Love You to Death: Sapphic Desire in the Victorian Vampire Novel

Abstract

This thesis addresses how the Victorian-era fear of transgressive sexuality affects the vampire narrative. In looking at Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla (1871) and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), I argue that these texts present two models of lesbianism: predatory and egalitarian. In my first chapter, I suggest a reading of Carmilla that considers the duality of Carmilla’s overt lesbianism versus Laura’s covert lesbianism. I explore Carmilla’s status as monstrous outside of her lesbianism before turning to an examination of Laura’s narrative style. In my second chapter, I explore Lucy’s psychological deviance before pivoting to a consideration of Mina. I argue that Mina’s vocabulary for love equivocates between her husband Jonathan and her best friend Lucy, asserting that Mina acts as a pseudo-husband to Lucy while her fiancé Holmwood is away. I conclude by arguing that Carmilla and Dracula are reflections of lesbian narratives before and after Oscar Wilde’s trial in 1895. Due to its highly publicized nature, I position Wilde’s trial as a shift in the nineteenth century, a dividing line between narratives of possibility and melancholy.