Terry J. Prewitt
University of West Florida
 
  

     Mythic classifications of blood abound in human culture. In Western cultures, as over most of the world, blood signifies such notions as "life," "vitality," and "power." Blood qualities, real and imagined, embellish our expressions of social, political, and religious, passion, purity, and contamination.[2] Physical blood classifications, moreover, suggest general themes of culture which carry tremendous symbolic force in many of our central myths. For example, strong social and linguistic rules surround such blood categories as blood spilt in combat and menstrual blood. Similarly, the Precious Blood of Jesus is shed, sanctified, transformed into wine, and ingested. Menstrual blood is hidden, avoided, contained, and discarded.
     Our popular medical culture employs equally rousing categories, such as whole blood and tainted blood. The blood of donors is taken, analyzed, and transfused into patients; people avoid physical contact with AIDS victims in a blood fear, a behavioral cathexis which renders human beings into nothing but blood, semen, and saliva. Blood "signs" cut across our knowledge and belief systems; and though we are careful to control their evocative powers in language, we freely spatter blood across our myriad cultural performances. Perhaps the idea of spilt blood or wasted blood resounds as one of the most obvious images of our time.[3] But this is more a matter of contemporary emphasis than innovation. Western cultural classifications have always placed blood in paradigms of fluids and secretions. Blood signifies alongside milk, tears, sweat, saliva, snot, semen, urine, and feces.
     Western mythos, the idealized cycles of event-structure through which we explain our lives and justify our actions, derives some particular "blood" associations from classical culture. Hebrew traditions provide us with blood and flesh associations of purity/impurity. Christian and, more generally, Greek traditions infuse associations of blood, potency, and spiritual power. In their original cultural contexts, blood metaphors in story action likely produced fairly precise interpretants. "Modern" appreciations of these images exist as diverse and quite problematic reassertions of "original" intent. For example, the simple assertion that Jesus' blood sacrifice accomplishes some form of Jewish atonement or redemption is a manifest metaphor of the sacrifice myth into which Jesus death has been placed. But ritual drinking of Jesus blood, however much it may have a foundation in Jewish Passover practices, departs from Jewish cultural premises significantly, fuels a continuing debate in Christian theology, and inspires impassioned popular interpretations.[4]
     This essay concerns three expressions of "Western" myth: (1) the Christ as viewed through the persona of Jesus, (2) the anti-Christ as depicted in the persona of Bram Stoker's Dracula, (3) the figurative lives of "holy" and "unholy" anorectics. My recreations of the Christ and the Vampire, transformations of a single symbolic system, derive mainly from readings of the gospel canon and Stoker's book.[5]  My third analytical element grafts onto the variants of the "blood myth" structure as an expansion of Raymond Bell's investigation of "holy anorexia."[6] According to Bell, the gender-based conflicts in the lives of certain young women founded a peculiar medieval religiosity with symptoms strikingly similar to anorexia nervosa. My use of the term "unholy anorexia" traces some of the same gender conflicts through the darker expression of blood myth structure.
     My interest in myth patterns began with the Torah, specifically with efforts to see how narrative sections of Genesis express ideal kinship relations.[7] Expanding upon the same analytic theme, I now propose figuring plot (or mythos)[8] in religious, literary, and living "texts" as homologous expressions of foundational kinship structures and sentiments of Western tradition. Leonard Wolf's The Annotated Dracula analytically parallels a part of my exploration of essentially "good" and "evil" forms of blood myth.[9] In this analysis, however, the experientially "constructive" process of the altered state typifying anorexia "lives out" or "performs" the dark myth — marriage to Dracula instead of marriage to Christ. As Marion Woodman suggests in Addiction to Perfection, the eating disorder finds its source in a pathological socialization which recapitulates dysfunction from generation to generation.[10]
     The vampire literary genre became prominent in the 19th century and flourishes today. In Stoker's version of the vampire theme, an almost compelling descriptive resemblance exists between the wasting victims of Dracula and some modern anorectics. Even more compelling, Stoker brings strong emphasis to dominant patriarchal structures, mind control, and gender stereotypes which mark anorectics' lives. "Unholy anorexia" is thus a modern devotion, a mythic enactment very like the "holy anorexia" Bell defines. The problem, as in all vampire tales, rests in making the rudimentary logical connections which match the common sense of evidence to interpretations which fly in the face of tradition. The vampire's kiss leaves few traces save the symptoms of the victim. The monster laughs hideously through convincing smiles of denial.

