The Gendered Vampires in Contemporary Culture: a Lesbian Feminist Reading

The Gendered Vampires in Contemporary Culture: A Lesbian Feminist Reading Thesis presented by Ina YEE to Department of Modem Languages and Intercultural Studies The Chinese University of Hong Kong in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Philosophy 1999 © 1999 Ina YEE .^^;-/ji系維書圖^ ^^ \ 4 FFB in|| :—l.,.,,^RSiT Y ZJJ/cg/ 'v-^V"xLiBRARY SYSTE^y^T �^^^ Acknowledgements I would like to take this opportunity to thank the various people who have given me tremendous help and support during the past two years. To begin—with, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Prof. K.Y. Wong, my supervisor and mentor, whom I have known since my undergraduate years. In fact it was him who set me off on this project: he introduced vampirism to me. I have leamt a great deal from his expertise and enthusiasm. Over the years, he has been a wonderful teacher and supervisor, taking pains to listen to my---sometimes personal--- problems, giving me advice. Working with him for the past two years has been fun and rewarding. I have not only found a teacher in K.Y., but a great friend too. I would also like to thank Prof. Thomas Luk, my co-supervisor, for his time and energy in looking through the rough drafts of my thesis, which are never in short of careless mistakes. He has been a helpful supervisor, and with his solid experience in literary criticism，he has identified errors in my arguments which I have overlooked. I am glad to have Prof. Cheung Chan Fai and Prof. Choi Po King as members of my thesis committee. With their expertise in sexuality and gender studies, they have given me invaluable advice during the final stage of my work. Of course there are my fellow graduate students to thank: Amy Chan, Geoffrey Cheung and Simon Huang. They have been wonderful friends. They were there when I needed someone to talk to, to cheer me up. Thanks to my parents, for their love and understanding. They have given me the best upbringing a person can ever have. They have put me in the best schools, and have supported me spiritually and financially while I go after my dreams. As far as I am concerned, they are the best parents in the world. Thanks to Polly too, my sister and best friend. Finally, I have to thank my partner, Claudia, who has given me immense spiritual and material support. She spent hours surfing the Internet, searching for books, videos and useful websites for me. How can I not be grateful when she, despite the fact that she hates literature and cultural criticisms, takes pains to read my thesis and give me comments? Writing this thesis has been a great challenge. I started off with theories I hardly knew, and I am proud to say that, with the support and understanding I am given, I have finally made it. i Table of Contents Acknowledgements i Table of Contents ii Abstract iii Introduction 1 The Gendered Vampires in Contemporary Culture Vampires and Contemporary Culture 1 Womany'Lesbian as Vampire 7 Ortner and "the Angel in the House" 9 Mulvey, Postfeminist Media Critics and the Female Body 10 Butler and the Lesbian Phallus 12 Feminism and Postfeminisms 14 Chapter One 18 The Woman Vampire: The Fallen Angel Woman and Nature 18 The Angel and the Woman Vampire 23 The Postmodern Dracula 33 Conclusion 39 Chapter Two 40 The Girl Vampire: The Resistant Female Body The Male Gaze 40 "When the Woman Looks" at a Woman 47 The Postmodern Female Body 56 Conclusion 58 Chapter Three 60 The Lesbian Vampire: The Female Desire The Lacanian Phallus 60 The Lesbian Phallus 64 The Lesbian Vampire 67 The Dark Kiss and Female Sexual Pleasures 70 Conclusion 78 Conclusion 81 Towards an Autonomous Representation of Womanhood Bibliography 87 ii The Gendered Vampires in Contemporary Culture: A Lesbian Feminist Reading Abstract This thesis sets out to deconstruct existing cultural myths about woman and her sexuality in Victorian vampire fiction. The approach adopted is interdisciplinary: theories incorporated include socio-anthropological theories, psychoanalytic theories and (lesbian) feminist cultural theories. Vampires, along with other monstrous figures, are often associated with the feminine and the matemal. To begin with, the dark kiss generates oral sexual pleasures reminiscent of the preoedipal oral stage. Secondly, men vampires become mothers symbolically as they "give birth" to their vampire offspring. Finally, as various cultural critics argue, the vampire is an embodiment of an autonomous female sexuality. This thesis addresses the question why women are associated with the monstrous in (Western) culture(s). The three chapters in this thesis focus on three different representations of woman and her sexuality in vampirism. In Chapter One, the emphasis is on the woman vampire in general, who, with her autonomy and excessive sexual