Stoker's Novel vs. Film - Lucy

[bleodswean]

I would love to be able to write a long-from meta-analysis of Stoker’s Lucy versus film interpretations, but in the interest of timeliness and my own impacted schedule out here, I ask you to suffer a shortened muddle of observations and perhaps in the comments we can hold forth more loquaciously.

Lucy has been infamously brought to life in 1992’s Dracula. The choices made from casting to costuming to characterization are NOTHING like our sweet and curious daughter / fiancé in her novel form. Is Coppola’s Lucy fantastic?? Yes, of course she is! Twenty years later and she would have an OnlyFans site. That girl is on fire, hot to trot, and ready to rock. Not so with novel Lucy who is a sweet friend, a devoted daughter, and a saintly memory to the men who loved her. It is no easy task for novel suitors to dispatch Undead Lucy and by doing so save her immortal soul. Film Lucy appears to have brought on her own terrible destruction through, and here we fucken go, her desire to be a sexual creature. That’s a whole ‘nother conversation and if you want to have it, go for it, but it’s HUGE and even covers Eggers Nosferatu!

Novel Lucy is far more akin to Egger’s Anna than Coppola’s Lucy.

Is she a flirty little thing in the novel? Yes! But it’s a flirtatious innocence borne from being astonishingly shockingly beautiful and having that beauty attract men to her. She doesn’t really know what to do with her wiles and enjoys the attention but truly and undeniably sets her heart and loyalty on Arthur and doesn’t sway from it at all – not to look at a book of sexual positions, not to openly and brazenly flirt with innuendo with Arthur’s friends, not to demonically tease Van Helsing. She is loyal and sweet and sexually curious in that she wants to be married but her virginity is stolen from her by the rape of the Count. UGH!!! She’s sexually abused and molested by an undead creature for his own amusement and ends. At first, he coaxes a healthy sexual curiosity out of her – the scene in the graveyard from which Mina rescues her – but quickly she is drained of her life force and used like a human toy by the monster.

Why did Coppola choose to sex up our Lucy? She’s not a vamp and that’s the most psychologically intriguing aspect of this shift. The cultural succubus, the vamp, all have part in the vampire myth / symbolism but NOT in Stoker’s seminal work! Stoker was not squeamish about vamps – his three women are definitely sexually deviant. They overwhelm Harker who desires nothing more than to kiss one of them.

I’m here to defend Lucy. The young girl on the knife’s edge of womanhood who feels the power of her femininity and her female body but is denied the opportunity to fulfill her sexual dreams because of the monster. This is a worthy symbolic female character and should not be stripped out of film versions. 

Comments

[erimia]

I think it's a mix of raging misogyny, homage to the 1931 movie where Lucy was a flirty flapper with a crush on Dracula, and a popular interpretation of the novel that Stoker "punishes" Lucy for her sexuality (expressed by having multiple suitors and her remark about marrying three men). I personally don't see it: I think Stoker wouldn't portray a sexual woman sympathetically to begin with, and he clearly treats Lucy with compassion. Besides, being courted by multiple men wasn't considered scandalous in the Victorian England, if anything, Stoker's wife was a famous beauty and probably had multiple suitors herself.

Besides, everyone and everything is sexed up in the movie, even the characters like Van Helsing. With such approach and with the interpretation of Lucy they chose, it would make sense for the creators for her to be especially sexed up.

[earthspirits]

Book Lucy and the 1992 film Lucy are worlds apart, that's for sure.

Agreeing that Book Lucy is a flirt, but innocently so. Even having multiple suitors is quite properly Victorian, as young ladies in that era were expected to gather around them an assortment of respectable beau from which to choose. And she's shown to be sincerely in love with the man she ultimately decides upon, Arthur Holmwood.

In the novel, Lucy suffers bouts of sleep-walking. This renders her susceptible to Dracula's lure and hypnotic control. Here, Stoker's subtext implies that Lucy not only suffers blood loss by the count, but also a loss of innocence. Nothing explicit, mind you (considering the era), but enough is insinuated that Victorian readers would certainly get the gist.

As we know, Coppola decided to make this subtext main text. The arrival of Dracula on the Demeter, and the storm he raises, is depicted as a catalyst for the arousal of the female characters.

For example, Lucy and Mina suddenly kiss in the rain

And later, for the infamous werewolf scene, an already over-stimulated Lucy (who, like her book counterpart, is prone to sleep-walking) is easily lured to the garden and Dracula's clutches.

Lucy's red costume in this scene symbolizes her connection to blood and to her fall from grace with Dracula. That this takes place in a garden is no coincidence, as the symbology of the Garden of Eden and the temptation of Eve by the Serpent, is also made clear - and once again by costume. In the party scene, where Lucy flirts seductively with her three suitors, she's clad in a green gown patterned with snakes. Quite different from the more demure green gown that Mina wears for the scene, with its motif of leaves (the signature motif for Mina / Elisabeta).

[earthspirits]

Bela Lugosi, as Dracula in the 1931 film, is the prototype of the seductive vampire. Although, I must confess that while his performance is interesting, I don't find him at all sexy or romantic.

1931 Film Lucy, like Book Lucy, is shown to be an innocent flirt. She's depicted as a classic "bright young thing" of the era, stylish, and initially attracted to the suave count in his elegant tuxedo.

Of course, like all the other Lucys, she too becomes a tragic victim of Dracula.





In the 1979 Dracula (with Frank Langella as the count), the characters of Lucy and Mina for some inexplicable reason are transposed. Lucy becomes Dracula's love interest and Mina is given Lucy's role as victim.

[earthspirits]

Lucy's red costume for the werewolf scene in the 1992 film. Another historically inaccurate outfit, but quite lovely, and gives the character a very alluring and ethereal look. All that flowing drapery!

[smokingboot]

I agree with you completely regarding the Coppola treatment of Lucy, and think it's done to titillate male viewers, give us that strange beautiful scene in the garden, and contrast with his love of Mina, though I'm never convinced by that. It would take a lot for me to forgive a horrifying monster who SA'd my friend in her sleep and then tells me he has journeyed across time and space for me. Though I love the dialogue, my heart has always been steeled against this version of Vlad for precisely that reason.

One very interesting treatment of Lucy turns up in the Claes Bang version of Dracula, which was first shown on BBC 1 and then on Netflix, where I think it is still available. It's a spin on the Dracula story which is different and it has flaws but it has strengths too. In it Lucy is portrayed very differently, though even here there are issues.

[earthspirits]

A few more thoughts on Book Lucy.

Despite being defiled and attacked by Dracula, she remains an innocent character (at least up until she rises from her grave and starts attacking local children).

She welcomes whatever help Van Helsing and her friends can give her.

Re The final attack scene on Lucy: The death of Lucy's mother from shock and fear, and the appalling aftermath for a heart-broken and terrific Lucy, who's all alone to face Dracula (the servants having been conveniently drugged), is what makes this scene truly horrific.

Of course, for plot purposes, Van Helsing and the friends are elsewhere for this scene, although in a real situation like this, I think they'd be sticking pretty close.