Homophobia, Dracula and Homoeroticism

For the time period, Dracula is a striking novel with homoerotic themes for the victorian ages. Many characters describe interactions with the vampires that are easily interpreted as homoerotic, for instance, Dracula has many scenes where his actions and words convey his lust for Jonathan Harker, like when he rebukes his brides for touching him, claiming that Harker is "Mine" these homoerotic themes might stand out to us in today's time, but these themes did not fly over the heads of the Victorian audiences that read this novel. Bram Stoker was not the type of literary genius that successfully hid homoerotic themes in his novel that nobody noticed until the twentieth century.

Stoker lived in a very homophobic time; one of his friends (Or acquaintances) was Oscar Wilde who was at the time on trial for having a homosexual relationship. It would be hard to say that this did not influence Dracula, but there is no denying that the homoerotic themes are present. The titular character Dracula, is not the traditional hetero normative male character, he does display much more homosexual tendencies and gender inversion not common among literary characters of the time. This is not to say that the character suffers from it, his homosexual characteristics might add to his villainy among Victorian audiences. He very well could be the type of character that the readers are given another reason to hate for his departure form traditional gender and sexual orientation roles.

This brings up an interesting point; did Bram Stoker mold the villain of his most famous work to make the readers hate him even more? Instead of just creating a mythical monster that offends the readership by his very existence, he created one that’s a monster in more ways than one. The social consequences of being a homosexual in those times were dire, and by creating a villain that displays homosexual tendencies makes him that much more dangerous. Dracula didn’t just threaten life, he threatened the social pressures of the time and made him seem that much more demonic. Today a gay vampire might not raise many eyebrows, but back then, the idea of a homosexual who essentially infects his victims with the same tendencies is a very real fear people of the time felt. Stoker’s characters were not dealing with just a common ground monster, this was a being who could turn gender and sexual norms upside down, and that made him all the more necessary to be destroyed. Stoker might well have created Dracula as a criticism of the social and societal views of homosexuality at the time. Whether this is just a criticism or just good use of knowing your audience is yet to be determined.