Reaffirming Victorian Patriarchy Through Gothic Vampire Fiction

Abstract

This thesis aims to investigate Sheridan Le Fanu’s “Carmilla” (1872) and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) with a focus on how each text deals with gender and sexuality issues considering their contemporary societal culture. The Victorian Era in the UK was a time when conservative traditions were promoted, celebrating the inherent superiority of Englishmen. All other groups of people were categorized as having a lower standing in the cultural hierarchy, including English women, whose place was in the home. In this period of strict social order, Gothic Fiction grew in popularity, using clearly fictionalized settings that enabled discussion of taboo issues without causing controversy. Critics have analysed the presentation of gender and sexuality issues in these novels previously, and in this thesis, I have chosen to question Elizabeth Signorotti’s critique, which views Dracula as a novel that enforces Victorian patriarchal order as an answer to the older “Camilla”, which she sees as a progressive novella regarding questions of both gender and sexuality politics. This thesis is in partial disagreement with Signorotti, and it claims that “Carmilla” and Dracula both contain progressive ideas, but ultimately, they reveal themselves to represent male fantasy and male superiority instead. The methods used will consist of close analyses of the novels, and particularly of the characters featured within them.