Fatal Attraction in Bram Stoker's Dracula

In Bram Stoker's Dracula, vampires are presented as a terrifying force of evil that must be conquered at all costs. Despite this, many characters in the book, including Lucy, Mina, Jonathan, Renfield, and even Van Helsing, briefly feel intense attractions to Dracula and other vampires. In modern society, the attraction and fascination with vampires has grown, resulting in a slew of vampire books, movies, and television shows. There are even growing numbers of individuals who want to be, or believe that they are, vampires. Both in Dracula and in modern society, this fascination with vampires, in spite of their assumedly malevolent nature, results from a desire for freedom, power, and intimacy, which overcomes the fear of evil or of the unknown.

The word vampire, applied to different time periods and authors, can have vastly different meanings, and these variations in meaning affect the relationship that humans have to vampires. According to Auerbach in her book Our Vampires, Ourselves, vampires in the early 19th century were gentlemanly, ghost-like, and might not even have consumed blood. Auerbach states that the 19th century vampire was "a compelling contemporary and glamorous traveling companion, not - as Count Dracula will be to Jonathan Harker - a repulsive old man" (13). Auerbach's point is well made, as Byron's Darvell and Stoker's Dracula are worlds apart. Byron's Darvell becomes a friend to the narrator, and presumably does not feed on him, while Stoker's Dracula is an unquestioned evil who intends to kill or transform most of the other characters in the book. With Dracula also comes the idea of a "vampire hunter," a man (or sometimes a woman) who knows the weaknesses of a vampire and uses those weaknesses (such as garlic, daylight, or wooden stakes) to destroy it. Later vampires, such as Anne Rice's Lestat, undergo another major change, becoming, according to Williamson, "morally ambiguous characters, whose sympathetic construction is steeped in pathos" (102). The modern vampire, as played by Brad Pitt, is a sexy, emotionally complex, and exciting figure who exists in stark contrast to Bela Lugosi's portrayal of Dracula. It is the modern vampire, especially, with its new abilities and its blatant sexuality, which dominates the vampire subculture of the new millennium.

Today, it could be said that vampires are everywhere. There is an ever-growing group of individuals who are fascinated by vampires and vampire culture, and who are willing to go to great lengths to become a part of that culture. Keyworth, in his article "The Socio-Religious Beliefs and Nature of the Contemporary Vampire Subculture," states that there is a "Vampire subculture which consists of individuals who profess to be 'real vampires', vampire communities of like-minded persons, 'blood donors' who willingly allow vampires to partake of them . . .

In our modern society, which has subcultures for everything from Star Trek to the Civil War, it is not terribly surprising that vampire subculture is thriving. What does make this surprising is that vampires, unlike characters from Star Trek or Civil War heroes, are almost unanimously considered to be a force for evil. Why, then, are people so fascinated by them? According to Keyworth, the fascination with vampires can be traced to the troubles of a generation, specifically the "malaise and confusion, feelings of abandonment and loneliness, a sense of hopelessness and the need to be 'somebody'" (356) which have affected Generation X. Modern vampires, such as those presented by Anne Rice, encounter many of the same problems and conditions, which is one reason that so many people identify with vampires. Perhaps the most important factor about the modern fictional vampire that draws people to it is the fact that the modern vampire triumphs over many of the same problems that we all face daily. By becoming a vampire, an individual gains "a heightened sense of self-esteem . . . the strength to overcome adversity and circumstances . . . a sense of community and camaraderie . . . and credence to the notion of being an outsider and social outcast" (Keyworth 356). In short, aligning oneself with vampires allows individuals to obtain freedom, power, and intimacy that they may not have in their own lives.

