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Dracula. Psychoanalytic Criticism. It is generally assumed by over-enthusiastic Freudian critics that, in literature, anything that is longer than it is wide represents the penis. However, this is a phallusy. . Steve Taylor says….
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Psychoanalytic Criticism It is generally assumed by over-enthusiastic Freudian critics that, in literature, anything that is longer than it is wide represents the penis. However, this is a phallusy.
Steve Taylor says… • …while Dracula's fangs are not as big as Helsing's stake which triumphs in the end, there are two of them, suggesting the sexual practice of double penetration. Keeping with the idea that “sharp-pointed instruments” are “sexually totemic,” Dracula can offer his victim something no other man can… • …Double penetration is a homoerotic act …
Talia Schaffer says… “Stoker began writing Dracula one month after his friend, rival, and compatriot Oscar Wilde was convicted of the crime of sodomy.…Stoker's careful erasure of Wilde's name from all his published (and unpublished) texts gives a reader the impression that Stoker was airily ignorant of Wilde's existence…. In texts patently about Wilde, Stoker crammed the gaps where Wilde's name should appear with terms like 'degeneracy,' 'reticence,' 'discretion,' and references to police arrests of authors. Dracula explores Stoker's fear and anxiety as a closeted homosexual man during Oscar Wilde's trial.”
Jeremy Zorn says… “The Count himself, with his quasi-homosexual longing for Harker's blood, represents one of the most feared degenerating agents of the fin de siècle…. In an age where the definitions of the respective sexes was in flux, the addition of a new category - men who desired men - could only exacerbate the already existing paranoia that traditional gender roles were not long for the world…. Dracula's homoerotic urges are demonstrated by Stoker in his nearly-orgasmic desire for his prisoner's blood.”
But wait, Steve Taylor says still more… • …after a harrowing chase scene, Morris, the American 'cowboy,' gives it to Dracula with his bowie knife and Harker lets the Count have it with his kukri. Taking the metaphor to its extreme, we have here a homosexual orgy of sorts, Dracula being penetrated twice, two blades in final exchange for his two fangs.…
Dracula The Rough Draft
A Note from the Author The presentation you’ve just heard does not reflect the true state of Dracula scholarship today. Not everyone reads quite that much into Stoker’s novel of good versus evil—it is, however, possible to get a little tired of the odder ones. Thank you.
Bibliography • Schaffer, Talia. A Wilde Desire Took Me: the homoerotic history of Dracula". ELH 61(2), 381-425. Internet Availability: - http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/elh/v061/61.2schaffer.html . • Zorn, Jeremy. ClassicNote: Dracula. http://www.classicnote.com/ClassicNotes/Titles/dracula/essays/essay1.html • Taylor, Steve. Bram Stoker's Dracula: Mine is Bigger Than Yours: The Stakes are High. http://www.stevetayloropus.net/criticism/Dracula.html