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Atypical Response to Decline:
Bourgeois Redemption of Aristocracy in Stoker’s Dracula[1]
“Aristocratic status, actually declining in the real world of landed society, becomes the central absence of a prestigious literary culture, a vanquishing orientation point around which modernity is constructed and judged.”
—Len Platt, Aristocracies of Fiction, xv
Widespread anxiety regarding the political demise of the aristocracy swept through Europe during the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. In fact, the aristocracy was declining. European aristocracy in general gradually lost power to a rising bourgeoisie between the 1880s and the 1920s. Len Plattasks how literature, specifically British literature, responded to such turbulent times. In his recent book, Aristocracies of Fiction, he argues that late nineteenth-century novels can be placed into general categories that embody different responses to the aristocratic decline of the time. According to Platt, late nineteenth-century novelists either marginalize the aristocracy, focusing on the lives and concerns of the other classes, or they give aristocracy central importance in their works. Within the latter category, Platt divides novels into those that emphasize contemporary aristocratic decay and those that reaffirm its traditional nobility.
At first, Platt’s categorizations seem to work with Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel, Dracula. Stoker’s novel seems to belong firstly to the category of novels that bring aristocracy to the forefront, and secondly to the subcategory of novels that reaffirm the traditional virtues of the aristocracy. Certainly, Dracula’s plot is tied to the aristocracy; the vampires of the novel all belong to society’s elite, and the final elimination of vampirism ultimately redeems the aristocracy. Yet Dracula’s narration complicates the issue. After Lucy’s death, the story of Dracula is told exclusively through the eyes of its bourgeois characters: Jonathan Harker, Mina Harker, Dr. Van Helsing, and Dr. Seward. With the aristocracy thus stripped of its right to speak, Dracula now seems to fit into Platt’s first category of novels that marginalize the aristocracy. Stoker redeems the aristocracy in the plot, but through the narration, he gives sole authority of passing such judgment about the aristocracy to the bourgeois characters. The bourgeoisie’s final judgment of the aristocracy is of vital importance because the bourgeois characters move forward at the end of the novel as society’s new elite—the new-age aristocracy. In this light, Platt’s divisions of late-Victorian literature are inadequate because his divisions label writers as either for or against the aristocracy, as either spokespeople for the aristocracy or champions of the lower classes. Stoker cannot be thus labeled. Dracula does not fit nicely into Len Platt’s dichotomy because Stoker does not see the political environment of the time as a simple contest between the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie to be won by one party or the other; rather, Stoker sees the political transformations of his time as a complex melding of aristocratic virtue with rising bourgeois power.
Platt argues that between the 1890s and the 1920s, European writers were responding to unprecedented declines throughout the continent in the status and power of the aristocratic classes (ix). Indeed, as David Canadine explains in his 1950 book, The Rise and Fall of the British Aristocracy, “[T]he 1880s were the most troubled decade” for Europe’s aristocracies (25). Canadine sees three major causes for decline: (1) influxes of cheap, foreign agricultural goods destroyed the power of the agricultural elite; (2) the rising bourgeoisie amassed enough wealth to rival the aristocracy; (3) democratization saw the aristocracy lose its authority in legislation and government to the empowerment of the lower classes, particularly the bourgeoisie (26-27). Platt agrees with Canadine, to whom he refers in his own book, and points to Parliament’s Third Reform Bill of 1884 as exemplary of the dangers of decline faced by the British aristocracy in particular (5). This bill was the third of a series of British reform bills in the nineteenth century that expanded the electorate and allowed larger and larger proportions of the middle classes to partake in a political process traditionally reserved for the elite (Everett). An article from the October 1884 Edinburgh Review reads:
It is very different now. […] The masses have been taught […] how to co-operate. They have discovered that they rule the Lower House, and they see an opportunity of exercising their strength upon the Upper House […]. They know how to express their desires. They are determined to rule. They see that they have victory in their hands, and they will have their way (“The Reform Bill” 575).[2]
As this article predicted, although the Upper House rejected the Reform Bill of 1884, it was eventually passed the following year (“1884 Reform”). Platt refers to Robert Lacey who, writing in the late twentieth century, argues that the late nineteenth century saw “a new sort of popular power which could, if it wanted, make the possession of title, money, and even land quite irrelevant” (qtd. in Platt 5). In Stoker’s lifetime, this is what the aristocracy feared, a fear which became reality starting in the 1880s. Canadine concludes that the ensuing breakdown of the privileged status of the British aristocracy between 1890 and 1920 was “one of the most profound economic and psychological changes of the period” (125).