Throughout the past few centuries, people have been alternately fascinated with and repulsed by vampires. Byron's Darvell certainly seems likeable enough, as does Angel from the television show Buffy. Readers of Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles often fervently wish that they could step into the world that Rice portrays. While it is easily possible to see why individuals would be attracted to a vampire with sex appeal, or one who belongs to an unbreakable and loving coven, readers and viewers have been fascinated with vampires since they first appeared in literature, and so these new positive spins on the vampire must not be the sole cause for the attraction. Even when the vampire in question is repulsive, as in the case of Dracula, readers continue to be enthralled. Because of this, it is fitting, in the course of studying the fascination with vampires, to focus on Bram Stoker's Dracula, if only to achieve a sort of baseline in which the positive characteristics that might draw a reader are at a minimum.

Perhaps the most powerful example of attraction in Dracula is the case of Renfield. Renfield, a mental patient under the care of Dr. Seward, is a willing devotee of Dracula who shows a desire to consume blood. Dr. Seward, upon examining Renfield, says that he must "call him a zoophagous (life-eating) maniac; what he desires is to absorb as many lives as he can" (Stoker 92). This description shows that Renfield and Dracula are both possessed of a similar attribute: the desire to consume life. Whether this desire in Renfield is produced by his attraction to Dracula or whether the attraction was produced by similar likes and wants is unclear. However, Renfield's attraction to Dracula is undeniable. After his first escape, Renfield shouts to Dracula "I am here to do Your bidding, Master. I am Your slave, and You will reward me, for I shall be faithful. I have worshipped You long and afar off" (Stoker 121). These are not just the words of a man who is drawn by Dracula, these are the words of a man who is so obsessed that he will give up anything. Renfield, while talking to Dr. Seward, says that he is like Enoch from the Bible, and when Dr. Seward asks Renfield why he believes that this is so, Renfield replies "Because he walked with God" (Stoker 271). Renfield cannot possibly hope to align himself with anyone greater than a God figure. Renfield hopes, by clinging to Dracula's coattails, to gain some measure of power, as well as freedom both literal and metaphorical.

Possibly the most famous line in Stoker's Dracula comes from Renfield and is on the subject of life and power. Renfield bursts into Dr. Seward's study, manages to cut him with a dinner knife, and then begins licking the blood that falls on the floor. While doing so, he repeats the phrase "The blood is the life" (Stoker 155). Clearly, there can be no power greater than power over life, and Renfield believes that he is consuming life by drinking Dr. Seward's blood. This has been his goal all along, even while he was consuming spiders and flies. Renfield was attempting to consume as many lives as possible, but his ultimate desire is to join Dracula in his consumption of life through blood. Another instance in which blood is shown to be directly related to life is in the case of Lucy after she is first attacked by Dracula. Because of the blood that Dracula has drained from Lucy, and possibly even because of her own growing vampiric tendencies, Lucy needs a blood transfusion. Van Helsing says of Lucy that "She wants blood, and blood she must have or die." Blood, in this case, literally equals life. In fact, Dr Seward remarks that "as the transfusion went on something like life seemed to come back to poor Lucy's cheeks" (Stoker 138). This transmutation, in the case of both Lucy and Renfield (as well as in the case of Dracula and the Draculettes) of blood into life is interesting in and of itself, but become impossible to ignore when one is considering the factor of fascination in Dracula.

Lucy, just like Renfield, eventually finds herself fascinated with Dracula. Mina awakes in the middle of the night to find "Lucy trying to get out. She seemed, even in her sleep, to be a little impatient at finding the door shut, and went back to bed under a sort of protest" (Stoker 113). Lucy is drawn to Dracula, despite being in the happiest days of her life (due to her impending marriage) likely because of the freedom that he offers. It is no coincidence that Dracula "attacks" Lucy outside, on a hill. It is also no surprise that Lucy must be kept locked in her room by Mina. These are all signs of Lucy's imprisonment, which she hopes (possibly subconsciously) to escape by joining with Dracula, who, as a new and secretive figure, firmly holds her attention As Bartlett says in Legends of Blood "All that is different from us . . . is frightening, and, at the same time, fascinating. . . . we find it impossible to escape the 'fatal attraction' of all that has not been tamed into our frames of thought" (Bartlett 150). Lucy is certainly fascinated with the unknown and with the taboo, and even asks fervently, before she ever encounters Dracula, "Why can't they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble?" (Stoker 80). After she becomes a vampire, Lucy could very easily "marry" these three men, and as many more as she wanted.

