My Blood is Your Blood

“I want to suck your blood,” is a popular adage found when speaking of Dracula (although not found in Bram Stoker’s Dracula). Is it because it is his life line? The short answer would be yes, but is that all it is to Dracula? No. It is in fact the basic human life line. Without blood, there can be no human life. The same rings true for the undead, which is the case of Dracula. Blood is the essential fluid for all beings on Earth but blood stands for more in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Blood also produces other underlying topics such as lineage race and health. Blood is essential to all beings but why is it so essential to Dracula?
The question can be raised does Dracula eat to live or does he eat to survive? In Dracula, it is known that for him to live he drinks or eats blood. This is his food. It is what he needs to continue to live and thrive. It is not a life force that he can produce on his own so he has to acquire it from several parasitic relationships. In this case, some live to tell the tale and others die a gruesome death. We see instances in Dracula where blood was merely to sustain life such as the event in chapter 4 where the mother of the stolen child is yelling outside of the castle for her baby to be returned to her unharmed (48). In this moment, you are given the sense that this was a meal. It was also the incident on the ship, the Demeter, where the men came up missing (81). We know that this was also a feeding frenzy. We know that this is what he needed to do in order to sustain life but we don’t hear of too many other times where this is the case. Those acts were solely meant to sustain the life of Dracula for another day. Dracula’s survival is another issue all-together. To live and to survive can be one in the same but in the case of Dracula they are very different. Survival means to live or exist especially in spite of danger or hardship. It is arguable in this case that you can live without surviving. If indeed, Dracula’s blood sucking is an effort for him to survive, it raises other questions. In chapter 3 of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Dracula speaks of his lineage or blood line. Lineage basically means a line of descendants of a particular ancestor, family, or race. Dracula’s lineage comes from, as he tells it, the blood of many brave races that fought to survive (Ch. 3). Dracula loved his lineage and spoke of it with pride and love. Ultimately he aimed to continue his proud bloodline so that they could take their rightful place as the kings and lords of the land. With such great lineage who would not want to produce offspring of some sort? As it stood in the novel, it was only Dracula and his three sisters. There is no way for them to continue their blood line. In a normal passing of lineage for humans would be for a couple, man and woman, to marry and conceive children. This act would continue the blood line. What is perceived to be the proper right of lineage is shown at the end of the novel by Jonathan and Mina who had a son, Quincey (326). For Dracula, it is not so cut and dry or easy. Bram doesn’t speak of any sexual encounters with Dracula and any women. Ah, but there was another way offered. Entwining blood, for Dracula, is the way to produce a line of descendants that otherwise can’t be produced the natural way. (pp.32-44) In order to preserve this declining race of people, to keep the blood flowing from one offspring to the next he had to intertwine his family’s superior blood with the blood of a mere mortal.
When you speak of blood and lineage the topic of a pure race and blood superiority can sometimes come about. Bram Stoker’s Dracula proves that there can be, or there once was, a superior race. With the entwining of blood, through this story, you can argue that Dracula’s blood is what would be considered superior. Superior can have different meanings but the one that sticks out is “above average, above being affected or influenced, indifferent or immune. His blood was immune and could not be affected or influenced. Never in history will anybody be able to say that their blood is not affected by outside sources, nobody other than Dracula. Bram Stoker weaves an intricate tale of how blood is used in this topic. Dracula only infects and affects the people around him they have no effect on him where blood is concerned. Dracula’s blood proves to be indeed superior. We see Dracula affect the blood of Lucy, Mina, and by default countless others (children through Lucy). We see Dracula force Mina to drink of his blood, this should affect Dracula as it did the others that he afflicted but it doesn’t, this act makes him stronger (252). This would be the epitome of a superior blood line or superior race a race that can instill their blood, thoughts, and ways within anybody and it still carries on to over power and control whomever it is in.
The effect of a thought of another race being superior brings the thought of fear. Dracula’s ideal being introduces the idea of fear to those around him. It is the fear of the unknown, the fear of a race of people being washed out so scary? How much harm can one person cause? Is the thought of what one person can do that horrible to cause a group to want to rid the world of that one person? Yes, it is. If one is thought to be superior that usually comes with the downfall of death as it was with Dracula. With Bram Stoker, there were arguably only two races and to have a full race of the undead would have been too much to bear. The only way would be to kill the idea of a superior race, case in point, kill Dracula (325).
Health, infection, and contamination are also points that need to be spoken of when analyzing Dracula and can also be translated into modern times. Dracula is described as having a frail but strong body with very pale skin. (24) This would be the description of a man that looked odd or sick. If you translated this look to modern times Dracula would stick out like a sore thumb, much like he did in the Victorian age. Along with the sickly description Dracula has a sickly act, he infects his victims. Dracula’s blood can be argued an infection because it can be cured. If Dracula is killed, then all that were infected by him will be cured and rid of their blood sucking needs. In this tale, you see what would be considered contamination of blood. In four different transfusions that Lucy receives from four different gentlemen (114, 118, 124, and 136). This is done in an effort to save the life that was being drained from Lucy by Dracula. This surgery as it was called that was done in an effort to save Lucy should have in fact killed her the first time. Although there is no mention of blood types as we know them, in this book there is an unmentioned rule, either you have human blood or you are the undead and need human blood. Those two are the only types that matter to Bram Stoker. You either have the blood or you need it. The effort to save Lucy went to no avail because she became one of the undead. Dracula in fact infected many people and in this modern time would cause much alarm. Dracula could be used as a modern day example of how contamination and infection spreads from one to another. When Dracula slices his own vein for Mina to partake and become “flesh of his flesh”, this would have also caused infection or a major health risk (252).
The occurrence of blood in Dracula is very significant. Blood is the essence of all that are living and the need of all that are undead. Stoker makes the relation of blood and life coexistent on all levels. The nature of blood for this novel becomes the biggest and most prized possession. No one can survive without the proverbial golden life juice flowing through their veins and no undead can live without draining this life force from a human. Whether your body produced it or you sucked it out of a helpless living creature, blood is still needed to survive for the living and the undead.