THE RISE AND VENGEANCE OF FEMINITY IN HAMMER DRACULA MOVIES

ABSTRACT

The proliferation of feminist theoretical perspectives in the latter half of twentieth century created a wave of unease in the phallocentric discourse of the times. The aforementioned apprehension in the British society can be expounded from a series of movies produced in Britain from 1950s to 1970s. The films under scrutiny are the Dracula movies produced by Hammer Studio of Britain during the period. The paper attempt to uncover the depiction of male reactions to the feminist rising from the films

Paper presented at
St Joseph's College, Devagiri by   
Sajid A.Latheef  & Mufeeda T from

MES Keveeyam College & Farook College 
respectively   

 

 Bram Stoker’s Dracula’s transition from a nineteenth century sensational fiction to a culturally significant text has been truly recognized today.  During 1970s the novel was subjected to a plethora of critical scrutiny from various vantage points. Christopher Bentley analysis (1972) of Dracula focusing on the sexual undertones in the sucking and  transfusing of blood, drawing attention to the phallic symbolism of the wooden stake and Carol Fry’s observations on vampirism and female sexuality contributed much to the later readings of the novel. The novel’s status as a “psycho-sexual allegory” (Wolf  4 ) heavily influenced the feminist readings of the novel as a text which reveals about Victorian attitudes towards women. Judith Weissman’s reading of the novels as a depiction of male fear of female sexuality represents the one of the major feminist perspectives about the text. This reading of Dracula proposes that the vampire figure of the novel is feared by men for his ability to emancipate women from the clutches of patriarchy. The aforementioned interpretations of the text provide us a methodology of reading vampire fiction in general and Dracula, on which this paper is based. 

Dracula is a tell tale document about the social and cultural history of fin de siècle Victorian England. The relevance of the novel lies in its representation of the unconscious preoccupations of a particular society at a particular socio-historical and psychological juncture. Leonard Wolf acknowledges this in his introduction to the Signet Classic edition of Dracula:

...the novel’s power has its source in the sexual implications of the blood exchange between vampire and its victims...Dracula has embedded in it a very disturbing psycho sexual allegory whose meaning I am not sure Stoker entirely understood: that there is a demonic force at work in the world whose intent is to eroticize women.” (4)

Victorian era was a time of intense sexual repression and the vampire stories of the time reflected the prevalent fear of sexuality. Dracula illustrated the current fears about ‘sexual’ woman as opposed to the woman who respected and observed sexual and social norms. The prime function entrusted to a woman was to bear children and manage the household for her husband. In such a social scenario any woman who expresses her sexual emotion was looked down upon with disgust and horror, while the virtue of women who respected society’s sexual norms was glorified to the point of exaggeration. So anything which posed as threat to the ‘feminity’ of women was abhorred and feared by men as a threat which they yearned to destroy at any cost.

In Dracula the band of men headed by Prof. Van Helsing represents the Victorian masculine community, while Mina Harker is extolled as the perfect model of feminine virtues and vampirized Lucy Westenra represents the liberated New Woman not averse to express her sexual emotions.  In this way Dracula represents a liberator of women or even a secret paramour, whom every repressed woman in a male dominated society unconsciously longs for. According to the quasi-religious methods of vampire exorcism, the only way to eradicate the menace of vampirized women is through a sexually symbolic act of hammering a (phallic) stake through their heart, thereby acknowledging that sexuality is safe only under the order of patriarchy, sanctified under the religious rituals within the institution of marriage. The threat of the external force is eliminated by castrating, the reason why Dracula is not staked but destroyed with a knife.

Viewed as representing the “hatred towards sexually independent women” which is “typical of misogynist fin-de-siècle culture”, Dracula can be regarded as a reaction to the rise of New Woman ideal in late nineteenth century. (Gelder 77). A similar apprehension can be observed in phallocentric culture in the latter half of twentieth century when the post structuralist feminist movement was more firmly rooted. The aforementioned apprehension in the European society can be expounded from a series of movies produced in Britain from 1950s to 1970s. It is not co-incidence that the films were a series of film adaptations based on Bram Stoker’s Dracula produced by Hammer Studio of Britain. Along with the rise of feminism, the loss of faith in religion and the new generations liberated attitude towards sexuality also contributes to the apprehension. 

 

Hammer Studio established itself with films of period horror films based on classic gothic fiction, some of their most important texts being Frankenstein, Dracula, Carmilla and Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. With a signature approach of their own Hammer studios maintained a style of filmmaking, in which the films were identified in the brandname of the studio rather than on the filmmakers. In adapting films Hammer often discarded the source text and tried to interpret the basic premise often in an avant garde manner, which enabled us read the text along the contemporary scenario. Thus Hammer Studio’s adaptation of Bram Stoker’s text was not a single film text, but a series of related texts, which discussed the issues of the source text with the contemporary world. The Hammer Dracula canon consisted of  Horror of Dracula (1958), Dracula, Prince of Darkness (1966), Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968), Taste the Blood of Dracula (1969) and Scars of Dracula (1970). 

