We’re So Used To The Sexual Reading Of The Entire Book Of Dracula, Which Takes The Sensuality Of The

We’re so used to the sexual reading of the entire book of Dracula, which takes the sensuality of the early chapters and jams everything that follows it into the same metaphor no matter how poorly it fits, but I feel the segment we’re approaching works much better with a lens of chronic illness and disease.

Vampire legends are inextricably intertwined with disease. Many of them are said to have been birthed by burying victims of disease too soon, who later seem to rise from the dead. But what’s more is that Stoker and his family have deep-seated trauma over disease: his mother had to flee her hometown at the age of 14 because of a horrific cholera epidemic, and Stoker himself was bedridden as a child from an illness that no one could identify.

Found this quote from Irish Historian Mary McGarry:

Bram as an adult asked his mother to write down her memories of the epidemic for him, and he supplemented this using his own historic research of Sligo’s epidemic. Scratching beneath the surface (of this essay), I found parallels with Dracula. [For instance,] Charlotte says cholera enters port towns having traveled by ship, and can travel overland as a mist—just like Dracula, who infects people with his unknown contagion.

I bring this up because a lot of academic analysis insists that Lucy sleepwalking is proof of her being the Slutty Woman archetype that needs to be punished. This suggested symbolism is hilarious when put next to the text saying she inherited it from her father, but I’d like to suggest a different angle from the lens of disease suggested earlier:

Lucy’s sleepwalking is a condition that predates Dracula but makes her an easy target for him to prey on. Through the lens of disease symbolism, she now is someone with chronic illness or disability who is especially vulnerable to infectious disease. This becomes a cross-section of Stoker’s trauma regarding disease: his own mystery illness and his mother fleeing a plague.

To wind down my rambles with a bit of a soapbox, I feel this adds a very poignant layer to the struggle to keep Lucy alive. The COVID pandemic showed a horrifying level of casual ableism vs disabled and immunodeficient individuals, shrugging off their vulnerability and even their deaths with “well COVID only kills them.” There’s something deeply gratifying at seeing the way everyone around Lucy fights to the bitter end to protect her and refuses to just give her up to Dracula, whether it’s Mina physically chasing him away or the suitor squad pouring their blood into her veins or Van Helsing desperately searching for cures. The vulnerable deserve no less than this. They’re not acceptable casualties.

More Posts from Dustbummy and Others

dustbummy

2 years ago

As a lesbian, I see most others here freaking out over Vi and Caitlyn, but I'm just like..

I just want Jinx. Let me love her and hold her.

Please

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dustbummy

5 months ago

I feel like something that gets little left behind when people discuss Caitlyn gassing Zaun is that, while yes, gas doesn't discriminate between innocent and criminal, child and adult, and that some Zaunites are forced into a life of crime to make ends meet so it's not entirely their fault-- Um, are we forgetting who makes the laws? It's important to me that we acknowledge that Piltover decides who is a criminal, decides what is undue retaliation (the Day of Ash, Jinx blowing the gas back into Piltover), and decides the punishment, which is often more severe than the "crime" or the retaliation. I just have a problem with the rhetoric that "some criminals are people!🥺" bc ALL "criminals" are people. The justice system in Arcane is just as flawed as it is in real life, can we think for just a moment that "criminal" doesn't mean "bad person" it just means they're in violation of state laws, which are often unjust and discriminatory. Like the state's definition of what makes someone a criminal is specifically designed to lock away and enslave minorities. (This is why fictional societies that are extremely egalitarian about race often fall flat, because it's not written from a place of respect, its from a place of discomfort.) Okay thank you.

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dustbummy

1 year ago

Stop giving me team green propaganda! Istg

“Not all men”

You’re right, Percy Jackson would never treat me like that.

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dustbummy

6 months ago

Sorry but the Haymitch's dynamic with his final two tributes. will never not fuck me up.

Katniss: He hates hates hates her for being the same as him. He can communicate with her because she is the same as him. He's her mentor, of course he cares about her. He should be a father figure to her but he's too stunted by his own trauma so they exist like teenage allies in the never-ending arena which is a victor's life. He wants to keep her safe but she must also be a pawn in the rebellion. She makes him make promises he cannot keep. She is all that he could have been and he is all that she might be.

Peeta: The sacrificial lamb. The one Haymitch knows he can't keep. The boy who is better than the rest but must be condemned to die time and time again. Who demands that Haymitch saves Katniss, as Katniss demands that he saves Peeta, but Haymitch could not save Maysilee, or his family, or his girl. Everyone Haymitch has ever lost compressed into a single body and placed beside Katniss, so he is forced to look at her as his mirror.

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dustbummy

2 years ago

call me old fashioned, but i was born to serve luxanna crownguard. cook for her, make her breakfast, clean the house, have a hot meal ready when she gets home, and do her laundry. if she cheats, that’s on me. she caught ME slipping and i will apologize and do better

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dustbummy

2 years ago

That Zombie one was so good! I keep going back to read it (⁠｡⁠･⁠ω⁠･⁠｡⁠)⁠ﾉ⁠♡ well done! If it's not too much to ask,, could you possibly write a part 2,,even if Halloween has passed ⁄⁠(⁠⁄⁠ ⁠⁄⁠•⁠⁄⁠-⁠⁄⁠•⁠⁄⁠ ⁠⁄⁠)⁠⁄

Hi! I promised another person that I would give another part to a different fic I'm working on, and I really don't know what else I could add to the zombie fic but- sure it just might take a while because writers block can be a bitch

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dustbummy

5 months ago