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Representations.
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Engendering Gender
gamewillbe toplayourmasculineagainstherfeminine.
Our strong
-Stoker, THE LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM
The portionof the gothicnovel thatI have called the prolonged mid-
dle, during which the text allows the monstera certain dangerous play,corre-
sponds in Dracula to the durationbeginningwiththe Count's arrivalin England
and endingwithhis flightback home; thisextended middleconstitutesthenovel's
prolonged momentof equivocation,as itentertains,elaborates,and explores the
very anxieties it must later expel in the formulaicresolutionof the plot. The
actionwithinthissectionofDracula consists,simplyenough, in an extended battle
between two evidentlymasculine forces,one identifiablygood and the other
identifiably evil,forthe allegiance of a woman (two women actually-Lucy Wes-
tenra and Mina Harker nee Murray).24This competitionbetween alternative
potencies has the apparent simplicityof a black and whiteopposition. Dracula
ravages and impoverishesthese women, Van Helsing's Crew of Light restores
and "saves"them.As Dracula conductshis serialassaultsupon Lucy,Van Helsing,
in a prettycounterpointof penetration,respondswitha seriesof defensivetrans-
fusions; the blood that Dracula takes out Van Helsing then puts back. Dracula,
isolated and disdainfulof community, worksalone; Van Helsing entersthislittle
English community,immediatelyassumes authority,and then works through
surrogates to cement communal bonds. As criticshave noted, this pattern of
opposition distillsreadilyinto a competitionbetween antitheticalfathers."The
vampireCount, centuriesold," Maurice Richardsonwrotetwenty-five yearsago,
"is a fatherfigureof huge potency"who competes withVan Helsing, "the good
fatherfigure."25 The theme of alternatepaternitiesis, in short,simple,evident,
unavoidable.
This oscillationbetweenvampirictransgressionand medical correctionexer-
cises the text'sambivalencetowardthose fundamentaldualisms-life and death,
spiritand flesh,male and female-which have served traditionallyto constrain
and delimit the excursions of desire. As doctor,lawyer,and sometimespriest
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Here is the novel's real-and the woman's only-climax, its most violent and
misogynisticmoment,displaced roughlyto the middle of the book, so that the
sexual threatmay be repeated but its ultimatesuccess denied: Dracula will not
win Mina, second in his series of English seductions.The murderousphallicism
of thispassage clearlypunishes Lucy forher transgressionof Van Helsing'sgen-
der code, as she finallyreceives a penetrationadequate to insure her future
quiescence. Violence against the sexual woman here is intense,sensuallyimag-
ined, ferociousin its detail. Note, for instance,the terribledimple, the "dint in
the whiteflesh,"thatrecallsJonathanHarker'sswoon at Castle Dracula ("I could
feel ... the hard dents of the two sharp teeth,just touchingand pausing there")
and anticipatesthe technicolorconsummationof the next paragraph. That para-
graph,maskingmurderas "highduty,"completesVan Helsing'spenetrativether-
apy by "drivingdeeper and deeper the mercy-bearingstake."One mightquestion
a mercythisdestructive,thisfatal,but Van Helsing'sactions,alwayssanctifiedby
the patriarchaltextualtraditionsignifiedby "his missal,"manage to "restoreLucy
to us as a holy and not an unholy memory"(258). This enthusiasticcorrection
of Lucy's monstrosityprovides the Crew of Light witha double reassurance: it
effectivelyexorcises the threatof a mobile and hungering femininesexuality,
and it countersthe homoeroticismlatentin the vampiricthreatby reinscribing
(upon Lucy's chest) the line dividing the male who penetratesand the woman
who receives. By discipliningLucy and restoringeach gender to its "proper"
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A Final Dissolution
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And:
Fromthepointofviewofinstinctual control,ofmorality,itmaybe saidoftheid that
itis totally of theego thatitstrivesto be moral,and of thesuper-egothatit
non-moral,
can be supermoraland thenbecomeas cruelas onlytheid can be.42
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Notes
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