Volume 19 Number 3 Article 3 Summer 7-15-1993 Bram Stoker and C.S. Lewis: Dracula as a Source for That Hideous Strength Mervyn Nicholson Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore Part of the Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons Recommended Citation Nicholson, Mervyn (1993) "Bram Stoker and C.S. Lewis: Dracula as a Source for That Hideous Strength," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 19 : No. 3 , Article 3. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol19/iss3/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To join the Mythopoeic Society go to: http://www.mythsoc.org/join.htm Mythcon 51: A VIRTUAL “HALFLING” MYTHCON July 31 - August 1, 2021 (Saturday and Sunday) http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-51.htm Mythcon 52: The Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien Albuquerque, New Mexico; July 29 - August 1, 2022 http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-52.htm Abstract Considers Dracula as a source for That Hideous Strength. Additional Keywords Lewis, C.S. That Hideous Strength—Sources; Stoker, Bram. Dracula—Influence on C.S. Lewis. This article is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol19/iss3/3 PA.QG 16 issue 73 SUCDCPGR 1993 JWYTT^l-ORe IB i r m © j§tolfe< si r&3ko§> C|.0. fcw u s HMSiCal^ & 0owm<s <p © i& B m t 1 $ zS x s o o s OieRVYM NICHOLSON t may seem odd to connect the author of Dracula form for its own sake that is rare in modem writers, a with the author of Mere Christianity, the creator delight he describes in An Experiment in Criticism. A key of the king-vampire with the creator of Aslan. feature of his science fiction trilogy is the way it Christian­ Stoker published Dracula in 1897, a year before izes a secular genre, specifically the kind of science fiction Lewis was bom; he died when Lewis was a practiced by H. G. Wells, the early master of the form. Lewis teenager, in 1912: both men were expatriate Irishmen. acknowledges his debt to Wells in Out of the Silent Planet, Stoker is part of the efflorescence of romantic narrative besides acknowledging the brilliance of "invention" of the around the turn of the century that included Haggard, atheistic Olaf Stapledon in the preface to That Hideous Hudson, Doyle, Stevenson, Wells; and he does indeed Strength. Nevertheless, Lewis was attempting not just to appear to have influenced Lewis, especially his Gothic "baptize" a non-Christian form, but to rework it altogether. extravaganza, Dracula. Hence his science fiction trilogy is a complex experi­ To take a clear example: Dracula is referred to as the ment in form: each novel is more ambitious and compli­ "Un-Dead" (201 ff.); Lewis' evil genius Weston (bom 1896) cated than its predecessor. Just as the Chronicles of Narnia is referred to as the "Un-Man." They are as close lexically evolved out of E. Nesbit, the science fiction trilogy evolved, as they are in other ways. Thus both are figures that have generically speaking, from H. G. Wells, especially Out of the ceased to be human; their bodies house demonic forces. Silent Planet, which is Wellsian in style, characterization, Both have a predilection for ranting, nihilistic speeches. tone, though not, of course, in its theism and cosmic vital­ Both are said to combine wickedness with puerility: "What ism. Perelandra, on the other hand, is rooted not in Wells, chilled and almost cow ed . .. was the union of malice with but in an earlier and greater atheist: the poet Shelley, something nearly childish of a nasty little boy at a prepa­ whose magical Prometheus Unbound haunts the superb ratory school. a black puerility, an aimless empty scenes in Perelandra of Ransom's "rebirth," rising from the spitefulness" (Lewis, Perelandra, 123). Likewise, Van Hels- caves of Perelandra. The sensory baths of color and motion ing in Dracula explains that, while Dracula's "brain powers in Perelandra are thoroughly Shelleyan. Shelley is another survived the physical death,... in some faculties of mind influence on Lewis that has been underestimated, though he has been, and is, only a child" (302: note the anticipation Lewis acknowledged and praised the great Romantic rebel of the "Head" in That Hideous Strength, whose "brain pow­ at a time when Shelley's stock was at its lowest (his essay ers" also "survived the physical death"). But the influence on Shelley is reprinted in Selected Literary Essays). of Stoker is often quite subtle; at times, it even explains That Hideous Strength, which