Pleasure, Reason, and the Fear of Death
When Dracula was originally written in 1897, many of the problems of the day were things we take for granted. They didn’t have modern medicine, technology, or many other of the things we take for granted in our day to day lives. Thus it is fitting that the evils in Dracula be similarly “taken for granted” in our day. Dracula in the books has seeming mystical powers over people, the cross and the sun burn him, etc. Today, we look at those and see an attractive and persuasive man who was perhaps self-deceived about his weaknesses than actually mythical.
That is exactly who the Netflix Original Series Dracula, from writers Stephen Moffat and Mark Gatiss (Sherlock), presents in its titular character. Dracula is far more of a talker and manipulator than an actually supernatural being. He lives for carnal pleasures, all to avoid his own fear of dying. He seduces and consumes other humans so that he can extend his own life on earth, too afraid to accept his own mortality. This hedonistic lifestyle is pitted with the pinnacle of mankind in Dr. VanHelsing. She is the only person to see through Dracula’s pretense and call him out. Her rationality and fearlessness toward death allowed her to be one step ahead of Dracula. This narrative contrasts two of the most common and influential approaches to life against each other: Dracula presents animalistic hedonism (the way of the beast) and rational self mastery, asking which path is better?
SPOILERS
In the third episode, time has jumped to modernity, and we see the culmination of these two warring ideas. On Dracula’s side he has an endless series of “brides”. Brides are the people dracula turns into vampires, attempting to find in them a way to overcome his fear of death. This plays out either through relationship or the desire for offspring. Dr. VanHelsing is also searching for a resolution to her fear of death through an inherited relationship between the ancestral VanHelsing and the modern one. By drinking Dracula’s blood, perhaps in a strange form of prayer, she reaches out to her ancestor. This relationship allows VanHelsing to conquer her fear of death, and thus master herself. She sees, through her experiences with Sister VanHelsing, that there is more to our existence than the purely scientific life she chose The two have a continuous back and forth, but it always feels like VanHelsing has the upper hand, that in the end, she will defeat Dracula. Yet in the climactic moment, Dracula surprises her. She has a dream in which she tells Dracula who he really is, crushing his soul, and then she gracefully passes, having lasted longer than she should have in her final struggle against cancer.
Her very willingness to die shows Dracula that it is possible to overcome the fear of death that had always plagued him. VanHelsing’s gift of her own life shows Dracula that if he took the leap and conquered his own fear of death, he would find a meaning for his existence far superior to the hedonism of his life. Then, as it is revealed that VanHelsing was dreaming, we see that Dracula is drinking her blood (cancerous, and deadly to him). Dracula chooses to die, conquering his fear of death and embracing the reality that he should have died long ago. This moment of man and woman, fully giving themselves to the other is the climax of the romantic, sexual, and moral themes in the show. The definitive answer given to the audience is that the fear of death is worth conquering, and the clearest path to do so is through the giving of yourself to another (i.e. love). Contained in this thesis are a few ideas:
First, The show is written by self-described atheists but is extremely reverent of truths found in religion. VanHelsing’s ancestor was a Catholic nun and the modern day is not. However, the nun’s belief is essential for the modern rationalist VanHelsing to conquer her own fear of death. A relationship with the religious is essential for VanHelsing. This implies that there is a fundamental truth possessed by a Catholic nun that remains just as true today. Second: Dracula’s conversion. The revelation Dracula receives does not come from any scientific study or logical proof, but from seeing the beauty of the sun, which represents the sacrifice of VanHelsing entirely for his sake. The sun traditionally burns vampires, forcing Dracula to live in the shadows. VanHelsing, in confronting Dracula, reveals that the sun does nothing to him, the death he is so afraid of is not as torturous as it seems. This revelation of love is what allows Dracula to let go of his hedonistic ways and embrace death (and Dr. VanHelsing). The symbolic and metaphorical have something real to contribute to our understanding of life that cannot be found by scientific methods. While many of Dracula’s powers are simply psychological manipulation and his own self-delusions, the power of a sunset or more importantly the love of another person cannot be similarly reduced to the scientific.
Dracula has always been a story about science and religion. The dichotomy of the mythic Dracula and the rational scientist VanHelsing is essential to the story. The changes made to Dracula are not simply an aesthetic modernization for entertainment or an assertion that the fundamentally religious nature of the Dracula story is easily dismissed by modern science, but rather the seeking out of the most fundamental truth contained in the Dracula story from the perspective of the writers as modern atheists. The conclusion they come to is loving the people who come into your life in a selfless way is the source of meaning that transcends the fear of death and all the appeals of the sensual. In dying for the other, both VanHelsing’s harsh rational skepticism and Dracula’s hedonism fade as the reality of love overwhelms them. Writers Moffat and Gatiss are proposing, at the very least, that science cannot fully explain the human heart and the power that love has to overcome our fears, particularly our fear of death.
This telling of the Dracula story shows in many ways that the mythic and metaphorical still have much truth to offer us; that a story of the demonic and the religious can be more than a fantastical imagining of Catholic tropes. The Dracula story tells us that there is evil to be found in other people and that it can inspire much fear in us, but that if we conquer ourselves and love the people who do these evils, perhaps we can all be consumed by the light of the sun.
