A Freudian Look into Dracula
“Remember, my friend, that knowledge is stronger than memory, and we should not trust the weaker.” (Stoker 112). For many, seeing is believing; logic and proven theses aid us in knowing. However, there are things out that exist in our imagination and thus in fiction (Schneider). They make us question such beliefs because they are based on infantile beliefs that were once repressed (Freud). What––might you ask––is an example of a belief conceived in infancy, which has in turn, become something we see as true? Perhaps, the ability for what was once dead to come back to life? Or maybe, that we are one of one? There is no “clone” or “double” of our ego and being…right? When we see or experience something that makes us question deeply rooted beliefs, we experience fear. Freud calls this the “uncanny” (Freud). In a 1919 essay Freud credits the “uncanny” with belonging “…[undoubtedly] to all that is terrible––to all that arouses dread and creeping horror;” (Freud 1. By applying the concept of the “uncanny” to Bram Stoker’s monster, we will reveal what infantile belief is returning and why it scares us.
In order to explain such phenomena, we will apply three literary theories: Psychoanalysis, Ecocriticism and Post-colonialism. However, for our purposes we will need to be much more specific with our fields of study. The psychoanalytical lens will be focused on Freud’s findings and thus will be a “Freudian-Psychoanalytical” approach. The second lens will be an ecocritical reading with an emphasis on the line we have drawn between humans and animals. The third and final theory we will apply to Dracula is the post-colonialist fear-based “Reverse-colonization” (Arata). All three of these distinct fields come together in our discussion on fear.
In “The ‘Uncanny’”, Freud defines it as something that frightens us enough to send us back to what is familiar (Freud). In specifying Freud’s theory for our use, the uncanny can result from one of two feelings: (1) the return of ideas repressed in infancy and (2) the confirmation of once surmounted beliefs (Freud). The difference being the latter does not necessarily need to something repressed or conceived in infancy (Freud). If we witness a corpse rise and reanimate, we question what we know about the binary of life and death. In experiencing such an event, we become scared, why? Because we know that what was once dead cannot come back to life (Schneider); but Dracula defies many of the notions that we have become comfortable with, and certainly scared its Victorian readers.
With his innate ability to be dead and alive, his seeming immortality, his hopscotching over and around the line between man and animal, and, his looming threat as a possible “colonist” of colonizers, he became an instant classic horror monster. Steven Schneider’s essay on horror film monsters is very specific in his analysis of only film; however, his essay lacks focus on the visual aspect of film and focuses more on the metaphorical, which we can apply to the written word of literature. He uses both Freud and George Lakoff to explain why horror [film] monsters terrify, but for our purposes, his application of Freud’s theories will be sufficient. Schneider claims that horror monsters metaphorically represent the fears that circulate within a society’s collective subconscious (Schneider); in doing so, shining a light on a particular culture’s repressed fears (Schneider). Horror monsters are metaphors, they do not exist, yet, their existence in literature proves that they exist in the mind as creations (Schneider).
Dracula is scary because he is the physical embodiment of the fear from English Victorian-era. To Stephen Arata, Dracula is the embodiment of “reverse-colonialization” (Arata). To Lindsey Kurz, Dracula is the embodiment of a human-animal hybrid (Kurz). He represents the aforementioned binaries and while we will only be looking at the binaries that concern our three theories, I want to acknowledge that the many other theories out there will reveal different broken and blurred binaries within Dracula. We will first review Lindsey Kurz’s and Stephen Arata’s arguments before tying them together with Schneider’s psychoanalytical approach. Then, an application of Freud’s “uncanny” to place a ribbon on top.
Since we have come to an understanding as to what Freud argues is the “uncanny”, we can begin to find what is so “uncanny” about Count Dracula; Lindsey Kurz’s essay regarding the human/animal hybrid is crucial. It begins with a historical account of the Victorian reaction to Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution (Kurz). According to Kurz, Darwin’s revelations stirred the pot politically and blurred the line that was religiously drawn between man and animal (Kurz). If God made man and animal separate, then how could there be a thing existing between? The notion that man evolved from animal opposed the direct concept of man being separate from animal. As a horror villain, Count Dracula exhibited the ability to exist as both. Stoker’s language in describing the Count included adjectives of bestial occupation. He described him as lizard-like, “panther-like in the movement…” and “lion-like” (Stoker 266). These descriptors are sprinkled throughout the novel, and, while a good author describes his characters in vivid detail, Stoker’s diction seems quite deliberate. He separates the Count purposely from the human characters and places him across the line, on the animal side. Dracula is clearly not a human; he is clearly not an animal. Dracula is somewhere in between, in both ability and appearance.
Kurz points out that “Dracula was published in a culture uncertain about its relationship to and with animals and his novel reflects and reinforces various anxieties about the increasingly destabilized binary between human and animal.” (Kurz). This binary is a seed for fear. The ability for something to be both of the binary––human or animal––and concurrently existing between the two, makes us question that separation that was once created (Kurz).