critics have shown com­ certain features of Lewis' fiction. At the same time, Lewis' paratively little interest in, represents a very different field use of Stoker illuminates aspects of Stoker's work. of influence, that of Stoker. In fact, Dracula can be read as a model for N. Wilson (the biog­ Critics have emphasized Lewis' Christianity and his That Hideous Strength. A. rapher of C. S. Lewis) argues that while has not links with writers like MacDonald, Williams, and Tolkien. Dracula been admitted to the canon, it has refused to go away, even Undoubtedly, Lewis is in the same tradition of Christian in the simple sense of going out of print. Not only does it romance and apologetic to which they belong, but there is continue to attract readers, but its significance as a literary another side to his literary inheritance — a side which is non-Christian, at least concerning propagating the faith. text is growing. The book is a classic, but not a classic of the mainstream "great tradition" kind. One cannot read it This line of influence includes H. G. Wells and Bernard without being impressed by the author's skills, especially Shaw — but also Rider Haggard and, above all, E. Nesbit his narrative construction. is told entirely by way — the authors, in other words, of his youth. It is to this Dracula group that Bram Stoker belongs. Dracula is of course a of documents produced by characters in the story — dia­ Christian book; but its sticky religiosity is of a type very ries, telegrams, newspapers, letters, phonograph records unlike the harmony and rational clarity of Lewis' "mere (a noteworthy attempt to bring the latest technology into Christianity." The religion of Dracula is a prop to the tale the tale). Indeed, while not the kind of book that one can rather than its point, as it fundamentally is in Lewis' fiction. imagine post-structuralists showing much interest in, it has the typical post-structuralist feature of being a narra­ As an imaginative writer and literary critic, Lewis is tive about itself. Dracula is the story of its own making. distinguished by his sensitivity to genre. He was extremely Thus, we are often reminded that all the relevant docu­ conscious of formal construction, possessing a delight in ments in the case are being collated to produce a connected J^YTl^l-ORe issue 73 SUCH COER 1993 PA.Q6 17 account: presumably what the reader is reading. Stoker "Screwtape Proposes a Toast" raising his glass of distilled skillfully presents the story as a collective, with each char­ human misery and suffering. The unlimited hunger for acter providing parts of the plot, all documents dovetailed power — the eating metaphor is crucial to Dracula — is and linked. Yet, at the same time, this highly self-conscious exactly what Dracula is. He wishes to come to England in construction powerfully renders what it would be like to order to have an unbounded field of operation, to appease pursue — and to be pursued by — a vampire. his frustrated appetite. He is an obsessed figure whose sole interest is to reduce people to food: an egoist, like Napo­ remains a disturbing book. Foolish or careless Dracula leon in Lewis' The Great Divorce, on such a scale as to cease readers may guffaw over its kinky sexuality, which is being human. Any cultural refinements he may possess supposedly visible only to post-Freudians. A similarly (he appears to be a good cook) are practical: a means to superficial tendency views Dracula as a repression of the disguise and further his predation. This predation is a Lacanian "Other" — a denial that silences, so to speak, the matter of sheer force, too, not of intellectual evil: "we need vampire's side of the story. But the careful reader — one arms of many kinds. Our enemy is not merely spiritual. who visualizes what the text presents — knows better. Remember that he has the strength of twenty men" (249). Dracula disturbs and shocks: it is still a book not to be In Perelandra, Ransom makes the same realization, that he indulged late at night, alone, or in dark places, even by must physically fight the demonic Weston (147). readers who no more believe in vampires than they believe in Santa Claus or the obnoxious troll that annoys the three In fact, both Dracula and That Hideous Strength are Billy Goats Gruff, or even, for many, God Almighty Him­ virtuosic in their narrative construction. Stoker assembles self. Its terrors command respect from the reader, not a logical sequence of documents to sustain a bizarre plot: condescension.