Phallic vs. Reproductive Power

    This essay proceeds first through what I call "withdrawn woman" narratives, stories emphasizing the social conservation of feminine reproductive power through assertions of phallocentric authority (Figure 1). In the type example of this pattern, Abram travels to Egypt and places his wife Sarai in Pharaoh's household. Sarai's introduction as a "sister" constitutes an explicit offer of marriage, but God intervenes to place a plague on Pharaoh's household. When Pharaoh identifies Sarai as the source of pollution in his household, he returns her to Abram and expels the couple with all their possessions from Egypt.[11] Withdrawn-woman narratives typically show a husband, brother or "foreigner"[12] directing or compelling some action on the part of a wife/sister. The action may over-value or under-value the controlling person's relationship with the woman by positing an inappropriate sexual union or marriage. The stories are usually marked by a shift in "generation" or "rank" on the part of the woman. The shift potentially brings the husband/brother into conflict with a higher-ranking patriarch (father/lord), a conflict concluding with annihilation, bloodshed, sterility, or expulsion/exile for one party and the woman. The plot may even culminate with the succession of the subordinate male to the generational position of the superior male.
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 Figure 1. General Pattern of Withdrawn-Woman Narrative.
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     Though withdrawn-woman plots occur in many cultures around the world, including classical Greek culture, the most influential examples from the Western tradition involve the birth and resurrection of Christ. Not surprisingly, we find the pattern of the Christ narratives resonating with Hebrew and Greek rhetorical elements. Birth and resurrection are the "mythic" brackets of Luke and Matthew, a metaphorical embellishment of likely earlier patterns (such as Mark) which are included between stories of ascetic ordeals of passage (death/rebirth) and resurrection (death/rebirth). The birth account of Matthew (Figure 2) depicts Mary as "selected by God" to bear "the child of the Holy Spirit". Joseph intends to divorce Mary, but legitimizes Mary's child after an angelic visit in a dream. Joseph takes care then not to have sexual relations with Mary until after the birth. Thus, God provides the Spirit (semen), Mary provides corporeality (flesh) and Joseph provides legitimation (marriage). This turning of the plot places Joseph and Mary in a "brother/sister" tie and makes Mary the consort of God. The Spiritual insemination of Mary quite explicitly "elevates" Mary in rank over her husband who, having served his legal purposes, all but drops out of the gospel narrative.
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   Figure 2. Election in the "Holy Blood" Myth.
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     The resurrection presents a transformation of the story (Figure 3). A "sinner" named Mary, an implied sister/consort, replaces the "pure" maternal Mary as the female counterpart of Jesus. The withdrawn-woman plot structure explicitly denies this "marriage" in two ways. First, Jesus only metaphorically "redeems" the young Mary by remaining the "bridegroom" (in the sense of the "betrothed") throughout the story. Second, the marriage is deferred until after resurrection allows Jesus to "ascend" to the generational position of his God/father. Annihilation and rebirth to an elevated position makes the maternal Mary Jesus' mother/sister, opening the way for redemption of the sinner Mary, now his daughter/wife, the first "bride of Christ".[13] In the transformation from the birth account to the resurrection account, the symbolic "blood" of Jesus replaces the Spiritual "semen" of God. The physical gift of flesh (corporeality) and milk provided by Mary to her son Jesus becomes the spiritual food of flesh and blood given by Jesus in communion.
