A vampira e a santa: as veredas da binaridade oitocentista na literatura gótica

Abstract

This work aims at an exegesis on the novella Carmilla, by Sheridan Le Fanu, and the novel Dracula, by Bram Stoker, by means of Bram Dijkstra's theoretical book Idols of Perversity, wherein he proposes a binary that illustrates the view cast upon women during the nineteenth century: the vampire and the saint. Being the first the individual non-compliant with the stern morals leading Victorian Society, transgressive; the second one, the demure, lady-like, compliant woman. Our goal is to break through myth, society, history, philosophy, literary theory and psychoanalysis so as to unveil the pillars structuring the aforementioned binary and how it is printed on women's body, mind, history and myth. Hence, we shall disclose those aspects from between the novel's lines. To do so we shall resort chiefly to scholars such as Bram Dijkstra, David Punter, Fred Botting, Edmund Burke, Paolo Virno, Sandra Lee Bartky, Maria Conceição Monteiro. After so, we shall draw our analysis closer to the time we live in to show how this binary lingers in our discourses.