“This Man Belongs to Me!”: Edward Carpenter, Dracula, and Premature Sexuality

“This Man Belongs to me!”: Edward Carpenter, Dracula, and Premature Sexuality Will Parshley Guilford College Faculty Mentor: James Hood Guilford College Abstract The study of homosociality in literature is relatively new. Investigations into the nature of pla- tonic male-male relationships have risen within masculinity studies - an offshoot of feminism now linked to the more expansive discipline of gender studies – since the 1980’s. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick defi nes homosociality in relation to its semiotic partner, homosexuality. Like homosexual relationships, homosocial relationships take place between members of the same gender, but are, at least superfi cially, without a sexual element. However, when analyzed closely, the lines between homosocial and homosexual relationships easily blur. This becomes clear when examining literature published in Victorian England, a period suffused with male-male interactions. Through a study of male homosocial bonds discussed in Edward Carpenter’s essays and exhibited in Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, I begin to unravel striking Victorian anxieties surrounding the infl uence of males over other males, and particularly the detrimental effects older men could have upon the sexual development of young boys. ueen Victoria’s reign saw the rise of nu- middle-class, the Industrial Revolution en- Qmerous homosocial spheres, and nearly tailed a masculine move from the agricultural all areas of Victorian life hinged upon rela- life of the farm and home to urban factory tionships between men. As the period pro- work, which promoted a similar dichotomy gressed, true men, no matter their class, were between the sexes (Sussman 4 – 5). Finally, more and more those who interacted primar- to the inspired Imperialist, the exciting explo- ily and almost exclusively with other men. ration of foreign countries in Africa and Asia The advent of all-male higher education sys- allowed an escape from society, a chance to tems running from grade school all the way grow with other men without the pressures of through Oxford and Cambridge ensured that courtship and matrimony. upper-class boys would rarely (if ever) in- As John Tosh notes, such a separation be- teract with females prior to engaging in, and tween domestic and public, tmale spheres ultimately anywhere outside of, domestic promoted a clear division between the sexes. life, certainly, in any case, far less than their Self-improvement, economic progression, predecessors (Tosh 465). For an ascending and production were all associated with male 45 Explorations | Art and Humanities homosocial arenas of education, industrial- I ization, and colonization, whereas females Edward Carpenter, a pioneering gay relegated to the home – “angelic” keepers of writer of the Victorian period, was born in a “spiritual… shrine” -- were markedly lim- Brighton in 1844. The son of a well-to-do ited in their physical, social, and mental mo- investor, Carpenter was raised in consider- bility (Tosh 463). In turn, interaction between able wealth and luxury. Thus, as biographer the genders waned, and by the latter half of Sheila Robowtham notes, after attending the century, virile adventure writers like H. Cambridge, Carpenter might have settled Rider Haggard were rejecting the constant into the easy life of an indolent priest for a and expected discourse between men and small parish community (Robertson 53). In women once epitomized in Netherfi eld Hall. fact, this was Carpenter’s intended track. Thus, male-bonding became a centerpiece However, just weeks before his ordina- in Victorian society and, importantly for our tion, Carpenter (much like others after) en- purposes here, within its literature. dured a revelatory experience upon read- Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s commentary ing Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, and began on erotic, Oedipal triangles provides a help- to view the complaisant, refi ned setting of ful, theoretical basis from which to investi- Brighton through a different lens (53 – 54). gate ties between men in this work (21). The Carpenter became active in the British social- Oedipal triangle is a Freudian notion, a tenet ist movement, and throughout his life cam- of the psychoanalyst’s theory of development paigned for progress in a variety of social famously fi gured around Sophocles’ great areas, including but not limited to “feminism, Athenian tragedy. In Freud’s eyes, a “homo- anticolonialism, [and] environmentalism” erotic identifi cation with [the] father, a posi- (53). Close acquaintance E.M. Forster once tion of effeminized subordination to the fa- aptly described Carpenter as “a poet, prose ther” is vital to a boy’s development of proper writer, a prophet, a socialist, a mystic, a man- heterosexuality; through such a close bond, ual laborer, an anti-vivisectionist, etc. etc. the boy is provided a “model for his own etc. …” (as qtd. in “Homogenic Love” 535). heterosexual role” by watching his father’s Yet Carpenter left his most lasting impres- interactions with his