Dracula And The Female Sexuallity As Disease - 2438 Words

Dracula and Carmilla Female Sexuallity as Disease In the two classic gothic vampire tales, Carmilla and Dracula, both novels have similarities through their displays of sexuality. Sexuallity isn’t just displaying sexual intentions towards other people. The two novels explore how vampirism represents female sexuality as a disease through different means. In Carmilla, the character of Carmilla’s vampirism is linked with disease because she has bitten Laura, one of her many victims, and fed off of her. Through Carmilla’s action of biting Laura and displaying deep affection for her, Carmilla’s female sexuality was linked to a disease. In Dracula Mina and Lucy are two females who are both victims of vampirism and showcase how vampirism is a disease. The novel explores how they deal with the effects of vampirism and how the men in the novel treat vampirism. This essay explores, compares and contrasts Carmilla and Dracula through their use of vampirism to represent female sexuality as an illness that affects the women in the novels. Carmilla is like a disease herself, showing up unexpectedly at Laura’s home. When she met Laura mist was used as a symbol of miasma, which represents the disease of vampirism and the danger of Carmilla’s arrival (116 Willis). Throughout the story, Carmilla represented herself as a disease which spread around quickly, as the wife of a pig farmer and daughter of a forest ranger, who are both part of the working class, have been killed off (116 Willis).