“Time is on my side”: The Male Exploitation of Feminine Bodies in Pursuit of Immortality in Dracula and Mexican Gothic

Abstract: Immortality and the search for eternal youth is a recurring theme among many classic and modern gothic novels. Whether it’s vampirism, a cursed portrait, or magical mushrooms, the human, and most often masculine, need to live forever is repeatedly achieved through the use and abuse of feminine bodies. In Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), the infamous vampire and titular character continuously uses women— Lucy Westenra, Mina Murray, and his three “brides”— to do his bidding. Though Dracula is an almighty, ancient vampire, his immortality and power are tied to his control over the women of the novel. Likewise, in the more contemporary Mexican Gothic (2020) by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, the immortal antagonist, Howard Doyle, uses various female characters to continue his never-ending cycle of abuse and domination. Moreno-Garcia uses the struggle between the European Doyles and the Mexican female characters to show not only a feminine clash against patriarchal systems but also the long-lasting effects of European colonization on Mexican land. Both Dracula and Mexican Gothic have gothic villains (which I will also refer to as male parasites) that use women primarily for the acquisition of immortality and secondly for sex, childrearing, and/or financial gains. After defining the importance of the male parasite and closely examining the characters’ sexual and romantic relationships, I will analyze immortality in Dracula and Mexican Gothic through an intersectional lens of race and gender, focusing on Moreno-Garcia’s twisting of the Victorian fear of the racial other.