[ SECRET POST #3588 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3588 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 62 secrets from Secret Submission Post #513.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Re: Book club - DRACULA discussion post!

[diet_poison]

Ah ok. I kinda like that subversion lol. But I haven't read any books with that particular trope so I hadn't recognized it. It might make for an interesting love story if they managed to make the nobleman somewhat likeable, though it's hard to imagine a guy in that setting being particularly likeable lol.

There's also an inherently sexual element to vampirism in general, which is probably why so many people want to bone them these days.

I agree with this and have seen a lot of it, and can even sort of see the appeal, I just didn't pick up on it in Dracula, which is probably a combination of me being bad at reading between the lines, and Victorian culture being extremely repressed about sexuality and extremely circumspect and roundabout wrt how they talked or wrote about it.

ETA: ok now that I think about it the women in Dracula's castle were obviously supposed to be sexual, and clearly moreso than a mortal woman, which was supposed to be why they were so alluring. But they were really minor characters and also female, and I didn't see Dracula portrayed that way, except I guess maybe his features were supposed to be handsome but that wasn't specifically stated. And Dracula's female vampire companions were very minor characters and the sexual aspect was definitely not written the same way with Dracula himself.

(I do really want to read those short stories about the vampire women that Stoker apparently penned after Dracula, or at the same time and didn't include them from the novel, or something.)

Re: Book club - DRACULA discussion post!

[(Anonymous)]

You pretty much answered your own question already. :)

Dethtoll made an excellent point about Stoker's use of the Gothic trope with Harker. For me the details really just enhanced that as well. Harker is simultaneously intrigued and terrified by Dracula. Dracula traps him, and invades his space (he actually makes Harker's bed! and provides food, because he has apparently no staff to do that), he also menaces and protects him at the same time.

And yes, the female vampires are one big sexcapade. They are sexually aggressive women, who want to suck Harker's blood and call it 'kissing'.

And then, who swoops in to save Harker? It's Count D, who tells the others that this man is his, and speaks of love. And Harker is totally turned on, terrified, confused, and self-loathing the whole time. Dracula is a threat, and to me at least, it's not just the threat of death, but a similar threat of downfall and pollution that Mina faces, even if Harker doesn't explicitly say the words out loud. And I think Harker's trauma is not only the result of questioning his own sanity.

I personally see the vampire as a sexual deviant theme, including homosexuality, in the early parts. Even if Stoker pulls a pretty impressive 'no homo' later on. Although I have to say, that Dracula has Harker lying helplessly next to his wife, while he assaults her, is still pretty telling to me. I don't know. I don't know anything biographical to back this up, of course. But the book seems extremely Freudian to me. I'm reading Lucy's character arc in the same vein.

Oooh, I didn't know there were stories about the female vampires. I might have to check that out.

I'm getting tired, so I hope this makes sense. (:

Re: Book club - DRACULA discussion post!

[dethtoll]

I actually have read an analysis of the book (some library edition somewhere, about 10+ years ago) that explicitly mentioned the homosexual themes, so you're not the first to notice that.