Staked twice: the violent deaths of female vampires in Bram Stoker's Dracula and F. Marion Crawford's "For the blood is the life"

Abstract

In this thesis, I provide an analysis of Bram Stoker and F. Marion Crawford's works based on their depiction of female vampires. My corpus is composed of Stoker's novel Dracula and Crawford's short story For the Blood Is the Life. My analysis of this corpus is based on five principles: punishment should fit the crime, control is exercised through the coming together of a community, female vampires were considered more threatening than male ones, death is the last resort for reprimanding feminine misconduct, and there is bias in the depiction of these feminine characters, which is made clear by the seeming inevitability of their mortal deaths and the rigor and brutality in their executions as vampires. The female vampire seems to help envision the changing role of women in nineteenth-century society and the general response to these changes. The idea that the deterioration of the human condition is related to the feminine and to womanhood is joined with the idea of monstrosity and otherness in vampire stories. My analysis of Stoker and Crawford's works demonstrates that both authors represent, through their female vampires, that a purposeful community is formed within society to enforce regulated sexual practices, and to prevent those unregulated sexual intercourses from spreading among other members of that particular community and society at large. Once unfeminine behaviors cause women's exclusion from society and community, and there is no chance of reform, death is the only possible alternative. Death is paradoxically punishment and salvation, at least for the female characters.