Sara Brune
Edith Beale was the perfect Victorian woman. She encompassed all the traits associated with being an “Angel-in-the-House”; she was innocent, pretty, naïve, and had a sweet attitude towards others. It should come to no surprise then that she would find the perfect man and that they would live the perfect life together. He was in the military, was good-looking, and seemed of sound character amidst society; just the sort of man that a woman would be “rewarded” with for her sweet disposition. Soon after their marriage though, she mysteriously fell ill, and during this illness, she became pregnant with her first child. A few months later, she gave birth and people shunned her child for its physical deformities. She herself was concerned over the child’s outward appearance, wondering what she did wrong to cause such a fate for her child. The outcast child soon became incredibly ill, much like Edith, and perished in the night a few months after birth. Sent into a state of depression, Edith’s illness got worse as she felt her body growing weaker than ever before. She described feeling her brain deteriorating and the feeling of slipping between sanity and a lack of conscious thought, into a state of evil nothingness she blamed on her husband’s promiscuous behavior. Edith became bedridden during this process and was described as having an “animal sensuality” because she loses all control of herself and her body and mind continue to degrade because of disease. In this state, she curses her husband for his behavior that causes all of this, ruining her ideal life and contorting her mind and body, plus that of her child’s into a state of degradation. Her death was not beautiful or peaceful; it was painful and her breath rattled harshly in her chest to the last. She is just one example of a lady falling because of a sexually transmitted disease her husband gives her, in this case, syphilis.
While I admit this is merely an anecdotal example from Sarah Grand’s The Heavenly Twins, it helps to highlight the Victorian concern of disease and disease transmission, especially venereal diseases, which were becoming much well-known and documented as the number of cases increased. In a letter to the editor from the February 1872 edition of the newspaper, The Times, F.C. Skey, O.B, Consulting Surgeon to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital described syphilis as an “insidious enemy” of which was “not unfrequently so fatal to the happiness of families.” There was an immense fear of a healthy and happy, “Angel-in-the-House” collapsing and dying because of untreated syphilis or some other undetected disease. In some cases, the disease was undetected until death occurred, instilling immense fear of anyone, mainly women, who deviated from the traditional and desired lifestyle. Victorians struggled with how to treat these illnesses once they were caught and the ethical and medical standpoint from which treatment could be administered. Additionally, Victorians felt the pressure that diseases like syphilis put on society, creating a divide in business and science and between the various economic and social classes, something Victorian novels, such as Sarah Grand’s The Heavenly Twins and Dickens’ Hard Times to name a few, help to illuminate.
In this paper, I will begin by giving a brief, non-comprehensive, historical account of British health care during the Victorian period as it pertains to my paper. I then situate Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), a novel I argue engages with these fears, within the modern cultural reading, where vampirism is a metaphor for venereal disease. I will then combine this reading with the Marxist critique, where I examine the finances of the novel as they highlight the cost of curing or treating those affected by disease, namely those who cannot provide the money for their won care. I argue that Stoker uses vampirism as a metaphor for a sexually transmitted disease and outlines the moral and financial tensions created in treating it. Stoker furthers the divide between the poor “workers” and the wealthy policy-makers, or those who are able to pay the hospital a certain “rate” in order to support those who cannot afford their own care, within the novel, arguably criticizing how health care exists, where health is tied to morality and those with money get to dictate quality and quantity of care for those economically below them.
As historical economist Elizabeth T. Hurren asserts in her article, “Poor Law versus Public Health: Diphtheria, Sanitary Reform, and the ‘Crusade’ against Outdoor Relief, 1870–1900” the Victorians were hyper-aware of the spread of diseases, and created means of disease control, including policies like “Poor Law” and various boards of politicians and medical ‘professionals’ in order to achieve this. To control the spread of venereal diseases like syphilis, the Contagious Diseases Acts were passed in 1864, which gave law enforcement and medical doctors the ability to retain and restrain women whom they expected had what was deemed an “insidious disease” at the time (Cox). In addition to policies aimed at regulating public health, concerns with costs and who would pay for the care of those who could not afford it themselves arose. Because of the ideologies of social economists, such as Malthus and Smith, Victorians were concerned about population density and resources, which led them to desire helping only a select few.