appetite, has challenged the Victorian ideal woman---"the Angel in the House". In Chapter Two, the discussion is on a girl vampire, a sophisticated woman trapped in a little-girlish frame, who has defied the male gaze and rendered possible a resistance against the misrepresentation of the female body based on what pleases man. Finally in Chapter Three, the lesbian vampire promises a disruption of the LacanianvTreudian definition of sexual difference: with her lesbian phallus she has displaced the penis as the organ that determines all sexual difference. Apart from deconstructing androcentric cultural myths about women in vampirism, this thesis explores a number of possibilities for feminist resistance against those myths. After all, the ultimate goal of this thesis is to ground the possibility of a positive and autonomous representation of woman and her sexuality in cultural forms. iii 論文摘要本論文旨在挑戰與反思維多利亞時代吸血疆屍文學中關於女性及女「性」 (female sexuality)的文化神話。論文以跨學科角度硏究維多利亞時代及二十世紀吸血彊屍文本；採用的理論包括社會人類學理論、心理分析理論及（同性戀）女性主義文化理論。吸血疆屍一如其他怪物經常與女性及母性扯上關係。首先在吸血的時候，吸血疆屍感受到源自口腔的性快感，令人不禁聯想起母親餵哺嬰孩時，嬰孩溫飽滿足的表情。還有當男吸血疆屍將他人變做疆屍的時候，在象徵意義上他們也成了母親，「誕下」了下一代。再加上很多文化評論學者都指出，吸血疆屍其實是自主女「性」的表徵。本論文其中一個目標就是探討爲什麼（西方）文化會將女性與怪物混爲一談。論文以吸血彊屍文化內三種對女性不同的再現爲中心。第一章的重心是一般女吸血彊屍；她們獨立自主，並有很強的性愁，是對維多利亞時代女性典範- -「家中的天使」（“the Angel in the House”)一的挑戰。在第二章內，討論集中於一童女吸血彊屍身上。因爲她在五歲的時候就被變成吸血彊屍，縱使心智不斷成長，在外形上她永遠是一個小女孩。她身形纖小，但異常吸引，是對男性目光的一種抗衡；在她身上亦體現了反抗「完美的女性胴體就是要令男人看得開懷」這個觀念的可能性。最後在第三章，女同性戀吸血僵屍瓦解了弗洛伊德及拉崗對性別分界的定義；她的女同性戀陰莖象徵（lesbian phallus)移置了男性中心文化用來界定性別的陰莖。除了反思吸血彊屍文化內以男性爲本關於女性的文化神話外，本論文同時探討女性能夠怎樣反抗那些神話。畢竟本論文的最終目標是落實正面和自主地表達女性及女「性」的可能性。 iv Introduction The Gendered Vampires in Contemporary Culture Vampires and Contemporary Culture Westem cultures since the Romantic Period have been bombarded with countless vampire images. In English literature, it all started with Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Gothic poem "Christabel" (1816) and the vampire story "The Vampyre" (1819) by John Polidori in the Romantic Period. Later on in the Victorian Period, Sheridan J. LeFanu's vampire novella, "Carmilla" (1871) was published, followed by the classic vampire novel Dracula (1897) by Bram Stoker. A century later, cultural critics witness a revival of the vampire tradition. A series of horror movies featuring the mainstream vampire as well as the lesbian vampire have been made. Needless to say, there is the postmodern Queen of Gothic Fiction, Anne Rice, with her renowned Vampire Chronicles. The film adaptation of the 70s’ bestseller Interview with the Vampire (1994), starring Hollywood megastars Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, has further confirmed the role of vampirism in popular culture. Along with the Vampire Chronicles there emerged an abundance of mainstream and marginalized vampire texts', in which cultural critics observe a transformation in the vampires. Late twentieth-century vampires, in general, have evolved from the rigid, aristocratic, cold- blooded monsters to become sentimental, (very often) down-to-earth, and even human creatures. In addition, in contemporary vampire texts, the vampires, unlike their ‘In the context of this thesis, mainstream vampire texts are texts which have secured a place in mainstream (popular) culture, and in which heterosexuality is depicted as the norm; while in marginalized texts "perverse" sexuality like homosexuality and bisexuality dominates the scene. Examples of mainstream texts include Dracula and a series of earlier film adaptations like Dracula (1931), as well as Rice's Vampire Chronicles to a lesser extent.; whereas lesbian vampire texts are representative of marginalized texts. 1 counterparts in the Victorian period, are very rarely destroyed; their difference is in fact celebrated in various texts. The vampire, as discussed, is an important cultural figure in contemporary culture; and as we consume culture every day, the cultural significance of the vampire is not to be underestimated. The vampire, among an abundance of monstrous figures, embodies the most severely repressed desires in the human psyche. (Cultural critics identify in Frankenstein's monster the destructive---even murderous---impulses which Frankenstein has repressed.) Therefore, it is through the vampire (and monsters) that unconscious impulses enter the realm of the conscious. This is precisely why consumers of culture find the vampire repulsive and at the same time attractive: they are after all curious about the dark side of the psyche. Yet as the saying goes, every age embraces its own vampire. Since moral/social codes change (perhaps slightly) from time to time, repression (of desires) is never a constant entity. Naturally, taken into account the cultural issues of late twentieth-century (Western) culture(s), the vampire which consumers of culture embrace

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