Gothic Fiction
Dracula is a far more traditional Gothic novel in the classic sense than the four books of the Twilight series, in which Bella Swan and her vampire lover Edward Cullen never even fully consummate their relationship until they are married in the third book Eclipse, and Bella does not finally get her wish to become a vampire until the fourth and final book Breaking Dawn. Far from being Edward's victim, or used as a pawn and discarded, she is eager to leave her dull, empty middle class life behind and become part of the Cullen vampire family. When she nearly dies giving birth to their half-vampire daughter, Edward finally does 'turn' her to save her life, and to paraphrase the title of the old song, we can only hope that she is satisfied. Bella in fact is a very traditional and conservative character, including her religion and even her reading habits, and through four novels she was basically entreating Edward for a chance to opt out of 21st Century consumer society and into a 'family' of vampires that she regards as an ideal, at least compared to her own.
In novels like Dracula, on the other hand, the racial and ethnic 'Other' represents exoticism and sensuality as well as danger, especially to white womanhood. This is a very common pattern in imperial history, including the wars against the Native peoples, the treatment of African slaves by the white settle states and the colonial occupations in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Non-white and alien 'Others' were at once both seductive and menacing, both as a threat to European identity and notions of racial purity. Their culture and technology were considered primitive, backward and savage, and would have to give way to white civilization or face total destruction and extermination. At best, they could expect paternalistic guidance and control from colonial officials and reservation agents, who would forcibly teach them to give up their 'savage' propensities, and at worst they would be dealt with through genocide. Dracula was another alien from Eastern Europe who invaded England and started preying on 'pure' white women, until he was driven out of the country and then finally tracked down to his lair and destroyed by a heroic team of Anglo-American men led by the Dutch expert Prof. Abraham Van Helsing.
Twilight vs. The Traditional Gothic Genre
On the surface, the Twilight novels and films have little connection with the traditional Gothic genre, either in their treatment of women or any other area. Twilight is strictly the product of 21st Century mass consumer culture, where publishing is a global business and the marketing departments decide what is published rather than the editorial staff (Steiner 207). This means that the sales are marketing people are designing user-friendly characters who they believe will appeal to a mass audience, in this case mostly a female adolescent audience. Twilight has humane and 'civilized' vampires who feed on animals rather than humans and try to live 'ordinary' middle and upper class lives, at least when they are moving around after sundown. Although the setting in the Pacific Northwest is naturally gray, gloomy and foggy much of the time, the characters in Forks School are not exactly Gothic in the classical sense. There is a faction of vampires called the Volturi, the "vampire aristocracy who rule their netherworld from medieval thrones and feast on unsuspecting tourists in the bowels of the castle" (Branch 2010: 60). These are the cruel, immoral, pre-modern vampires with names like Aro, Caius and Marcus, but Edward, Carlisle and the other humanitarian vampires reject this lifestyle.
Gothic tales are usually set in castles, asylums, prisons and abbeys, preferably those in decrepit condition where the characters can exist partially in darkness and shadows, haunted by ghosts, monsters, guilt and hidden desires. Often there is a theme of aristocratic and authoritarian father figures in conflict with the more democratic and individualistic younger generation, who end up destroying the old order. This was the case in the first Gothic novel, Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto (1764), where the Manfred was an aristocratic overlord determined to hold onto his domain in the face of internal rebellion from women and young people. In The Monk (1794), the aristocratic patriarch also took drastic measures to prevent his daughter from marrying a common shoemaker (Branch 62).
In Dracula, the Count was a racial, ethnic and sexual outsider and 'Other' who is a threat to Western civilization and white womanhood, and was therefore exterminated like...
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