Voluntary hospitals, the main form of care at the time, began to be overcrowded and underfunded due to outbreaks of diseases like cholera and syphilis, which heightened fears of insufficient resources. In “Accounting and the Moral Economy of Illness in Victorian England: The Newcastle Infirmary” historical accountant Andy Holden asserts “The solution to this insistent and enduring problem for most voluntary hospitals was to apply a moral qualification for allocating the hospitals' precious resources amongst those seeking help by distinguishing between the poor who were ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ of care”, looking at their ability to contribute to society and to help themselves (Holden 530). Adding moral qualifications for care recipients helped policy makers regulate patients and shame or turn away, those who could not afford care so as to control and ration resources. While this policy was beneficial for those who were using their money as a means of financial control of the hospitals, it was not beneficial for the “sick poor” who were not always able to meet these often unrealistic moral qualifications, and because of such, would be turned away. These ideas became a prominent topic of debate within and about literature, such as Dracula.
Now that I have outlined a brief overview of Victorian health concerns, I will trace the current scholarship surrounding Dracula as it pertains to my topic within the medical humanities. Relying on Michel Foucault’s theories of sexuality and desire, many literary scholars argue that Dracula is laced with sexual tension, and that vampirism can be expanded to be a metaphor for an STD. Scholar and researcher, Sian Macfie, outlines this idea in her article, “‘They Suck Us Dry’: A Study of Late Nineteenth-Century Projections of Vampiric Women,” claiming that vampirism can be directly related to venereal disease due to the language Stoker uses in order to describe it and through the Crew of Lights’ treatment of vampires. Arguably, their fears mirror those of the Victorians, who were concerned with catching the disease that was said to be a destroyer of more than just the body (meaning morality or ‘purity’) (Macfie). Similarly, literary scholar of horror and monster fiction, Mathias Clasen, connects vampirism to venereal disease in his article, “Attention, Predation, Counterintuition: Why Dracula Won't Die.” He asserts that by “portraying Dracula as a disease-carrier, Stoker invested his Count with the subtext of syphilis and tapped into an anxiety of sexually transmitted diseases that was widespread at the time,” continuing to rely on a bodily and sexually-charged tone for the vampire (Clasen 386). Other scholars, such as Elaine Showalter, R.G. Forman, and Rick Worland seemingly agree with this line of thinking. This reading is thorough and can be connected to Marxist criticism to show another facet of Victorian anxiety. If we look at Dracula also in context with an economically-charged reading, then we get a fuller picture of the political, social, and moral conflicts that venereal disease, or vampirism, caused.
Literary critics who take a Marxist approach when reading Dracula, look at The Count, his money, and Arthur in a variety of economically-interested ways. Scholars have thought that the amount of money that The Count has is a xenophobic representation of the Victorian ‘other,’ who could cause the British banking system to fail. Tensions over economics and banking arose primarily from the Great Depression and then again in 1890 because of the banking crisis, which caused the Bank of England to “sink” as historicist Gail T. Houston claims (Houston 112). Others argue that the novel is anti-Semitic, like Judith Halberstam, who reads the novel as reaffirming the stereotype of Jews being conscious with money. Some scholars, like Alison Halsall and Clive Leatherdale view the finances within the novel to be a representation of Stoker’s own class consciousness, in which they note the frequency and attention to finances a result of his class-awareness. Leatherdale feels that vampirism is dealt with in a business-like fashion, equipped with bribes, a costly solution, one in which the aristocracy pays in order to secure the lower classes, and ultimately, class immovability. This Marxist reading provides a grounding in Victorian financial tensions, and can be applied to a reading in which vampirism is a costly “contagion” to be rid of, equally as business-like but applied to a reading of venereal disease and health care.
One of the first indications that the reader gets that vampirism stands for a disease is the constant reference to someone being “infected” when they get bit, as if the disease was like a living entity (Stoker 318). When Mina exclaims this, she sets up the image of a vampire, spreading from land to land, infecting those who are around. Mathias Clasen claims that this imaginary form of contagion acts as a real disease would, using one host to infect another (Clasen). This can be seen when, at the end of the novel, the people who were “infected,” get released from the bonds of the disease, indicating that they were simply a host, or a means for the disease to spread. If read more specifically, vampirism can be classified as a venereal disease in particular, probably syphilis given its increase in the Victorian Period. The reason for this is that the act of transmission is sensual, almost pornographic, as Tanya Pikula claims in her article “Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ and Late-Victorian Advertising Tactics: Earnest Men: Virtuous Ladies, and Porn.” She sees that Dracula was able to “satisfy codes of Victorian censorship” while still being able to “titillate decades of readers and scholars” because of the engrained sexuality in all of the acts of transmission. A prime example of this occurs in the novel when Mina is bitten by Dracula, his mouth on her breast, then flung onto the bed (Stoker 285). While this scene sparks controversy because of the lack of consent, critics seem to agree on the sexuality and sensuality of the moment. It is intimate and fluids get exchanged, a direct correlation to the Victorian understanding of venereal disease. This lends itself to the panic of having the venereal disease, and once possessed by it, how to be rid of it and who even gets the option of treatment.
