradigm in which women have more power that is suggested in “Carmilla” in order to maintain a male dominant paradigm not only in literature, but in the society of the time.

Works Cited:

Le Fanu, Sheridan. J. “Carmilla”. The Penguin Book of Vampire Stories. New York: Penguin,

1987. Print

Signorotti, Elizabeth. “Repossessing the body: Transgressive Desire in “Carmilla” and Dracula.

Criticism, a quarterly for literature and the arts Volume XXXVIIII, Number 4. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1996. Print.

Stoker, Bram. Dracula. England: Penguin Classics, 1897.