Platt believes that responses to this profound change manifested themselves in late-Victorian British literature in categorical ways. Regarding the representation of British aristocracy in fictional genres in particular, Platt distinguishes two literary frameworks that embody two different responses to aristocratic decline (8). In the first literary framework, aristocratic characters and the aristocratic class in general play marginal and inconsequential roles (Platt 8). This framework embodies a response that accepts aristocracy as a dead institution “that has no real relevance to the historical momentum” (Platt 8). Platt cites as examples the British “‘industrial’ novels,” which “turned the ‘condition of England’ question to the issue of leadership and authority in the new industrial age,” and so focused on the rising industrial classes while neglecting the aristocracy (11). On the other hand, in the second literary framework, aristocratic characters take on roles of central importance (Platt 8): “Instead of figuring at the outer edge of things […] aristocracy [is] reestablished at the center” (Platt 14). Platt subdivides this second framework into novels that portray the aristocracy as ultimately decayed versus those that portray itas noble and virtuous (8). Both of these subdivisions of novels bring the aristocracy to the forefront of the story and hence follow the second literary framework, but one type condemns the aristocracy in the end while the other type praises it (Platt 8).
The plot of Bram Stoker’s Dracula follows the second literary framework described by Platt because vampirism is identified as an affliction of the aristocracy, and so the fate of the aristocratic characters becomes a central concern. The five vampires in the novel, namely, Dracula, the three women in his castle, and Lucy, all belong to their respective society’s elites. Dracula comes from a long line of Eastern European aristocrats. “We Szekelys have a right to be proud,” Dracula boasts of his heritage to Jonathan Harker early in the novel, “for in our veins flows the blood of many races who fought as the lion fights, for lordship” (Stoker 59). In a footnote to this line in Dracula, Glennis Byron, the editor of the Broadview edition of the novel, refers to nineteenth-century novelist and travel writer Emily Gerard, who explains that Szekeley nobility claimed to be the direct descendants of Attila the Hun (Stoker 59). Although Stoker never explicitly reveals the class status of the three women that attack Harker, Harker describes them as “ladies by dress and manner” (Stoker 68). As for Lucy, her marriage to Arthur Holmwood, son and heir of Lord Godalming, reveals her privileged status. Moreover, she does not work (as Mina does, for instance) and has multiple servants in her home. By making these statused characters the vampires in Dracula, Stoker ties the aristocracy to the central conflict of the novel: the threat of vampirism. The plot of Dracula does not follow the first literary framework described by Platt because the aristocracy is not marginalized. What happens to the aristocracy matters. Aristocratic characters are threatened by vampirism, and whether or not they are rid of this affliction will determine whether or not vampirism spreads, which will in turn determine the fate of Britain; Dracula’s plot in fact exemplifies Platt’s second literary framework of novels that bring the aristocracy to the forefront.
Vampirism directly threatens the privileged status of Dracula, the three women in his castle, and Lucy, so after bringing the aristocracy to the center of the plot, Stoker questions its integrity. Vampirism directly threatens these characters’ aristocratic status because it turns them into criminals, who were considered in the late Victorian Era to be part of the lower classes. Thus Mina explains to Dr. Van Helsing during one of her sessions of hypnotism, “The Count is […] of criminal type […] Lombroso would so classify him” (Stoker 383).
Cesare Lombroso, to whom Mina refers, was a renowned Italian psychologist whose books, The Criminal Man and The Female Offender, published in 1876 and 1895, respectively, shaped notions of criminology during the late Victorian Era. Most influential was his theory of a criminal type. In The Criminal Man, Lombroso organizes the results of his studies of male prisoners and theorized that criminals fit into a general personality type: a criminal man is “an atavistic being who reproduces in his person the ferocious instincts of primitive humanity and the inferior animals” (Criminal Man 15).[3] In The Female Offender, he reaches the same conclusions for female criminals (21). In particular, Lombroso identifies the criminal personality with the outward features of an unrefined physique, animalistic instincts, and uninhibited sexuality (Criminal Man 58).
In an article in the Fall 1984 issue of The Victorian Newsletter, literary critic Eric Fontana uses the features of unrefined physique to develop Mina’s assertion that the Count is a criminal:
Dracula’s ‘aquiline nose,’ ‘massive eyebrows,’ and ‘pointed’ ears (18) correspond to the criminal characteristics identified by Lombroso: ‘the nose is often aquiline like the beak of a bird of prey’ (15); ‘the eyebrows are generally busy…’ (236) and…there is a protuberance on the upper part of the posterior margin’ of the ear, ‘a relic of the pointed ear characteristic of apes’ (14-15). (Fontana 26)[4]
In addition, Dracula is very animalistic and sexual. One remembers the way he scales down the walls of his castle like a lizard and the way he rips open a vein in his chest to allow Mina to drink his blood as prime examples, respectively, of his animalistic qualities and his raw sexuality. An unrefined physique, animalistic instincts, and uninhibited sexuality reveal that, as a vampire, Dracula certainly fits the contemporary definition of a criminal, just as Mina suggests to Van Helsing.
