Christopher Craft's Kiss me with those red lips’: Gender and Inversion in Bram Stoker’s Dracula’, Review Gemma Jones

       Craft’s article presents an in depth psycho analysis, of Dracula, he suggests that this is a

novel connected with homosexual desires and gender inversion. Christopher Craft’s argument

centres on a few main points. These being gender and sexuality, sexual oppression, gender

fluidity and homoeroticism. He also argues that this novel breaks the boundaries of the

Victorian social norms of gender and sexuality. Crafts argument is presented with extremely

strong evidence from the novel; Craft has also used simple accessible language that is

organised in a rather logical way.

     Craft states that he,

           ‘offers an account of Bram Stokers particular articulation of the vampire metaphor in

           Dracula, a book whose fundamental anxiety,-an equivocation about the relationship

           between desire and gender, repeats with a monstrous difference, a pivotal anxiety of              

           late Victorian culture.’ (Craft: 1984:108)

Thus meaning that, despite female to male heterosexual transition of blood, through the biting

of the vampire this is simply a disguise for  the homosexual desires this novel is fused with.

      The females within the novel could be seen to conceal homosexual desires. For example

Lucy Westenra defies Gods image of a woman and Craft picks up on this, he argues that she

becomes over sexualized and that she inverts gender by becoming a sexualised woman

that pursues men instead of them pursuing her. This has given Lucy more male like

traits and therefore Craft’s argument of homosexuality and inversion ties in and makes sense.

       Donna Heiland states that ‘gothic fiction does tell stories of invasions of one sort or

another. Gothic fiction at its core is about transgressions of all sorts: across national

boundaries; sexual boundaries and ones identity.’ (Heiland: 2005: 3)  Craft enlightens us to

this inversion of sexual boundaries and gender that Dracula exhibits. He states that, ‘Harker

awaits an erotic fulfilment that entails both the dissolution of the boundaries of the self and

thorough subversion of conventional Victorian gender which constrained the mobility of

sexual desire.’ (Craft: 1984:108) He elaborates on this by giving an example of John

Ruskin’s view of what a ‘loving’ female should be like. Then comparing this Victorian view

to Stoker’s view of gender and love. He elaborates arguing that Dracula portrays a Jonathon

Harker that is feminine and passive (like Ruskin’s view of a female.) Thus Craft argues that

Dracula breaks the boundaries of gender inversion and sexuality by showing that male

and females can possess each other’s expected gender traits.

     Craft addresses the significance of blood through the novel, he pinpoints a crucial

element within the novel to assert his argument. He states that, ‘Dracula’s desire to fuse

with a male , is most explicitly evoked when Harker cuts himself shaving, subtly and

dangerously suffuses this text.’ (Craft: 1984: 110)  This could suggest that the blood

is a phallic symbol of bodily fluids. This is also apparent when Lucy is drained of her blood

to the point where  she nearly passes out after Dracula penetrates her. In chapter three we see

the importance of blood. ‘Blood is too precious a thing in these days of dishonourable peace;

and the glories of the great races are as a tale that is told.’ (Stoker: 2008: 30)  Blood could

also function as power in this novel. As the count proudly shares his family history relating

to the blood of the ‘Draculas’. This signifies that blood is definitely a powerful symbol

throughout the novel. Craft speculates that it is so important as it again conceals homo

sexual desires.

      Another interesting point that Craft draws upon is ‘Luring at first with an inviting orifice,

a promise of red softness, but delivering instead a piercing bone, the vampire mouth fuses

and confuses... the gender based categories of the penetrating and receptive.’(Craft :1984:

109) This could suggest that gender confusion is apparent and this could suggest that

the gender confusion leads to the concealment of homosexuality. Therefore Craft again gives

excellent evidence and explains his points clearly which all tie in with the theme of gender

inversion and sexuality.

      Craft also centres on the idea that the narrative of Dracula is influenced by other

texts such as Frankenstein(1818) and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

(1888) However it could be argued that these narratives offer the notion of the unfamiliar

fundamentally making the unknown frightening. Heiland states that,

          ‘For gothic novels are above all about the creation of fear-fear in the characters

            represented , fear in the reader-and they accomplish this through their engagement

            with the aesthetic of the sublime or some variant of it.’ (Heiland: 2004: 5)

Dracula plays on human fear and anticipation through the use of diary entries. The 

appearance of truth becomes convincing through the  gathering of evidence. which creates 

the uncanny . Much like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’s strong case. Thus the reader is presented

with this ‘unknown’ disturbing threat that may have been the truth.

      Craft has explored the inversion of gender extremely well throughout his essay

and has given excellent evidence from the text and other texts.  Craft has enlightened

the reader to a possible hidden motif throughout Dracula, and set up a framework for others

to see within gothic novels.  Stoker’s hidden message was protesting the suffocating

boundaries and expectations of a limiting society .Dracula is an important text that signaled a

new turning point in literature and a new understanding of the fear, the unknown and the  fear

of the ‘other’.