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]

The 1979 Lucy is basically a Mina named Lucy, and vice versa. The same as in the 1979 Nosferatu. Speaking of Lucy, this one has some of the most disturbing scenes of her first death, vampiric trasformation and second death among all the adaptations.

I, too, don't find Lugosi that sexy. Maybe he was sexier while playing Dracula on stage? It appears that Dracula just became a placeholder for the tropes set by other vampires. The more I hear about old vampire stories, the more I'm convinced that seductive vampires were not that uncommon in the 19 century literature, if anything, it's Stoker who decided to deviate from popular tropes and make his vampires unambiguously evil, mostly devoid of depth and not having much page time at all.

[earthspirits]

Very true. Although I'm always puzzled by why some film-makers insist on switching names. And yes, those scenes in the '79 film are quite disturbing.

Re Seductive Vampires - here's some earlier ones that fit the description.

“The Bride of Corinth” by Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1797) - In this tragic tale, a defiantly pagan female vampire is betrothed to a Greek man, who's Christian.

“Christabel” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (approximately 1797-1800) - This partly completed poem is thought to have inspired Joseph Sheridan le Fanu, as its main character is a mysterious female vampire, who the poem heavily implies is gay.

"Carmilla" by Joseph Sheridan le Fanu (1872). Written in first person, and with its main character a seductive lesbian vampire, this pre-dates Stoker and is considered to have been an influence on him (although Dracula in the novel is a far cry from a sexy, seductive vamp). Fun Fact: Sheridan le Fanu was Stoker's mentor.

[erimia]

Yes. Clarimonde also, and Ruthven was attractive too. Even The Mysterious Stranger that shares many similarities with Dracula and may be one of its inspirations portrays a vampire that is attractive at least for other character, if not for the audience. Though I daresay, Azzo feels less developed and charming than Dracula. This story reminded me of Dracula romantic adaptations, which I guess makes them almost come full circle.

[earthspirits]

Oh yes, they definitely fit the seductive vampire trope.

I haven't seen that mini series, will have to look for it.