Gay dracula

While Dracula was a figure whose mysterious and dangerous sexuality was primarily aimed at heterosexual women as a marketing tactic for all of the Count’s film history, the queer subtext of both the book and the movies remains persistent and, thanks to adaptations, more and more explicit. (Who could have foreseen this?.

Stoker himself was a closeted gay man who pined for affection from both his friends, mentors, and possible lovers Oscar Wilde and Walt Whitman — men who both garnered controversy for their own.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula is subject to a queer reading. Dracula has clear homoerotic tendencies and since these tendencies are both sexual and outside the norm (i.e., evil), they must be destroyed. But the suggestion of the homoerotic does not stop there. Dracula is the dark side of sexual liberation — the fear that as fetishism spilled into the social mainstream, dangers and diseases that were once reserved for the marginalized LGBTQ+ community were spilling too.

In the late 19th century homosexual relationships were regarded as an unconventional exploit. Dracula has a typical blood-lust but the Count intriguingly decides to satisfy this craving by kidnapping a male character, Jonathan, aligning with a homosexual narrative. Dracula has clear homoerotic tendencies and since these tendencies are both sexual and outside the norm i. But the suggestion of the homoerotic does not stop there.

Homosexuality is also hinted at in the use of the woman as intermediary and in the homosocial relationships among the members of the Crew of Light. The Crew of Light is an attempt to illustrate a homosocial relationship i. However, the novel itself subverts this definition. In addition, Stoker maintained a long-distance correspondence relationship with Walt Whitman, a somewhat openly homosexual American poet and was friends with Oscar Wilde, the Irish-born playwright convicted of gross indecency homosexuality in Clark As an aside Clark, in his Chapter 11 contribution to the book Horrifying Sex: Essays on Sexual Differences in Gothic Literature suggests that Stoker also Irish-born , in writing Dracula is attempting to disassociate himself from Wilde by associating Wilde with the monstrous Count Clark Dracula himself as a character has obvious homosexual tendencies and his main love interest initially is Jonathan Harker.

To start with the obvious and analogous with homosexuality in the past , Dracula is an outsider, even in his own country, he is unmarried and lives a secretive life without any real relationships with others. But this is just a beginning and could be applicable to any one considered an outsider, no matter what the reason.

Within the novel there are multiple places where the meaning of the outsider becomes associated with the homosexuality of the character Dracula himself. Dracula, in a fury, stops the hinted at sexuality and declares. How dare you cast eyes on him when I had forbidden it? Back I tell you all! This man belongs to me! I have not yet seen the Count in the daylight. It is interesting to note that even though Dracula is attracted to Harker, nothing ever seems to come of it.

The only time Dracula assumedly and directly penetrates a man is in his decimation of the Demeter crew. This is not to deny the implied homosexuality. Rather, it is to sublimate it. Even at the death of Dracula himself, we see a suggestion of homosexuality. Earlier in Dracula it is Arthur who kills his undead almost-wife Lucy and it is Jonathan who is asked to promise to kill his wife Mina if she becomes one of the undead.

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The killing of the vampire, then, is the duty of the husband. Who kills Dracula? Stoker Thus, furthering the intimacy of the relationship between Jonathan and Dracula. Dracula, the sexual monster, is destroyed and a sense of normalcy and order is restored. Or is it? His bundle of names links all our little band of men together; but we call him Quincey. As noted, Stoker was no stranger to homosexuality.

That is not to say that he was a practicing homosexual, but it does suggest that his friendships and his novel Dracula strongly show a strong fascination with the topic, even if it remains covert or latent. There are a number of reasons why Stoker may have told the tale this way. He may be actively attempting to isolate and destroy his own conscious or unconscious homoerotic demons as seen in many cases of homophobia or gay bashing.