In fact, the vampire women that attack Harker exhibit these three characteristics, too. In Dracula’s castle, Jonathan Harker disobeys the Count’s orders, falls asleep in a room where the Count forbid him to enter, is confronted by these three women, and later notes that two of them had “high, aquiline noses, just like the Count” (Stoker 69). The two women, then, share Dracula’s criminal physique. The third woman displays the animalistic instincts of a criminal as she lustfully prepares to drink Harker’s blood during this scene. Harker writes that as she approached his body, she “arched her neck” and “licked her lips like an animal” (Stoker 69). When Harker describes her lapping her teeth in anticipation, he creates the image of a hungry dog (Stoker 69). Indeed, Harker writes that she “champ[s]” at the air in anger when the Count, at the last second, pulls her away from his body (Stoker 69). In addition, the three women all radiate an unchecked sexuality. Seven times during this short scene, Harker refers to their “voluptuous” red lips (Stoker 69). He desires that he should be kissed by them, even though such an immoral act would cause his fiancé, Mina, much pain (Stoker 69). This instinctual sexuality combines with the three women’s physical features and animalistic behavior to define them as criminals, just like the Count.
As Lucy transforms into a vampire after being bitten by Dracula, she assumes these and other criminal traits, thus completing the identification of vampirism with criminality. Lombroso asserted that criminals usually have “supernary teeth” (Criminal Man 7). In other words, some of their teeth grow in front of other teeth and become more pronounced, sometimes even resulting in multiple rows of teeth (Lombroso, Criminal Man 7). It is interesting, then, that Lucy’s teeth become a measure of her condition. As Lucy’s teeth grow sharper, not only does she become more and more like a vampire, but more and more like a criminal, as well. Indeed, in her full vampire state, she displays animalistic instincts and overt sexuality, just like the three women who attack Harker. When Dr. Seward narrates the scene at the graveyard when he and Van Helsing bring Morris and Arthur to see the undead Lucy, he describes her as behaving just like an animal. Lucy, now a vampire and able to leave her coffin after sunset, is returning from a midnight outing to satisfy her thirst for blood when she sees the men waiting for her outside the tomb where her coffin lies. In Dr. Seward’s words, when she sees them she “snarl[s], such as a cat gives when taken unawares” (Stoker 249). Like the women who attack Harker, she too now radiates sexual vitality. Four times in his narration of the scene, Seward mentions Lucy’s lips and her voluptuous smile (Stoker 249). She stretches out her arms and beckons to Arthur in a lustful voice that sends shivers down the other men’s spines. Van Helsing just manages to prevent Arthur from succumbing to her lure. Thus, Dracula, the three women, and Lucy, all tied together by vampirism, are also tied together by the criminality identified with vampirism.
Since vampirism is identified with criminality, it threatens the aristocratic status of these characters, because crime was considered to be a lower-class phenomenon in late-Victorian England. Susan Williams, in her 1987 book, The Rich and the Diseased Poor, argues that poverty was seen as the primary cause for moral degradation in mid-nineteenth-century England (Williams 77). She refers to a lecture given in 1850 by Dr. Hector Gavin, a lecturer at the Charing Cross Hospital:
[T]he dwellers in such [poor living conditions] naturally become regardless of the feelings and happiness of others, and intensely sensual and selfish….It is from these wretched dens, in these neglected districts, that there live from birth a population out of which come pickpockets and thieves, degradation and profligacy, and our most atrocious criminals. (qtd. in Williams 77)
Gavin’s lecture summarizes the beliefs of the time. The filth and destitution of the poor areas of England were seen as the sources of immorality because the diseases and hardships faced by inhabitants of these areas were thought to weaken their ability to avoid vice (Williams 79). Judith Knelman’s argument in her recent book, Twisting in the Wind: The Murderess and the English Press, shows that crime was linked with poverty even during the late Victorian Era. Knelman focuses largely on infanticide in the late nineteenth century and explains that this was a categorically lower-class crime because children proved to be a financial burden for poor women, and killing their infants presented an opportunity for these women to collect insurance and rid themselves of a hindrance (Knelman 18).
The danger of vampirism to Dracula, the three women, and Lucy, then, is that the criminality it induces will make these aristocratic characters more like the bottom, despised level of society and less like its elite. The danger is evident from the start of the novel in Dracula’s castle. “I am boyar,” Dracula boasts to Harker during their first meeting at the castle; “I am master” (Stoker 51). But perhaps he should say, “I was boyar.” The dilapidated condition of his castle betrays an eclipsed aristocracy. The luxuries of the forbidden room, for instance, where Harker is attacked by the three women vampires, are now hidden under a thick layer of dust (Stoker 67). Sitting down to write at an oak table in that room, Harker contemplates the fact that the “fair lady” of bygone days who “sat to pen, with much thought and many blushes” sits there no more (Stoker 67). Instead, this aristocratic lady of old is replaced by the three criminal women who soon attack Harker. The deterioration of the room from an aristocratic room to a filthy breeding ground for crime sums up the threat to Transylvanian aristocracy: its status as society’s elite is crumbling.