Early and latter half of the 20^th century saw certain changes in the existing social and cultural order. After the horrors of two world wars essential beliefs and values of traditional culture were questioned and there was a widespread tendency of losing the religious faith. Besides recovering from the unprecedented loss of human life, the wake of political and economic tensions precipitated a general sense of disillusionment around Europe, especially with regards to established systems of influence such as government or the church. The philosophy of existentialism gained currency after the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. All these contributed to uneasiness in the public consciousness of Europe.

This period being an age of critical enquiry, the movement from liberal humanism to modern literary theory and cultural theory lead the critics to question the existing hegemonic social and cultural order based on gender, race, religion and colour. Rise of feminism as a firm movement with solid theoretical base was an important event in the history of the time. Several feminist writers contributed to the debate and the notion of patriarchy was questioned and canonical works of ancient to the contemporary world were re-read. The above mentioned wave of social change—that is, threat to religion and patriarchy—was a major issue that affected Europe. So it seemed natural that Vampire mythology, which has its base on religious power and phallic power became the field for representation of the male anxieties of the age regarding religions and male power. 

Hammer Dracula films begin by etching the period of ideal Christian and Patriarchal world and moves on to portray a world where the fear of absence of God creeps in. As the series progresses it evidently marks the Patriarchal world’s uneasiness about the growing influence of second wave feminist paradigms. Second-wave feminism broadened the debate on woman’s rights to a wide range of issues: sexuality, family, the workplace, reproductive rights, de facto inequalities, and official legal inequalities. Several feminist texts like Simone de Beauvoir’s Second Sex (1949),  Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique (1963), Kate Millet’s Sexual Politics (1970), Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch (1970) are some of the books that influenced the period. 

Moreover, the ideals of sexual liberation that challenged traditional codes of behavior related to sexuality and interpersonal relationships throughout the Western world from the 1960s to the 1980s added oil to the fire. Historically, when the Victorian England’s fear expressed in Bram Stoker’s Dracula was that of the rise of ‘New Woman’, the major apprehension that reflected from the films was that of sexual liberation which included increased acceptance of sex outside of traditional heterosexual, monogamous relationships (primarily marriage). Contraception and the pill, public nudity, the normalization of premarital sex, homosexuality and alternative forms of sexuality which were openly discussed and practiced.

The early films in the series, particularly those directed by Terence Fisher, namely Horror of Dracula (1958) and Dracula, Prince of Darkness (1966), expressed quite nostalgically an era where the religion and patriarchy had the world order. Though these films departed from the source material very much, Terence Fisher, being a high church Anglican, expressed the same world view offered by the source text. These films quite confidently proclaim that any threat of liberated female sexuality can be subjugated with religious power and phallic power which were respectively symbolized by crucifix and wooden stake. The world of Terence Fisher’s movies is one that of strict Victorian morals and religious ideals set against a dark force which threaten’s to corrupt both. Dracula is portrayed as the sexually charged male outsider who threatens patriarchy by liberating the women, and they can only be controlled by pounding a stake through their heart. Martin Day points out a moment of male nightmare from the film: 

...The Count penetrates and subverts that other key Victorian unit, the family. A fascinating sequence has Van Helsing and Arthur Holmwood trying to protect Mina from the attentions of the fiend by watching the outside of the house when he is in fact resting comfortably in his coffin in the Holmwoods' cellar. (par 13)

In Dracula, Prince of Darkness, the transformation of Helen from a repressed prim, Victorian respectability to a sexually-attractive and voracious vampire  is depicted more emphatically than in the novel. The scene where Helen is staked by the priest with the assistance of a group of monks is portrayed even forciously that it resembles a gang rape. 

The next film in the series is directed by Freddie Francis who presents a totally different world from that of Terence Fisher’s world. While the former’s films can be seen as a fairy tale for adults which portrays struggles between good and evil, Freddie Francis presents a world pierced by apprehension. The films begin with a sequence in which a priest finds the body of a woman from a Church. The priest who finds the corpse flees from and the church is abandoned by people in fear of the Devilish power that infested even the house of God. Unlike the previous films, Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968) presents a world which reflects the contemporary anxieties regarding the subterfuge developed in the religious faith  and about the existential assertions about the absence of God. 

