Count Dracula and Jonathan Harker Represent a Homosexual Relationship
Dracula, written by Bram Stoker in 1897, is a tale of the notorious Count Dracula vampire and his slow takeover of London. However, this is only on the surface. Upon reading deeper, one can suitably infer that Dracula is more than a story on vampires, but one instead on homosexuality. Its closeted language and frequent references to something deeper cause readers to question the true purpose of its publishing, perhaps one on a queer man’s twisted and convoluted emotions and how his 1800s society caused him to fear for his life. This is why Count Dracula and Jonathan Harker, Dracula’s main characters, represent a homosexual relationship in the late 1800s.
One notable undertone of homosexuality is Count Dracula’s repeatedly displays affection to Jonathan Harker in ways that were uncommon for men to men in 1897. Jonathan is attacked in his sleep by lady vampires. Dracula immediately came to his rescue and screamed at the other vampires about how he told them specifically never to touch Jonathan because “this man belongs to me!” (Stoker 43) When the lady vampires responded, asking why Dracula is so attached to this man (and how they thought he was unable to do so), Dracula turned to Jonathan, looked him dead in the eye, and said “I too can love.” (Stoker 43) Not only this, but in a few lines before it, Dracula claimed that “To-night is mine,” very heavily implying that he planned to feed on Jonathan that night. To a Victorian audience, this would be enough to ban the book entirely because men “feeding” on other men was a crime of homosexuality that was punishable by law, forcing Stoker to only publish this line in the American edition. *transition* Stoker wished that perhaps America would have been more accepting to his desired novel than England, somewhere where it was currently a horrible problem.
Dracula allows Jonathan to write letters to his fiance and friends, but only after Dracula reads them and proofs them for the post. Jonathan receives the responses to his letters, but Dracula again proofs them before handing the letters over to Jonathan and even goes as far as to casually burn the letter from Jonathan’s fiance right in front of him. While Jonathan understandably is very put off by this, Dracula instead sees it as looking out for Jonathan and protecting him from anyone who isn’t Dracula himself, which is textbook intro to an abusive relationship (but a relationship nonetheless!!) Subsequently, the most daming evidence of Dracula’s affection for Jonathan, is \: Dracula leaves his castle and goes out into town, publicly wearing Jonathan’s clothes. Even to this day, wearing someone else's clothes insinuates a lot, something Dracula flaunts around his town (again, toxic malewife behaviour).
On a much softer note, Dracula insisted on spending every moment he had with Jonathan. They talked for hours every night, to the point neither of them really ended up sleeping. Dracula didn’t let him leave until the dawn broke (another sign of toxic relationships). Dracula could have also killed Jonathan much earlier on but instead kept him alive and physically healthy. Dracula even goes to the dramatic extent of conducting an elaborate plan to pre-inform Jonathan’s fiance that he is doing well, allowing Jonathan to stay longer at Dracula’s castle.
Some of you by now are surely thinking “You’re reading too far into this!! Stop queerbating us into reading Dracula!” to which I respond with “Look at the backstory!” Bram Stoker was very possibly a queer person. After Oscar Wilde was convicted of homosexuality, Stoker was visibly shaken up, writing to his friends and “ask[ing] forgiveness from those who might see that his silence is a sin – to those few nameless souls who know his secret affinity wifth Wilde.” (Schaffer, 1994) Only after the Wilde Trial did he really sit down and write Dracula, seemingly motivating him to write this convoluted metaphor of a book. If Stoker really was queer, something as significant as Wilde’s verdict would compel Stoker to battle society’s fear of homosexuality by inserting homosexuals into his very own book.
We can see references to homosexuality and Oscar Wilde himself in various parts of Dracula. Homosexuals were often associated with dirt and decay, something Dracula literally lives in, and page 53 features the notorious quote “ a wild[e] desire took me.” Jonathan is describing himself trying to locate the key to the door of the castle, and thus his escape. He finds Dracula’s coffin (or his bed), and in a fit of desperation opens it to find Dracula seemingly asleep, yet smiling. This is where Jonathan gets his wild (or Wilde) desire and “felt all over the body.” (Stoker 53), a clear and obvious signal of homosexuality.
To wrap this up, Count Dracula and Jonathan Harker represent a homosexual relationship in the 1800s, not because they outwardly date, but because they present common undertones and insinuations of homosexuals in Stoker’s time. Dracula outwardly shows affection for Jonathan and keeps him alive to spend more and more time with him, something that Jonathan returns with his “wild[e] desire.” Stoker also puts in a clear effort to reference Oscar Wilde when referring to Dracula and Jonathan. For anyone who is interested in more reading and discussion on this topic and the possible lesbian relationship also included in Dracula, please see essays “A Wilde Desire Took Me”: The Homerotic History of Dracula” by Talia Schaffer, “The Meditation of the Feminine” Bisexuality, Homoerotic Desire, and Self-Expression in Bram Stoker’s Dracula” by Marjorie Howers, and of course Dracula by Bram Stoker. Works Cited Bram Stoker, et al. Dracula. New York, W.W. Norton & Co, 1997. Schaffer, Talia. ““A Wilde Desire Took Me”: The Homoerotic History of Dracula.” ELH, vol. 61, no. 2, 1994, pp. 381–425, https://doi.org/10.1353/elh.1994.0019.