For instance, in the novel, Mina gets “cured” of the disease and Lucy does not, possibly indicating the beginning tensions of who is worthy of a cure and the cost of being cured or treated, which is where primary concerns of finances are introduced in the novel. F.C. Skey, O.B. from The Times continues to argue that no one should have “the seeds of a repugnant disease, the very name and nature of which should be repulsive to every delicate female mind” in their bodies, in reference to syphilis and the “horrendous” nature of those who willingly or knowingly carry it. He highlights the attitudes of Victorians about venereal disease and the pressing matter to be rid of it, but only to those who are “worthy” to society so that “virtuous” women are not affected. Mina arguably is an image of the future: a woman who works and has a “man’s brain” but is still able to be the “Angel-in-the-house” that is expected of her; she is a woman whom F.C. Skey would arguably be advocating protection for given her often subdued attitude (Stoker 242). She gets infected, but because of her work with the aristocracy, or upper class, in the form of Arthur, she is able to be “cured.”
Lucy on the other hand, is a woman not entirely dedicated to one man, which could be read as a metaphor for prostitution. To some Victorians, prostitution was seen as a contamination of the whole body, combined with morality, in some cases, making them a sort of pollutant to others (Forman). For Lucy, this becomes a reality, as she terrorizes children as “The Bloofer lady,” a play on “The Beautiful Lady,” mimicking her distorted “idealized” traditional female role in society (Stoker 190-1). This metaphor of fallen-ness and prostitution can be expanded by looking at the number of men who give their blood in an attempt to save her. Lucy gets a series of blood transfusions, which Stoker describes as one man’s “life-blood” being “drawn away” into “the woman he loves” (146). The language itself is what Pikula calls “titillating” and is charged with a sexual undertone, graphically but slightly depicting the possible act of semen release during coitus. If viewed as something more sexual than a simple blood transfusion, something the Victorians would have taken notice of, especially given the Crew of Lights’ reaction of horror and disgust to the intimacy of the act, it can be argued that Lucy would be seen as someone ‘unworthy’ of being saved, to use the Newcastle Infirmary’s terminology.
The distinction between who was deserving of treatment and who was not becomes evident when looking at the finances of the novel more in-depth. Historical Economist Hurren explains that the “sick poor” were the “deserving poor,” people who worked and contributed to industrialization and would return to work after treatment. On the other hand, “paupers” as Hurren notes, “were the ‘undeserving poor,’” or people who did not work (even those physically incapable of manual labor). Given these pretexts, Mina falls into the “deserving” category, while Lucy falls into the other, despite her betrothal to Arthur. This offers an explanation as to why Mina, a woman that contributes to the group, albeit through “womanly duties” or through her intellectual contributions, is deserving of being treated and why Arthur, representative of the ratepayers, or aristocracy, is more apt to spend money to help her. Lucy does not work, does not contribute to the group, and in fact even plays with the question of why society can’t “let a girl marry three men,” separating from the ideal monogamous attitude of the Victorians (82). An ideal woman would feel “blessed” to have one proposal. The moral obligation to save her, then, is missing; according to the teachings of Smith, Malthus, Darwin, and others like them, there is no reason to spend money to help someone who cannot help themselves or contribute to society or the household, who does not fall within the ideal category. I do understand that she would not be expected to perform hard labor, as she was a middle-class woman, but she contributes in no other way as Mina does.
So, while Arthur does offer blood to help her, metaphorically representative of cleansing her from vampirism (or venereal disease), because other men also “help” her, coupled with her inactivity in society and the group and her “imperfect” womanhood, he does not offer his finances to treat her illness; she is not as worthy of his financial contribution as Mina. He could easily have paid for more doctors, other opinions, nurses, or other medical professionals to help his betrothed, even brought her on a vacation “to the coast” for a change of air as was common in case of illness for the Victorians, yet he chooses not to do any of these options, begging the question of the power of the aristocracy over the health of those in a lower socioeconomic class or of those without financial opportunity. Arguably, if Arthur paid more people to help, Lucy could have been saved, just as Mina was.
