Masculine Spatial Embodiment in Dracula

Abstract

This article probes the extent to which selected male characters in Bram Stoker's Dracula ([1897] 1998. Oxford: Oxford University Press) undergo a slippage in gender and become metaphorically feminized under conditions of architectural confinement. Strikingly, in Dracula, Stoker subverts the conventional Gothic ploy of feminine imprisonment and, rather, explores the notion of masculine captivity within enclosing spaces.This is evident when Renfield, Jonathan Harker and Count Dracula are respectively confined within the asylum, Castle Dracula and the hospital, and the coffin. Under these spatial conditions, the male characters’ body spaces are altered and become connected with the social constructs ascribed to and superimposed upon the female body. These mutating body spaces will be scrutinized through a deployment of Judith Butler's theory of gender performance, which posits that gender is merely a repeated performance of socially fashioned norms ([1990] 1999. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge). The objective is to indicate the extent to which the novel's apparent investigation of male gender fluidity within spatial confinement appears to offer confirmation of Butler's assertion regarding gender's performative nature.The purpose of this article is not to posit that space dictates gender performance in the novel, but rather that enclosing architectural spaces seem to facilitate Stoker's male characters in their adoption of qualities traditionally associated with femininity.