In what ways does the novel Dracula play upon fears of infection and contagion? How does it represent sexually transmitted disease? Can it be...

Dracula can easily be read as a cautionary tale about the dangers of infection and epidemic, particularly of sexually transmitted diseases. Dracula arrives in England like the plague, transported by a plague ship, finding in London anonymity and plentiful victims. The connection to STDs is pretty plain, too—after Mina is attacked by Dracula, she calls herself “unclean”—“’Unclean, unclean! I must touch him or kiss him no more. Oh, that it should be that it is I who am now his worst enemy, and whom he may have most cause to fear.’” (There is some speculation that Stoker himself died of syphilis.) Vampire stories remain popular in part because they dwell on the forbidden intersection of sex and death.

There is, I think, a real connection between the advent of AIDS in the 1980s and the prevalence of vampire stories (both novels and films) during this time. I would point you to Susan Sontag’s book Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors (New York: Anchor Books, 1990) for a fuller discussion of the complex relationship between cinema, vampirism, sexuality, death/AIDS.