The Maternal Role of Bram Stoker's Dracula

In Bram Stoker's Dracula, one of history's most frightening figures is no more terrifying than he is feminine. Through the opposite switching of gothic fiction, the lead vampire represents a maternal role as being both fertile and motherly. His fertility is responsible for reproducing his race of vampires as well as feeding his kin with what they need to survive. While the event of a birth often brings joy and happiness to a society, Dracula reverses the event of a birth by using it to bring evil and destruction into the world. Despite the common belief that Dracula is one of history's worst monsters, he continues to maintain the maternal role through the reproduction of his race, but it is the reason for reproduction that creates the evilness surrounding Dracula.

The maternal role represented by Dracula is a complete role reversal from what would be expected out of a monstrous male character. Judith Halberstam described this occurrence of reversals in the gothic novel as such, "Gothic fiction is a technology of subjectivity, one which produces the deviant subjectivities opposite which the normal, the healthy, and the pure can be known." In Dracula, "the normal, the healthy, and the pure" are almost nowhere to be seen as positive events are reversed. By bringing more vampires into the world, Dracula is inserting wickedness and violence into society. The "newborns" he inserts within society are his way of deconstructing the ideas surrounding what is normal, healthy, and pure. The maternal role in Dracula is often overlooked despite its overwhelming importance throughout the novel. As Harker prepares to reach Dracula's castle, he encounters a woman who offers him advice: "She saw, I suppose, the doubt in my face, for she put the rosary around my neck, and said, 'For your mother's sake,' and went out of the room"(11). The rosary the woman grants Harker with is her way of offering him protection as the rosary can be used to ward off vampires. Rather than the woman simply offering the rosary to Harker, however, she mentions that he should wear it "for [his] mother's sake." Although her reason seems insignificant and is easily overlooked, it establishes the importance of the maternal role early in the novel. The overwhelming importance that the maternal role carries in the novel is reflected in Dracula's attempts at constructing a society of vampires through his own maternal role.

The way Dracula creates other vampires and makes them his kin displays his level of fertility. The fertility he possesses leads to the ability he maintains in reproducing his race despite his male character. After Dracula has claimed Mina, a scene is witnessed between the two characters displaying Dracula's true maternal role: "Her white nightdress was smeared with blood, and a thin stream trickled down the man's bare breast which was shown by his torn-open dress"(300). The connection the two characters have represents a common bond shared by mother and newborn. The fact that the nightdress is white represents the innocence of the "newborn" Mina. The blood that she is inhaling from Dracula's breast is representative of the breast milk a mother nourishes her child with during breastfeeding. Halberstam analyzed the same quote stating that, "This powerful image feminizes Dracula in relation to his sexuality. It is eminently notable, then, that male, not female, vampires reproduce […] Dracula alone reproduces his form."# Her analysis claims that male vampires are responsible for reproduction, which is clear from the way Dracula controls and maintains each vampire after their transformation from their human state. The transformation occurs after he has bitten his human victim and slowly introduces them to his vampire race. The fact that Dracula "reproduces his own form" reflects the evil he molds into each and every vampire he is responsible for reproducing. As leader of the vampires he has created and as sole reproducer, his role is significantly more mirrored in the maternal role of a mother after the birth of her children then that of the father.

As the symbol of the maternal role for the race of vampires he has reproduced, Dracula uses the power he has gained from his maternal role to attack and violate what is normal in society. When the three female vampires approach Harker to bite him and indulge themselves in his blood, Dracula appears to rescue Harker and punish the three female vampires, " 'How dare you touch him, any of you? How dare you cast eyes on him when I had forbidden it? Back, I tell you all!'"(46). Although it appears Dracula has come to rescue Harker, he is actually using his maternal influence on the female vampires. Knowing that he wishes to claim Harker for himself, Dracula's evil selfishness leads him to threaten the female vampires and force them to flee from Harker's side. Dracula uses this same maternal power to control all of the vampires in the way they attack society. The young female vampires, however, upset at being discovered, immediately question Dracula's love which he responds to encouragingly: " 'Yes, I too can love; you yourselves can tell it from the past'"(46). When Dracula is questioned by the female vampires whether or not he is able to love, he immediately claims he can and that the female vampires should know from past experiences involving him. The irony of the situation, however, is that the "love" Dracula speaks of is used not for the "normal" idea of what love truly is, but rather he uses his "love" to overpower the other vampires into performing their evil duties. The maternal role issues Dracula with a certain amount of power which he understands how to use to his advantage in creating evil.

The reversal of gender roles which Dracula stands for allows him to use his newfound power to gain evil through the gender reversals of other characters. Reproducing more vampires increases the range of power Dracula maintains. Through his "reproduction" of Lucy, he reverses the feminine role a female character such as Lucy would typically have. Not only does she become freakishly strong and violent, but she attacks children as well. In a sense, Dracula is using his maternal role to crush the maternal role other females in the novel would be expected to play at some point in their lives. The children whom Lucy attacks are probably attacked easily as they may tend not to be frightened by a woman as most young children feel a certain maternal connection to females. What the children do not know, however, is the reversal Lucy has gone through in her transformation into becoming a vampire. She has been filled with the evil that Dracula passes to all of his kin through the reproduction "process" and the maternal role he stands for.

While Dracula's actions and dialogue reflect the common responses of a maternal figure, it is the fertility of Dracula and his ability to reproduce that are the main contributing factors in his representation of the maternal role. Through the complete switching of opposites in the Gothic novel, one of history's most monstrous male creatures represents a strong maternal role. The blood being sucked from his breast by the vampires is a clear symbol of the breastfeeding done by mothers to ensure the nourishment and health of their children. The ability of Dracula to turn regular humans into vampires reflects the ability of reproduction that he can perform solely through himself. Through his ability of reproduction and his power in the maternal role, Dracula is able to create a race of vampires primed for evil and destruction. Through the fertility, the reproduction, and the maternal role turned evil, Dracula is one of literature's most twisted and evil characters ever to represent the maternal role.