Strange Sexualities in Literature

by Stuart Frazer 

Two works of important literature that could not be farther apart have both become beacons in our history in the way represent our sexual desire in society; from Austen’s buttoned up heroines to Stoker’s veracious Count. Whilst being a century apart and a century (or two) in our past they show a great deal about the spectrum of sexuality.

“The seventeenth century, then, was the beginning of an age of repression emblematic of what we call the bourgeois societies, an age which perhaps we still have not completely left behind. Calling sex by its name thereafterbecame more difficult and more costly. As if in order to gain mastery over it in reality, it had been first necessary to subjugate it at the level of language, control its free circulation in speech, expunge it from the things that were said, and extinguish the words that rendered it too visibly present. And even these prohibitions, it seems, were afraid to name it.” (History of Sexuality, The: An Introduction, Volume One. Foucault, Michel. Page 17).

Although the novels which I am discussing; Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Bram Stoker’sDracula are very much nineteenth century novels, which also form very strikingly differing bookends to the said century, it is Foucault’s theories, here on seventeenth century censorship, sexuality and its prevalence in conversational and literary society, has very much a relevance in Austen’s opinions of her characters and Stoker’s challenging of the norms and the assault on the notion of the outsider. In Pride and Prejudice the characters sexualities may be very visibly noticed; yet it is the actual act of sex, and their sexual desires which is notably absent and that it is the readers own implications which then renders the characters sexualities fully whole. The same cannot be said of Dracula, the act of sex is very much present, it is used as a weapon towards our heroic characters, sex and a lustful sexual gaze are seen to have properties of baseness; whilst it is the wholesome idea of ‘love’ shared between our heroic protagonists which overcomes the sexualised threat.

It is Austen’s work that at the outset sets the tone of her opinions towards sexuality, ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.’ (Pride and Prejudice. Austen, Jane. Page 5)It is a straightforward line that perpetuates the notion that it is male sexuality which governs Austen’s Britain and that his sexuality is made more prevalent to women by the large size of his bank balance, which in turn broadens his power amongst society.

In Dracula, it is the power of Dracula that fascinates its characters and also more interestingly the readers. ‘Throughout the novel the reader repeatedly witnesses demonstrations of Dracula’s powers. It appears, from what Stoker tells us, that the vampire’s powers are considerably more extended than God’s’ (http://www.123helpme.com/assets/7632.html ) His abilities such as the ability to bring life to the dead, and to ‘crawl down the dreadful wall over that dreadful abyss,face down.’ (Dracula. Stoker, Bram. Page 52). Powers which astonish the character of Jonathan, they instil fear into both him and the reader, and create a mysterious figure, of which the reader and Jonathan set out to find more about in a strange voyeuristic way.

The character’s fascination with this in one way on the surface is very similar to Pride and Prejudice, but the attraction of these men both differ greatly, in the case of Jane Austen; its is the romantic hero, whereas it can be said that Stoker’s protagonist is the romantic villain.

The sexuality of many of Stoker’s characters are aimed at or guided by Dracula. The manipulating of Jonathan in the initial chapters of the book prove evocatively interesting, as it could be read that his sexual desires both heterosexual and homosexual are aroused. ‘There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive… she actually licked her lips like an animal.’ (Dracula. Stoker, Bram. Page 57). Jonathan is challenged by his desires towards the women in the castle, he is at once both sickened and aroused by this. Dracula can be seen as challenging the ideal of Western European sexual limitations and suppression, and so in turn can Stoker. The relationship of Harker and Dracula is interesting possibly suggesting a homosexual desire between the two men. Jonathan’s introduction to the castle is littered with phallic language, ‘ mighty rifts,’ (Dracula. Stoker, Bram. Page 15), ‘shadows of the peaks’ (Dracula. Stoker, Bram. Page 15) and ‘dark firs’ (Dracula. Stoker, Bram. Page 17) all add to the imposing sexuality around Harker inferring his suppressed desires, when he meets Dracula for the first time a ‘flame burn(s)’ (Dracula. Stoker, Bram. Page 26) between them.

In Austen’s work the issue of sex and sexuality is a much more guarded them, something which is necessarily more implied the implicit. “Austen subjects all the conventions of courtship to the scrutiny of irony and common sense as part of her attempt to dramatise the relations between character and sexuality within everyday social life informing this scrutiny in all the novels is a favourite perception: that good looks and charm inevitably create favourable responses and biased judgement.”( Jane Austen in A Social Context. Monaghan, David (Ed). Page 70.)

