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Davis, M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 1999 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Amy Shuman, Adviser Professor Barbara Rigney ^ c —) /A viser Professor Nan Johnson English Graduate Program UMI Number: 9919856 Copyright 1999 by Davis, Kathy Sue All rights reserved. UMI Microform 9919856 Copyright 1999, by UMI Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 Copyright by Kathy Sue Davis 1999 ABSTRACT For nearly two centuries, the vampire has been a popular character in Gothic literature. Most of the vampire fiction produced during this time has been written by men, with Bram Stoker’s Dracula emerging above all other vampire characters as the prototypical vampire for countless subsequent novels and films. However, within the last few decades, women writers such as Anne Rice, Susy McKee Chamas, and Jewelle Gomez have turned with increasing regularity toward the vampire as a protagonist, and their portrayals of vampire characters are often radically opposed to those of their male counterparts. Vampire characters in fiction by men tend to be portrayed as evil Others who threaten existing patriarchal standards of "normal " behavior and must therefore be destroyed. Vampire characters in fiction by women, while retaining their Otherness, tend to become sympathetic centers of the plot who merit survival. The shift in vampire fiction from an emphasis on characters who are victimized by and/or seeking to destroy the vampire to an emphasis on the vampire and/or characters who sympathize with the vampire may be understood as an important shift in narrative focalization. The impact of this shift in focalization is explored at length using several thematic concerns which include; how concepts of the body are manipulated in women’s vampire fiction; the degree to which vampires are used to problematize gender issues and the expression of sexuality, as well as the calibration of domestic ii space; how women's portrayals of vampire characters reflect their understanding of the experiences of birth and motherhood; how women describe the compulsion for and acquisition of blood; how both blood-drinking and vampire-killing serve as metaphors for rape and reflect individual as well as cultural politics of dominance and submission; and how the concepts of liminality and taboo function in vampire fiction by women. Donna Haraway’s cyborg theory is used as the primary critical model for understanding vampire hybridity as women construct it Despite female authors' revisions of numerous tropes o f vampire fiction, key questions remain; Have women writers "reincarnated" the vampire, so to speak, as an emblem of the subversion of the status quo? Or are they merely using the image to reinscribe the very forces of oppression for which the Gothic as a whole was supposedly so powerful an outlet? This study strongly suggests that they do both, producing vampire characters whose embodiment of contradictory impulses opens possibilities for the construction of individual subjectivity which merit further exploration. Ill Dedicated to my parents, who first instilled in me a sense o f wonder. IV ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank my advisers, Amy Shuman and Barbara Rigney, for their persistent encouragement and intellectual support Their willingness to undertake unusual subject matter was instrumental to the successful completion of this research. I am also grateful to Nan Johnson, whose open mind brought her to my dissertation committee. Thanks to Les Tannenbaum, whose graduate course in Gothic Literature officially introduced me to the genre. A special thanks to Anne Rice, Jewelle Gomez, Suzy McKee Chamas, Jody Scott, Tanith Lee, and all of the other women writers whose unique characterizations of an old monster will continue to inspire both popular and scholarly fascination. VITA August 21,1967 ..................................Bom - Steubenville, Ohio 1989.................................................. B.A. English, The College of Wooster 1991.................................................. M.A. English, The Ohio State University 1989 - 1995...................................... Graduate Teaching Assistant, The Ohio State University 1996 - Present.................................... Auxiliary Faculty Member, Jefferson Community College, Steubenville, Ohio 1998 - Present....................................Part-time Faculty Member, Ohio University, Eastern Campus St. Clairsville, Ohio PUBLICATIONS Davis, Kathy S. Rev, of The Vampire Book: The Encvclopedia of the Undead, by J. Gordon Melton. Journal of American Folklore 109 f 1996V. FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: English VI TABLE OF CONTENTS EâgÈ Abstract ...................................................................................................................... ii Dedication................................................................................................................. iv Acknowledgments ...................................................................................................... v V ita............................................................................................................................. vi Chapters: 1. Introduction.............................................................................................................I 2. Staking Claims: Evolution of the Vampire in Fiction by M en .................. 22 3. Carnal Pleasures: Race, Gender, Sexuality, and the Politics of Gothic Seduction................................................................................................................106 4. Re-vamping the Self: History, Storytelling, and the Vampire Protagonist.....194 5. Conclusion............................................................................................................226 Bibliography ...............................................................................................................238 vn CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION The literary Gothic tradition, wherein the vampire has thrived for well over a century, holds special significance for women. Feminist critics like Eugenia C. DeLamotte have observed that during the late eighteenth and much of the nineteenth centuries, "most writers and readers of the genre, like most of its protagonists, were women" (DeLamotte 150). Yet, while writers like Emily and Charlotte Bronte included human characters with vampiric traits in their works, female authors in general avoided using the vampire itself. Men, on the other hand, found repeated use for the vampire in their fiction as a supernatural force that was both deeply threatening and irresistibly compelling. Among male authors, Bram Stoker attained the most lasting recognition via Dracula, a character which has served as the prototypical vampire for countless subsequent novels and films. But despite the vampire's burgeoning presence in print, and despite its undeniable appeal in popular culture, it is not until relatively late in the twentieth century that women writers begin to turn with any regularity toward the vampire itself as a protagonist. Among these women, Anne Rice has inspired the most extensive/intensive attention from both scholars and popular audiences. In her series of novels known as The Vampire Chronicles, the voices o f Louis and Lestat work to reinvigorate the vampire as a character who is familiar—yet strikingly new. It is impossible to read Bram Stoker and Anne Rice in succession without being immediately confronted by their radically opposed treatments of their vampire protagonists. On one level, these might be dismissed as manifestations of different 1 writing styles or even expressions of the philosophical angst of two different centuries. However, further reading into other women's vampire