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   Figure 3. The "Holy Blood" Myth.
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     Consider now the inversion of this blood myth in Bram Stoker's Dracula. After setting the foundational premises of the "vampire" through Jonathan Harker's imprisonment, the novel moves through two broad recapitulations of the withdrawn-woman narrative, the stories of Dracula's selection of Lucy Westenra and Mina Murray-Harker (see Figures 4 and 5). The tale of Lucy's transformation from purity to pollution pits Dracula against a "fraternal" but paternalistic group of vampire hunters.
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   Figure 4. The Case of Lucy and Dracula.
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     Dracula also has three already elevated daughter/wives in Transylvania, non-maternal and hyper-sexual "sisters" who are denied Harker's blood by the count. Instead, Dracula gives them babies to devour. Stoker makes Dracula a controlling and ancient creature who represents in human terms a chthonic manifestation much the same as the ascended Jesus of scripture; the vampire is an anti-Christ. The concept of Dracula as anti-Christ marks Leonard Wolf's annotations of Dracula; on the basis of plot features outlined here, I believe the parallel is well justified. First, in spite of all his powers, Dracula remains an imperfect creature. His weaknesses remain hidden to most people, just as the strengths of the Christ are not necessarily always manifest in his persona. Only the alter-character of Van Helsing understands the nature and limitations of the beast.
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   Figure 5. The Case of Mina and Dracula.
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     A feature I want to stress in this analysis is "invisibility". The vampire casts no reflection in the mirror. In effect, the vampire remains "substanceless"; the human eye sees the "Un-Dead", but mirrors which should reflect the true world cannot capture the vampire's image. We find that the creature, once a mortal, stands now immortal by virtue of drawing blood from living things, the children of God. I do not need to belabor the sexual metaphors of the vampire's "kiss".[14] Note, however, that the "blood" here runs, in the main, opposite the flow of the Christ stories. The ritual "exchange" of blood which "marries" Dracula and his human lover, however, brings emphasis to the transformation of a daughter/lover/consort into a sister/non-lover/wife configuration. Dracula takes the "girl" sexually but consigns her to an unloved and decidedly non-maternal status. Compulsion and subordination mark the woman's part in the consummation (ravishment); the transformed victim becomes obsessed with feeding. The resurrected Lucy uses what "maternal" quality she has to cruelly entrap children; to the fraternity she appears voluptuous, a dead object of sexual desire who, once reanimated, becomes an evil deceiver understood only by Professor Van Helsing.
     Another of Dracula's imperfections is his "foreign" status. At the beginning of Stoker's novel, Dracula takes pains to work toward command of English language, places and customs. Professor Van Helsing emphatically shares the "foreign" imperfections of the count. Stoker torturously marks Van Helsing's syntax; several characters do not immediately trust or understand the professor. Thus, the flaws Dracula reduces or refines in order to enhance his possibilities become glaring impediments to Van Helsing.[15] In this sense we can see Dracula and Van Helsing as immortal and mortal tokens of each other. Dracula is Van Helsing's "Barabbas", an evil manifestation of the same "type". My placement of Van Helsing within the "fraternity" reflects the method of his enlistment and encouragement of the other vampire hunters. Van Helsing is as "patriarchal" and "paternalistic" as Dracula. Both control and manipulate the others to achieve their desired ends. But Van Helsing always allows "free choice" to motivate action while Dracula demands "free choice".[16]
     Van Helsing, then, is a "father" not fully actualized as "lover" in a withdrawn-woman structure. Stoker underscores the equivalence of Jonathan Harker (husband), Renfield (brother-victim), Lord Godalming (ascended son and lover), Quincey Morris (suitor and foreigner), Dr. Seward (suitor and scientist/modern) and Van Helsing (father and scientist/ancient) by channeling their blood into Dracula's body. In a highly creative symbolic twist, the linked situation of Godalming, Morris, Seward and Van Helsing finds expression through transfusions of blood given to Lucy. The first transfusion comes from Godalming, Lucy's chosen betrothed among the three younger men. This happens by "right" as declared by Van Helsing. The Professor later expresses the sense of impropriety that the blood of the other suitors and his own blood must finally be channeled into Lucy's veins.[17] Ultimately, the fraternal "protection" of the men fails. Lucy dies and becomes "Un-Dead". Her transformation elevates her to the status of "wife" but leaves her lost in uncontrolled feeding upon children—Lucy is the "bloofer-lady" who would, if allowed, draw the others into pollution through the vampire's kiss.
