Hi all,
Sorry for the late post. While I had promised that I would have you address the reviews of Dracula in this session's post, I changed my mind:)
Instead, I'd like you to think about the role that the female body plays in dramatizing the kinds of fears we've been talking about---Invasion, miscegenation (mixing of 'blood'), sexual impurity etc... What do you make of the drama around Lucy? This includes the time in Whitby (the sleepwalking episode), the three suitors who all become her blood donors, and the violence that attends her (second) death. What is the role of gender, of desire, and of foreign-ness?
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In the novel, man’s greatest fear has come to pass, which is the infestation of evil on his woman. Traditionally the women are the ones who need to be protected by the men because they are the bears of life and weak ones, but the tables have turned slightly in Dracula. All evil things and good things center on Lucy because she is the ideal woman up to this point of the novel. She is the fair white maid with long, golden blond hair, which could symbolize the purity of England. In order for the purity to be disrupted evil must travel through the woman because she populates the nation. Like Adam and Eve, the serpent went through Eve to get to Adam. As we saw the vampire blood struck Lucy first and the only man that she wanted to infect and kiss was Arthur, who has the highest ranking and status in the novel. So to destroy the purity of England one must first go through the woman to get to the man. Also, Lucy’s power goes a little further than Arthur because she has three men that love her, which is clear from their proposals. Thus she had the power to infect all of them and spread the infection all the way to America, but as irony would have it they all infected her with their pure blood to make her better. As Arthur stated at her funeral, the mixing of the blood was a form of marriage in God’s eyes. Furthermore, it took men from different classes of England and the colonized land of England to come together as one and fight evil. In a way they united against the other and united under the claim of loving Lucy, the symbolized England.
I haven't really gotten far enough to answer most of the question, Lucy is still alive where I'm at, but I do think it's very interesting that she was chosen by Dracula. An obvious reason is that he's living in the grave where Lucy and Mina sit, but couldn't he have chosen Mina just as easily? Something else I find interesting is the "mixing of blood that is going on during Lucy's transfusions. So far she's gotten blood from Arthur, the Doc and Van Helsing, but when Arthur donated it had particular side effects. She writes in her diary, "Somehow Arthur feels very, very close to me. I seem to feel his presence warm about me" (117). I wonder why she feels him so strongly but not her other two donors?
We gain a vivid understanding of Dracula’s infection upon English societal order and structure through the character of Lucy. The pure “angelic beauty” is literally conquered by Dracula when he preys on her (146). Lucy’s body is clearly a vessel of sorts in this novel. As female, she plays the role as the giver of life, where her blood (mixed with that of her suitors) supplies youth and life to Dracula. It is easy to see the sexual implications in this scenario: Dracula attacks her, she is infected by him, new blood is transfused into her, and he takes new life (somewhat) from her. He spins her maternal nature into one of selfish means that benefits only him. He uses Lucy’s body. As a result of her “being used,” Lucy fails her society and becomes a tainted, sexual creature of the night. Instead of providing life, she steals life by abusing and killing children which brings up the allegorical idea that her infection endangers the future (children) of structured society.
Social order is restored in the events of Lucy’s final death as all wrong is righted when her fiancé sticks the stake through her heart. Once again we encounter sexual implications in the scene; she is reduced to a physical being powered and controlled by man. As her fiancé he is able to save her from her ill-repute and bring her back into society. “One and all we felt that the holy calm that lay like sunshine over the wasted face and form was only an earthly token and a symbol of the calm that was to reign forever” (192).
Associated with Lucy, there seems to be implications on her femininity that relate to what we have seen in novels like The Wild Irish Girl and colonial and post-colonial study. The purity of Lucy, as others have mentioned, represents a purity of nation and the West. From a sexual aspect, Lucy must be conquered by men. This stuck out to me as Lucy, as a woman, represents a nation and nations must also be conquered. Also like a nation, she holds power and influence over her donors. A transfusion of the blood, could also be seen as an allegory for the mixing of blood within Lucy can represent the mixing of blood in a nation and its inhabitants because people are coming in and trying to either conquer or acclimate.
I agree with Andrea in that Lucy is meant to be seen as the ideal Victorian woman in the beginning of Dracula. We get in a footnote that Lucy is different from Mina because she is preoccupied with flirting and marriage, and she would rather have a man take care of her than work for herself. I feel that this has some significance as to why Dracula chose her to prey on first rather than Mina. Lucy was an easier target for Dracula because she is weaker than Mina and she seeks male approval and attention. By his ability to infiltrate and taint the ideal Victorian woman, Dracula has shown that he has the power to conquer a woman that is held in the highest esteems of her time. This sends the message that no one in England is safe from Dracula.
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