By examining the differing approaches in deciding who to cure of the two women, the tensions of financial cost are more thoroughly revealed, in which Arthur, a member of the aristocracy, gets the ultimate decision about who deserves to be saved. While discussing the effects of Poor Law on Victorians, Hurren argues, “Doctors wanted ratepayers to pay for more medicines and better health care. Ratepayers just wanted to ensure that medical costs were kept to a minimum. After all, long-term patients were expensive,” an idea which can be applied to show the tensions between Arthur, who controls the money, and Van Helsing, the primary doctor who wanted to spare no expense for his patients. While Poor Law is not directly related to the treatment of venereal diseases, it helps to show the peak concerns with cost and who would pay for the care of those who could not pay for it themselves. One of the largest free hospitals during the Victorian Period was the Newcastle Infirmary, which tried to adjust for the increase in tensions between patient and financer. In order to accommodate for the increase in number of those affected, the head accountants and volunteers devised measures of getting around the traditional means that divided patients into ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ in order to treat the greatest number of those that they could hold (Holden). They would stretch the budget and market the civil duty of helping people in need, getting the ratepayers to provide more funding. They were able to, as Hurren claims, frame it so that “the existence of the poor” enabled the “prosperous to demonstrate” their faith in God and their piety by giving to the less-fortunate (Funnell).
Within Dracula specifically, Mina and Jonathan on their own would not be able to afford the amount of money that it cost to get rid of the vampire and his vampiric infection, despite their newly inherited business. Arthur gets to control who lives and who dies through the use of his finances, and, in fact, he symbolically and literally causes Lucy’s death, as he is the one who stakes her heart (Stoker 225). Symbolically, the aristocracy then is killing those who they may deem ‘unworthy’ of care; Arthur gets to determine who he wants to save and who he wants to kill. The scene that he stakes Lucy’s heart is just one example of this. Additionally, if Mina is the “deserving” poor trying to be cured, a woman who has grown in connection to the men and therefore, increased her own status, then Arthur is the ratepayer, doing his duty in order to save who he can, but only to an extent.
Furthermore, Mina should be classified as a “long-term patient” because of the amount of time it takes for her “treatment” in getting rid of The Count, so expensive in fact, that the Crew has to go to another country to track down the “cure,” spending massive quantities of money along the way (Stoker 278). Jonathan remarks on this when he notes “Judge Moneybag will settle this case” referring to the seemingly unlimited spending capacity of Arthur (Stoker 331). Jonathan understands that without Arthur’s money, Mina would not be cured and Dracula would go free. Mina also comments on this after the group must bribe their way in order to get passage into Transylvania and the information they need. She seems incredibly impressed with “the power of money” and the capacity that it allows them to do what they want (Stoker 351). In this regard, Arthur is the only key to curing her, and others who Dracula might infect. This emphasizes the strain in the relationship between those who were receiving treatment and those providing the finances for the care they needed. Knowing that they were the only key, the aristocracy could abuse and choose who got care, much in the way Hurren claims happened, which corrupted the medical boards set up to make sure people received the care they needed. Though Arthur does not hold it over their heads within the novel, he has the ability to withdraw his financial support at any moment of his choosing, thusly ending the Crew’s crusade against vampirism and disease, enabling Dracula (or the diseases) to infect others. The Crew would then have no other option.
Given the rising tensions and reliability on the wealthy which can lead to severe corruption, Stoker uses his novel to highlight the fears of disease and the tensions of costs. Though Arthur is not corrupt, the system of care was because it relied on one group to pay for another as means of charitable control rather than finding an ethical solution. It appears then, that Dracula both emphasizes the fears of cost and the potential of a corrupt system of care, while also critiquing the overarching system of healthcare or lack thereof for people in need. Ultimately, by expanding on the sexual and Marxist readings, Dracula can be seen as representative of the financial struggle for caring for so many people who suffered from illness, people like Edith Beale and Mina Harker, during a time of epidemic with little assistance provided by a more regulated and stable source.
Works Referenced
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Biography
Sara Brune earned a B.A. in English with a minor in Anthropology from CSUF in 2018. She is currently a first-year graduate student there with the hopes of becoming either a community college professor or of teaching ESL classes abroad after graduation.