      Professor Van Helsing's position as "patriarch" among the vampire hunters is reinforced by his age, his acknowledged role as "teacher" of Dr. Seward, and his authoritative actions, including his direct confrontation of Dracula. The reader of Stoker's Dracula can maintain no doubt that Van Helsing will, in the end, lead the defeat of the count. Yet the seeds of the professor's annihilation gain voice as he gradually weakens physically, paralleling the transformation of Mina Murray-Harker, Dracula's second selected victim. Only Quincey Morris and Renfield actually suffer physical death in protecting Mina. Dracula crushes and twists Renfield's body. A gipsy defending the count's coffin pierces Quincey "in the side"; he dies after driving his bowie knife into Dracula's heart. Thus, Stoker's tale only suggests impending annihilation of Van Helsing, then ends with the utter annihilation of Dracula at the hands of Harker and Morris, who do their grisly work under the protective cover of Godalming, and Seward.[18] Van Helsing and Mina watch as Dracula dies; they become "father" and "daughter" within the safety of a sanctified circle. Immediately upon the annihilation of Dracula, Mina rushes out of the circle which had confined and protected her. For a few moments, all the vampire hunters ride upon the strength of group purpose; alone, any of them would certainly have failed. But they achieved redemption when they succeed in destroying all the vampires: Godalming and Seward marry, the Harkers consummate their marriage, and Van Helsing enjoys 'grand-parental' status.  The Harker child, born on the same day as Quincey Morris' death, is called Quincey. Mina explicitly believes that the child manifests Morris' spirit.[see now (again) the graphic expansion in Fig 5b] The novel closes with Jonathan Harker's addendum:
 

    The "ascended" Van Helsing presents a proper generational transformation among the living; his triumphant appearance as the "good" patriarch watching over the lives of his kin reinforces the complete redemption of all the vampire hunters. The plot variation surrounding Mina gives emphasis to the duality of human good and evil. Renfield, the tainted voice who articulates the connection of blood and life from scripture, reinforces the theme. The determination of the Harkers, who have each endured violation by the vampire, manifests itself as an internal struggle. These human actors are "good" people brought into pollution and corruption. Stoker develops this contrast completely in Mina. She feels progressively "unclean" as her life dissolves into the controlling influence of Dracula. But Van Helsing discovers the means of using Dracula's "mind control" against the count through hypnotism. As the plot moves through this contest of "controlling" wills, Harker becomes obsessed with his mission of blotting out the ancient existence plaguing his life.
      Like the Christ plot, the restored order in the vampiric world asserts reproductive `power' for women while maintaining phallocentric `authority' for men. These myths presume that reproductive power requires proper phallocentric controls but cannot be replaced through some male reproductive mechanism. Thus, Dracula's greatest evils rests in garnering "reproductive" functions for himself and in controlling his sister/wives no less ruthlessly than his daughter/lovers. He must control women, for he knows that even when he succeeds in destroying the corporeality of his victim, she can continue to "reproduce" her own kind without him. In the Christian version of the blood myth, God redeems women through spiritual insemination. Men may also accomplish this "redemption". The corporeal woman, however, possesses natural reproductive power, a power of blood and flesh which God respects but men covet and fear. And the greatest reproductive fear is the most cunning desire: incest.

Continue to Section 2 (Parts 3-6 and Bibliography)