Yes, we are the most evolved species. Yes, we evolved from animals; but what happens when something exists between that barrier we have built to separate the two? We become scared. In one of the journal entries, an “Interview with the Keeper in the Zoological Gardens”, Stoker writes as a journalist who is investigating a wolf escape and enlists Thomas Bilder, the zookeeper. After an unsettling interview with Mr. Bilder and his wife, the journalist reveals that he has “…always thought that a wild animal never look[ed] so well as when some obstacle of pronounced durability is between us;” (Stoker 128). A quite literal piece, demonstrating the barrier we have built in order to segregate the civilized from the wild. We still have dogs no? We own cats and fish and other animals that we once called “wild”. Why, then, does Stoker write Count Dracula as an equal to animals and more powerful than humans? The eco-critic would say that Count Dracula represents all that isn’t human, superior and inferior. As we move to a post-colonial reading we can transition our thoughts nicely with a fusion of Kurz’s previous arguments and Stephen Arata’s upcoming ones.
The bestial language used to describe Count Dracula is reminiscent of the language used by colonizers. Dracula is the “other”; some(one/thing) that the Victorians view as “other”. An Eastern European oligarch, shrouded in mystery, residing “…in[to] the Carpathians, as if it were the centre of some sort of imaginative whirlpool;” (Stoker 10). The beginning of Dracula immediately states that Count Dracula’s castle exists in an area that is mysterious and superstitious deep in the wild Carpathian Mountains; it is unknown even in the grandest of libraries (Stoker). This immediate attribution of unknown is crucial in understanding why Count Dracula was so terrifying to Victorians.
We first discussed the human-animal hybrid binary and its relation to fear. A second binary Dracula challenges is life and death. Dracula is, in Stoker’s terms, “…undead…” and thus is neither living nor dead (Stoker 179). Dracula lives in the grey area of almost every binary: man, or animal? Alive, or dead? Gay or straight? The latter being strong in context of the Victorian era.
This is not an essay including the queer theory, but I would like to make sure I am not excluding it. The queer theory ties into our second lens and Stephen Arata’s ideas on “reverse colonization” (Arata 465). In a traditional post-colonial lens, we would identify Count Dracula as the “other”, the mysterious, the unknown and unsolved. This idea of viewing another culture and peoples as “other” has a negative connotation and directly corelates with how one society views another. Arata makes the point that when societies that were once powerful begin to crumble, a fear arises that they will become the colonized (Arata). Because “…vampirism [marks] the intersection of racial strife, political upheaval, and the fall of empire…” it also induces fear (Arata 465). Here, in this post-colonial “reverse colonization” lens, Arata explains that Dracula is a symbol of the ideology that the Victorian’s were afraid of, and thus insisted on destroying, repressing, and defending against (Arata).
“This was the being I was helping to transfer to London where, perhaps for
centuries to come, he might, amongst its teeming millions, satiate his lust for
blood, and create a new and ever widening circle of semi-demons to batten on
the helpless.” (Stoker 53-54).
Stoker, quite vividly and deliberately, made Jonathan Harker afraid of Dracula in this scene, not for his own life, but for the lives of his people. He literally equates Dracula’s species and creations with “semi-demons” and is scared for the people of England and what Dracula’s disease might do. Will it turn men gay? Will it make monogamy irrelevant? Will it completely dismantle the Victorian way? Who knows, but Jonathan (an imagined personality of Stoker) is scared by the possibilities. Count Dracula is a blood-thirsty monster who feasts on the weak and the lustful. He represents everything that isn’t 1800’s England. Dracula’s ability to terrify comes from the deeply rooted beliefs of colonizing powers. The point is, people(s) that were viewed as “other” and fantastical were often also viewed as inferior. But what happens when a culture that was once on top is suddenly in shambles? Arata says that this is when fears of the “other” conquering them creep in (Arata). “Reverse colonization” is exactly this. He states that Jonathan Harker’s quote (from above) is meant both “biological[ly] and political[ly]” (Arata). Dracula will not only “infect” the English by turning them into vampires with his blood-sucking ways, but he will infect the English with his perverse Eastern European ways; of course, this is in comparison with the supercilious Victorian politics and social structures (Arata). Furthermore, in doing research for Dracula, Bram Stoker enlisted the help of Scottish folklorist Emily Gerard (Arata). According to Arata, Gerard told Stoker that the “Roumanians” will devour and encompass any culture they conquer and/or come in contact with (Arata 466). This very notion of “taking over” and “converting” through force is scary for a global power that is normally the one taking over and converting.
From a post-colonial view, Count Dracula is the instigator of fear for the colonist. Although Britain still held colonies in east Asia throughout the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, the Eastern side of the globe was still a mystery when Dracula was published in 1897. From their food to their religious practices, Britain was almost a polar opposite of Transylvania (now Romania). As a colonizer, the objective is to command, conquer and sustain through force; you command a people, conquer their lands and use them for sustainable industry. Arata’s notion of Dracula as a commander and conqueror shifts the balance and threatens Britain (Arata). The very thought of Count Dracula coming to London with his three wives, wolf army and fluctuating sexuality is an example of the “return of the repressed” (Freud). The “repressed” here is the notion that what was once advanced will surely crumble. The “repressed” is the fear of no longer being the colonizers, but the colonized.