This reading infers that Austen’s characters sexuality is readily apparent when you look under the surface. Austen’s characters and plots are often satirical, in regards to many issues and themes, and it seems that sexuality is no exception. She is clearly saying that many people’s judgements are clouded by there initial feelings of lust and charm; and that may lead to an incorrect interpretation of character. “Such bias is at work when Elizabeth Bennet honours Wickham for his sentiments toward Mr Darcy’s father and thinks him ‘handsomer than ever’ as he utters them, or when she reflects that Wickham’s very countenance may vouch for [his] being amiable. This simplest and most instinctive sexual response is always taken for granted in Austen’s novels, not criticised or investigate. Bingley is immediately attracted to Jane Bennet… as Jane is to Bingley…”( Jane Austen in A Social Context. Monaghan, David (Ed). Page 70.)

The suggestion that the Austen’s characters sexual desires becomes more apparent, the characters of Bingley and Jane are immediately attracted to one another. There are also several incidences where Austen discreetly implies the sexuality of her characters. “Mr. Bennet was not of a disposition to seek comfort, for the disappointment which his own imprudence [in marrying a narrow-minded foolish woman] had brought on, in any of those pleasures which too often console the unfortunate for their folly or their vice” (Pride and Prejudice. Austen, Jane. Page 183)

Austen is saying that Mr Bennet has never been unfaithful to his wife, even though he does not condone her actions at times. It is Austen’s implication which lie at the heart of her characters sexualities. It is mostly the female sexuality that Austen regards her with whilst ‘in Jane Austen’s works there is hardly any male sexual predation or assaults on female virtue’ (http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/janeart.html#ravish ) it is interesting that all of Austen’s character’s in Pride and Prejudice particularly keep their sexual desires hidden for the most part. The propositions of love and marriage are perfunctory and do not give any sexual connotations.

In Dracula male sexuality is at the forefront of the action it is Dracula’s blood lust that furthers his actions. The influences are many for this character from Vlad the Impaler to Atilla the Hun ‘Fools, fools! What devil or witch was ever so great as Attila, whose blood is in these veins’ (Dracula. Stoker, Bram. Page 44) and to 5^th Century BC Athens, whose bloody battles and texts can be seen to have very sexualised language and actions. “Get out, I tell you… [Your place is] Where, by judgement given, heads are lopped and eyes gouged out, throats cut, and by the spoil of sex the glory of young boys is defeated, where mutilation lives, and stoning, and the long moan of tortured men spiked underneath the spine and stuck on pales… The whole cast of your shape is guide to what you are, the like of whom should hole in the cave of the blood-reeking lion…” (The Oresteian Trilogy: Agamemnon; The Choephori; The Eumenides. Aeschylus. Page 147 -182).

It is Stoker’s jarring use of sex and violence that make the sexual desires of his character’s an uneasy theme. ‘Stoker avoids any overt treatment of the sexuality of his ‘living’ characters [who] are, both the men and the women, models of chastity.’ It is these ideals which are challenged by this outsider. It is also this chastity which confines our characters and leads them to their salvation. It is the character of Lucy who is condemned because of her views on her own sexuality. Her reaction to the news she has not one but three suitors almost verges on delight ‘I am so happy that I don’t know what to do with myself.’ (Dracula, Stoker, Bram. Page 82). These actions lead her to be susceptible to Dracula, and lead to her condemnation as a vampire and to be used in a sexual and horrific way by the count, and is therefore damned. It is Stoker’s notion of the despised other from another land which has come over to corrupt the virginal youth of British Victorian society, ‘In short, race appears here in the form of an ethnology that has been thoroughly sexualized.’ (Vampires, Mummies and Liberals. Glover, David. Page 38). It is Stoker’s idea that the foreigner arriving on British soil is what can sexually corrupt our citizens, leading to their sexual desires to become abnormal, in the case of Jonathan suggested homosexuality and Lucy’s desire of premarital sex and attraction to more than one man.

Lucy can be aligned with Lydia in Pride Prejudice, in the case that both women know their sexuality and using it to gain the male attention. Although Lydia is condemned for her actions it can be said that she does not deter her from her flirtatious behaviour. Whilst her character can be seen as promiscuous she ‘in spite of her youth and her manners, she retained all the claims to reputation which her marriage had given her’ (Pride and Prejudice. Austen, Jane. Page 298) is still faithful to Wickham, she has not strayed any further from her sole desire. Austen’s condemnation does not reach the scale of Stoker’s condemnation of promiscuous femininity, as her sole desire was found and she now lives with her prey as his wife, this too could be her fate, and also her survival in society.

Sexual desire in both texts are both extremely prevalent, but are not widely acknowledged, as they both are not primary associated with these issues and it takes a deeper reading and understanding of these texts in order to see the condemnations and critiques which both authors are trying to highlight, within there respective societies. Therefore it is useful in order to gain a greater insight into 19^th Century literature and the attitudes towards their own sexual desires.