mother (Klein as qtd. in sions with his works on sexuality. Writing an Sedgwick 23). Due to ubiquitous male-male abundance of texts on the clandestine topic interactions in Victorian England, a boy often of “homogenic love,” Carpenter promoted engaged with one or more mentors -- “sur- radical leftist notions that remain relevant rogate fathers” -- involved in whichever male to modern society. While many of his early sphere he entered (Sussman 100). The men essays and their topics required small, fur- might be comrades on the Colonialist lines, tive publications for a select audience, this older male students, or even male teachers. changed when Carpenter published a land- Using Freud’s Oedipal theory, we can be- mark essay in 1899 in the International gin to untangle the intimate ties that grew Journal of Ethics. The piece focuses upon between elders and youth. Such an investi- the pervasive relationships between men and gation reveals an intriguing resemblance and boys then taking place in the public schools, resonance of ideas existing between Edward a subject that, following the infamous Oscar Carpenter’s essays and Bram Stoker’s most Wilde trials in 1895, was severely troubling famous work, Dracula. This resonance lies in the public conscience. the simultaneous celebration of and caution- In his article “Affection in Education,” ing against male-male, and particularly man- published 1899, Edward Carpenter argues boy, relationships. Thus, both pieces evince a that male-male relationships in the public tension on the part of the writers, who reveal school, particularly those between elder and a considerable Victorian anxiety surrounding youth, are imperative to boyhood develop- the proper facilitation of such relationships. ment. Often far away from their homes, 46 Will Parshley schoolboys looked to older males (“surro- development of sexual curiosity, the boys gate fathers”) for guidance. Carpenter opens show no real interest in women, their “love to in vigorous celebration of the warm affec- the other sex” having “hardly declared itself” tion that grows between mentor and protégé. (485); no true heterosexual attraction has Letters from numerous men reveal the pas- formed. Even further, Carpenter claims that sion they had for a beloved elder: “… when a boy’s “unformed mind requires an ideal of I saw him, my heart beat… violently… and itself … towards which it can grow” (485). I could not speak,” writes one who remem- Thus, like the Oedipal relationship between bers writing “weekly, veritable love-letters” father and son in which a boy attains a role of to an elder boy at his school (483). However, “effeminized subordination” to his father, the Carpenter is quick to note and to continu- schoolboy’s introduction to sexuality occurs ously reassure his readers of the absence of when he “imitates” and “contracts [the] hab- sexual attraction between the two parties. He its” of his elder male mentor through a rela- explains that the older does not approach the tionship with a “certain physical element,” a boy with “secondary motives” or “personal “real affection and tenderness” (484), before ends,” allowing these “strong affections” to he develops a taste for females. Carpenter arise “quite spontaneously” (484). In other connects the development of heterosexuality words, Carpenter is suggesting that the seeds to the fruition of masculinity: the boy’s rela- of such attachments grow naturally. The tionship with his mentor prepares him for fu- teacher does not prompt the initiation of the ture interactions with the opposite sex, while relationship and makes no conscious effort simultaneously developing his “conduct of towards the affection. Rather, the boy “na- life and morals” (492). ively allows his admiration” (484) to develop Such interactions provide the elder male into a deep attraction. an opportunity to infl uence the fl ourishing of To reach full bloom, the bonds must be the young child’s masculinity. Acting nobly properly cultivated. The fi rst step in develop- and with an eye for the boy’s future, he can ing the affectionate relationship is its accep- ensure that the youth grows into a man with tance. While the seeds sprout naturally, they substantial “strength of character,” capable develop through nurturance. Thus the elder of heterosexual relationships rich with love must decide whether or not he will fulfi ll or and affection (Carpenter 488). Yet when the “deny” (Carpenter 484) his role as mentor, elder attends to this bond perversely, his in- and the benefi ts of the former are boundless. fl uence can be equally abject and detrimen- For the rest of the relationship, the boy mod- tal. For example, if he attempts to form the els and shapes his behavior after the elder’s bond unnaturally, with secondary motives, example, ultimately sharing the essence of the consequences for the youth are dire; “the his masculinity, the man’s “ideals of life and disease of premature sexuality” (486) be- thought and work” (484). Further, the rela- tween mentor and child “cheapens and weak- tionship deeply infl uences the boy’s sexual ens” the boy’s “affectional capacity” (488).

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