著者

原 雅樹

出版者

広島市立大学国際学部

雑誌

広島国際研究 = Hiroshima Journal of International Studies (ISSN:13413546)

巻号頁・発行日

no.27, pp.[79]-90, 2021-12-01

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In Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897), the Transylvanian vampire Dracula plans to invade England by sucking the blood of "new women" who embody the late 19th century sexual anarchy, and transforming them into his own species. The novel seemingly re-enforces traditional sexual norms because he is eventually defeated by the vampire hunters fighting to protect England, and Mina, who acts as their "angel in the house", a de-eroticized woman engaging in reproduction. However, a number of studies, including queer criticism that interprets bloodsucking as a metaphor for homosexuality, have attempted to bring to light the radical sexual politics latent in the novel. This paper argues that Mina "the angel in the house" is, paradoxically, even more perverse than Dracula, the embodiment of dangerous sexuality that threatens reproductive normativity. She not only directs her maternal love to Dracula, but also tries to help the men by copying the miscellaneous records about Dracula with a typewriter and editing them into a story, that is, Dracula. Since Dracula burns the original records, people can only learn about him through the copies, both in the world of the novel and in the real world. Mina is portrayed as a sexual pervert who, acting as an "angel in the house," gives birth to Dracula. By depicting her as a woman who subverts sexual norms through her subordination to them, the author is trying to present an alternative to the modern liberal subjectivity, what we might call liberty without subjectivity.