Lucy herself, after becoming a vampire, becomes a source of fascination for those who encounter her. Arthur, just before Lucy's death, feels drawn to kiss her even though he has been told by Van Helsing that he must not (Stoker 173). After Lucy becomes a vampire, she begins to attack children whom she lures off in the night. One such child, when he awakens in the hospital, "asked the nurse if he might go away. When she asked him why he wanted to go, he said he wanted to play with the 'bloofer lady'" (Stoker 204). This child, despite being attacked in the dark and left, essentially, for dead, still wants to return and play with Lucy again. This child is looking for an intimacy with Lucy that is probably not possible with playmates or parents, and which is certainly not possible for Lucy who is now dead and will not be able to have children of her own. Even Dr. Seward, who knows that Lucy is a vampire, says when confronted with her "languorous, voluptuous grace" (Stoker 219) that "there was something diabolically sweet in her tones . . . which rang through the brains even of us who heard the words addressed to another. As for Arthur, he seemed under a spell; moving his hands from his face, he opened wide his arms" (Stoker 219). Arthur is trying desperately to gain an intimacy with Lucy that he never had the chance to have, as they did not have time to marry before her death. Also, Dr. Seward has previously described Arthur as "saying that he felt since [the transfusion] as if they two had been really married, and that she was his wife in the sight of God" (Stoker 185). If Arthur's willing donation of blood to Lucy has created a marriage in his mind, he could certainly hope for even more intimacy with her by surrendering to her desires once she becomes a vampire.

Mina, like Lucy, has an added power (beyond her own personality) to fascinate after she is bitten by Dracula. Jonathan, when leaving Mina to set out on the final attempt to kill Dracula, says of her that "if we find out that Mina must be a vampire in the end, then she shall not go into that unknown and terrible land alone. I suppose it is thus that in the old times one vampire meant many" (Stoker 296). It could be argued that this statement is just a manifestation of Jonathan's love, but it should be noted that he did not allow Arthur to follow Lucy into vampirism, and as such his actions seem to carry a much greater meaning. Also, Van Helsing, though he loves Mina all along for her kindness and strength of character, shows a much greater fascination with her after she is attacked by Dracula. It is Mina, after all, who awakens Van Helsing from the trance that he has fallen into as he attempts to kill the Draculettes. He says that he hears "a long, low wail, so full of woe and pity that it woke me like the sound of a clarion. For it was the voice of my dear Madam Mina that I heard" (Stoker 361). Unlike the other vampires in Dracula with whom she shares the ability to fascinate, Mina seems to be a force for good. She is the only vampire who escapes before death and achieves happiness in life, and her goodness and unwillingness to submit to Dracula seems to draw those around her. Also, the desires of those who surround her can reasonably be stated to be pure. Neither Van Helsing nor Jonathan can be said to desire to gain power through Mina, nor are the searching for freedom. In both cases, the men desire only to love Mina better, gaining a closer intimacy with her.

Although Dracula is the focal point of the evil in the novel, it is impossible to overlook the role of the Draculettes, who also hold a strange power over characters in the novel. The first example of this is when Jonathan Harker falls asleep in a portion of Dracula's castle which he has been forbidden to visit. The Draculettes appear, and Jonathan says that "There was something about them that made me uneasy, some longing and at the same time some deadly fear. I felt in my heart a wicked, burning desire that they would kiss me with those red lips" (Stoker 61). Jonathan lies on the coach, without moving, as one of the Draculettes moves in to drink his blood (although he seems to believe that she will only kiss him). Only the interference of Dracula saves Jonathan from this fate, as Jonathan himself is unable and seemingly unwilling to do so. Another example of the power of the Draculettes (and by extension, of Dracula) in the novel comes when Van Helsing is destroying the beautiful Draculettes in their coffins. He is taken aback by the beauty of the first Draculette and says:

She lay in her Vampire sleep, so full of life and voluptuous beauty that I shudder as though I have come to do murder. . . in old times . . . many a man who set forth to do such a task as mine, found at the last his heart fail him, and then his nerve. So he delay, and delay, till the mere beauty and the fascination of the wanton Un-dead had hypnotise him; and he remain on, and on, till sunset come . . . Then the beautiful eyes of the fair woman open and look love, and the voluptuous mouth present to a kiss - and man is weak. And there remain one more victim in the Vampire fold. . . .There is some fascination, surely, when I am moved by the mere presence of such a one, even lying as she lay in tomb . . . Yes, I was moved . . . I was moved to a yearning for delay which seemed to paralyse my faculties . . . Certain it was that I was lapsing into sleep, the open-eyed sleep of one who yields to a sweet fascination (Stoker 361).

In this quote, Van Helsing first discusses the fate of other men that he imagines must have been in the same situation as he. He says that first the heart, and then the nerve, of the man would fail him. Van Helsing seems to suggest that it is first intimacy (and through it, the sort of love that is the fondest hope of most human beings) that this theoretical man is drawn to. Then, after the desire for intimacy grows, the man loses his desire to kill the vampire, and is likely (though Van Helsing does not go so far as to suggest this) drawn into visions of himself and the vampire as powerful immortal beings, able to do whatever they wish. After describing the fate of this imagined man, Van Helsing discusses his own obvious attraction to the beautiful Draculette. It is difficult to say whether Van Helsing is drawn by a desire for freedom, power, intimacy, or a combination of the three. Van Helsing's fascination with the Draculette, the most fully described example of fascination in the novel with the exception of Renfield's power-hungry desire to join with Dracula, is also the most problematical to decipher. Clearly, as in all of the cross-gender attractions in the novel, Van Helsing desires intimacy with the Draculette, in a sexual sense if in none other. In addition, Van Helsing is an old man who has seen a lot of evil in his lifetime. He may wish for freedom from his struggles, and for the power to move about the world and make the changes that he believes are necessary. The most important thing to consider about Van Helsing, however, is that he resists the Draculettes (partly due to the influence of Mina) and destroys all three. In Van Helsing's case, the power of love and right is more powerful than corrupt desires for intimacy, power, or freedom.

Each of the characters involved in the final hunt in Stoker's Dracula, despite their sworn duty to destroy the evil that Dracula intends to spread throughout the world, has had a moment somewhere in the novel in which the strange power of vampires temporarily holds them in sway. Renfield and possibly Van Helsing were tempted by the lure of power; Lucy and perhaps her child companions were tempted by freedom; and Arthur, Jonathan, and others by a desire for a greater intimacy. For modern readers, as for Van Helsing, Jonathan, Renfield, and the other characters in Stoker's Dracula, the vampire remains a fascination, whether that vampire is Lestat, Darvell, your next door neighbor John, or Dracula himself. Being a vampire allows you to "live" forever, gain incredible strength, form a coven of like-minded (and possibly telepathic) vampires, turn into a bat, summon mist and wolves, slip through the tiniest of cracks, transform others, and, in the case of Lestat, fly. Vampires have freedom from the laws and taboos of society, power over themselves and over others to do almost anything that they wish, and an unprecedented intimacy gained through the sharing of blood. With this list of abilities, who wouldn't want to be a vampire?

Works Cited

Auerbach, Mina. Our Vampires, Ourselves. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.

Idriceanu, Wayne Bartlett and Flavia. Legends of Blood. London: Praeger, 2006.

Keyworth, David. "The Socio-Religious Beliefs and Nature of the Contemporary Vampire Subculture." Journal of Contemporary Religion 2002: 359-370.

Stoker, Bram. Dracula. Boston: Bedford St. Martins, 2002.

Williamson, Milly. "Vampire Transformations: From Gothic Demon to Domestication?" Vampires: Myths and Metaphors of Enduring Evil (2003).