Symbolism in Bram Stoker's Dracula
...re shining on the scarlet lips and on the red tongue as it lapped the white sharp teeth. [...] I could feel the soft, shivering touch of the lips on the supersensitive skin of my throat, and the hard dents of two sharp teeth, just touching and pausing there. I closed my eyes in a languorous ecstasy and waited - waited with beating heart. (Stoker 52) Lucy’s blood transfusions also portray sexual symbolism in the book. The symbolic meaning of the blood transfusion process is confirmed by Doctor Seward’s account, which he describes as being a first sexual experience. "No man knows till he experiences it, what it is to feel his own life-blood drawn away into the veins of the woman he loves”(Stoker 156). Another example of a metaphorical description of sexual intercourse is found in Arthur’s disposal of vampire Lucy, through the use of the stake driven through Lucy’s heart. Many readers compare the stake to the male reproductive organ. He struck with all his might. The thing in the coffin writhed; and a hideous, blood-curdling screech came from the opened red lips. The body shook and quivered and twisted in wild contortions [...] But Arthur never faltered. He looked liked a figure of Thor as his untrembling arm rose and fell, driving deeper and deeper the mercy bearing stake [...] And then the writhing and quivering of the body became less, and the teeth ceased to champ, and the face to quiver. Finally, it lay still. The terrible ordeal was over. (Stoker 258-259) Dracula is claimed by many to be “…the most horrifying and sexually frustrated vampire ever to walk…”(Young 29). Dracula was directly inspired by the frustrating sexual life Stoker had been living with his wife Florence Balcombe. Dracula is not only sexually frustrated, but he also “…suffers from a sever case of sexual repression…”(Smith 28). The reader can infer that Dracula “seems to go far beyond the mere limits of sexual pressure when encountering Lucy and Mina”(39). Many American critics have called Dracula a ". . .Christian parody. . ."(Schaffrath 34), as its central character, Count Dracula, seems to be a negative reflection of Christ. All the values represented by Christ are either inverted or perverted by Dracula in the novel. Similarly, Dracula appears to be an inversion of Christ, while Renfield is labeled an ". . .anti-John the Baptist. . ."(Smith 119). In the Bible, John the Baptist's role is to prepare the way for the Messiah's arrival; in Stoker’s Dracula, Renfield provides Dracula's entry into the lunatic asylum. Both characters meet death comparably; John the Baptist loses his head, and Renfield dies of a head injury caused by Dracula. Throughout Dracula, the crucifix is used quite often from beginning to end. The crucifix “…represents an all powerful being of Christ that is used to fight away evil and terror”(134). The crucifix is a symbolic representative of Christianity and is feared by vampires, and discourages Van Helsing when he looses his crucifix because he knows the crucifix’s real power. Many characters in the book are grabted the use of bibilical quotations, but Professor Van Helsing stands apart from them in that he makes a clear used of the seed and the sower when explaining to Seward that he will reveal the nature of Lucy’s illness in time. My friend John, when corn is grown, even before it has ripened - while the milk of its mother-earth is in him, and the sunshine has not yet begun to paint him with his gold, the husbandman he pull the ear and rub him between his rough hands, and blow away ...