The fourth film, Tatste the Blood of Dracula (1969) is very remarkable in the series in the sense that the Victorian women is shown as rising aganist the hypocrisy and hegemony of the Victorian patriarch and attempts to revenge for the slavery imposed over them. In the film“The Freudian ‘return of the repressed’ theme is explored right at the heart of the Victorian society, the family, with religious belief so blatantly false that the audience is invited to sympathise with the now 'liberated' children as they kill their fathers” (Day, par 23  ). The contemporary situations threaten the phallocentric society more than ever. The film tells the story of three middle aged Victorian hypocrites who lead a double life in their family and in the underworld of London. The daughters and wives are mercilessly ruled over while the husbands lead a secret life among the brothels. Once Dracula is resurrected he liberates them from their patriarchal ties and drives them to destroy their protectors hitherto. In a culturally significant and telling moment in the film two young women lure a patriarch to a coffin and stakes him to death, using the same weapon the men used to silence their women. 

The fifth movie in the series, Scars of Dracula (1970), directed by Roy Ward Baker is a film that most profoundly disturbs the world view established by the early Hammer vampire films. The existentialism and apprehension at its zenith here. The film also registers the fears of patriarchal society about the changing social and sexual climates of seventees, when the attitudes of the youth towards sexuality underwent drastic change.  The film also registers the fears of patriarchal society about the changing social and sexual climates of seventees, when the attitudes of the youth towards sexuality underwent drastic change.The film seems to thrive on the assumption that God is dead. The village portrayed in the film is infact the miniature of the whole patriarchal and religious world. At the beginning of the film the townsfolk set out to burn down Castle Dracula, leaving the women and children safely in the church. When the job is completed the priest says “We must give thanks... to our saviour for his protection... Let us go to the church, and tell our loved ones they are safe.” (Qtd from the film) Entry into the building reveals a total desecration and carnage: everyone there has been butchered by Dracula’s evil powers. 

The introductory scene ends symbolically with dripping blood extinguishing the altar candles. The movie quite comically depicts a scene in which the Burgomaster finds his daughter sleeping with his boyfriend in his house. Her father’s rage is ridiculed by the daughter who giggles and runs up the stairs naked. The scene which seems like an anachronism in late 19^th century is an attempt on part of the film makers to depict the contemporary attitudes of sexual liberation. As hammer studio produced popular films, the threat or the source of terror should be eliminated in the end to the satisfaction of the viewer. However, as the series progresses the elimination scenes become weaker and weaker.

Thus Hammer Dracula series records the unconscious fears of a generation of phallocentric society, making it a culturally significant text. In terms of film adaptaion these films expands and enhances the reading of the source text and opens the prospect of a communication with the issues of contemporary society, rather than recreating the source text as such. Moreover, the reading is an instance of how a popular text becomes an artefact embedding the cultural nuances of the period of its production and consumption.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Auerbach, Nina, and David J. Skal, eds. Dracula. Norton Critical Editions.

London: Norton, 1997. Print.

Bentley, Christopher. “The Monster in the Bedroom: Sexual Symbolism in Bram   

     Stoker’s Dracula.”. Dracula: The Vampire and the Critics. Ann Arbor: UMI Press,

     1988. Print.

Carter, Margaret L., ed. Dracula: The Vampire and the Critics.

Cartmell, Deborah, and Imelda Whelehan, eds. Adaptation: From Text to Screen,

Screen to Text. New York: Routledge, 1999. Print.

Dalby, Richard. “Bram Stoker”. The Penguin Encyclopoedia of Horror and the

Supernatural. London: Penguin, 1986. Print.

Day, Martin. “Religion and Hammer Vampire Film”. Web 28 September 2014. <

http://www.martinday.co.uk/hamart.htm>

Fry, Carrol L. “Fictional Conventions and Sexuality in Dracula.” Dracula: The Vampire and the  Critics. Ann Arbor: UMI Press, 1988. Print. 

Gelder, Ken. Reading Vampire. London: Routledge, 1994. Print

Kaufmann, Walter, ed. Existentialism from Dostoyevsky to Sartre. London:

Meridian, 1975. Print.

Roth, Phyllis A. “Suddenly Sexual Women in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” Dracula: The Vampire and the Critics. Ann Arbor: UMI Press,

     1988. Print.

Weissman, Judith. “Women and Vampires: Dracula as a Victorian Novel.” Dracula: The Vampire and the Critics. Ann Arbor: UMI Press,

     1988. Print.

Wolfe, Leonard. “Introduction”. Dracula. Bram Stoker. New York: Signet, 1992.

Print.

SELECT FILMOGRAPHY

Horror of Dracula. Dir. Terence Fisher. Perf. Chistopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Hammer, 1958. Film
Dracula, Prince of Darkness. Dir. Terence Fisher. Perf. Christopher Lee and Andrew Keir. Hammer, 1966.  Film.
Dracula Has Risen From The Grave. Dir. Freddie Francis. Perf. Christopher Lee and Rupert Davies, Hammer, 1968. Film.
Taste the Blood of Dracula. Dir. Peter Sasdy. Perf. Christopher Lee and Miachael Kinnear, Hammer, 1969. Film.
Scars of Dracula. Dir. Roy Ward Baker. Perf.Christopher Lee . Hammer, 1970. Film