If we bring the two ideas of human/animal and “reverse colonization” together under the umbrella of Freudian psychoanalysis, a common theme emerges: fear. Our two scholars, Lindsey Kurz and Stephen Arata, have set the table for the Freudian main course. Steven Schneider’s essay, “Monsters as (Uncanny) Metaphors”, combines the two previous theories and directly applies Freud’s essay to horror monsters. We will look at his wide analysis of monsters in horror and specify his generalizations.
Schneider includes a great quote from horror movie critic Robin wood: “One might say that the true subject of the horror genre is all that our civilization represses or oppresses.” (Schneider). In this repression and oppression, we find ourselves afraid. Monsters found in horror films and literature are “…at least potentially horrifying…” because they parallel and embody previously overcome beliefs (Schneider). Schneider’s claim directly relates to Freud’s “uncanny” with respect to infantile beliefs. Count Dracula, Schneider states, is a monster that strikes fear in his victims by triggering the “undead” infantile belief and the “castration complex” (Schneider). The “castration complex”, derived from Freud’s work, regards the fear, horror and dread that comes from imagining the loss of a limb (Freud). Sigmund uses a very specific example in his essay: “We know from psychoanalytic experience, however, that this fear of damaging or losing one’s eyes is a terrible fear of childhood.” (Freud 7). This statement is both a testimony to the uncanny as a fear-based feeling, and, substantiation for the uncanny as a repression of something conceived in infancy.
However many quotes I pull from Dracula, none hit all three theories on the head quite like Dracula’s escape speech in a chapter 20 encounter: “My revenge is just begun! I spread it over centuries, and time is on my side. Your girls that you all love are mine already; and through them you and others shall yet be mine––my creatures, to do my bidding and to be my jackals when I want to feed. Bah!” (Stoker 267). If we are scuba diving and the theories are our suit, then the eco-critical lens are our fins. We will start with the obvious mention of animals and the use of the word “creature”. In this villainous speech he states that he will command those that the English love as though they were his creatures, non-humans, his “jackals” (Stoker 267). Present here is the fear of the wild, the untamed, the savage and feral––so savage and feral that they can no longer be considered human. Now, imagine the post-colonial theory is the oxygen tank strapped to our backs, then we can now swim faster and longer through this rich text. Arata would point to Dracula’s plot to relocate to, infect and ultimately transmute England, starting with the women. It is understandable why Dracula struck fear and shock into its first readers, he was coming to take their women! Here, the return of the repressed thought of “reverse colonization” is terrifying (Arata).
The third and final theory, Freudian psychoanalysis, is our scuba suit, without it we would ultimately be stuck on the beach, unable to wade into the freezing and intrepid water that is Dracula. We have the human/animal fear. We have the “reverse colonization” fear (Arata). But why do they exist as “fears” to begin with? Because they evoke the uncanny.
Dracula moves in ways we know humans can’t. He takes human form, which we know animals cannot do. He takes animal form, which we know humans cannot do. He defies so much of what we know that we have no choice but to be afraid.
That is what makes Dracula a successful horror monster. He generates fear through the uncanny. He makes us question our beliefs; the things we think we know are true, and, once in the vast ocean of the unknown, we lose our way. It is similar to our childhood fear of the dark. When the lights go out and we cannot see, we cannot believe that there is good. We imagine monsters, demons, our scary grandmother, maybe… we imagine the bad because there is no proof of the good. The unknown scares us, and the uncanny is our ferry along the Unknown River.
We have explored the binary of being alive or dead, human or animal, conqueror or conquered, and we slightly touched on the gay or straight binary. All of these “either or” statements were challenged by Dracula. In doing so, Stoker’s novel became a classic horror story in that it tore down and questioned the existing social structures and as we discussed previously, the crumbling of an empire is terrifying for its inhabitants. The Victorian way of life was threatened and corrupted by Count Dracula and Freud’s concept of the “uncanny” allows us to imply that the threat of such violent conversion and perversion brought up beliefs (true or not), which we have repressed since infancy.
Works Cited
Arata, Stephen D. “The Occidental Tourist: Dracula and the Anxiety of Reverse
Colonization.” Dracula, by Bram Stoker, edited by Nina Auerbach and David J.
Skal, New York, W.W. Norton & Co, 1997, pp. 462-470
Freud, Sigmund. “The “Uncanny”.” Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/freud1.pdf. Accessed 5 December 2022.
Kurz, Lindsey. “Beast(s) of Burden: Animal Anxiety in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” Journal
of Dracula Studies, vol. 20, article 5, 2018. Journal of Dracula Studies,
https://research.library.kutztown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1104&conte xt=dracula-studies. Accessed 19 November 2022.
Schneider, Steven, “Monsters as (Uncanny) Metaphors: Freud, Lakoff, and the
Representation of Monstrosity in Cinematic Horror.” Other Voices, vol. 1, no. 3,
January 1999. Othervoices.org,