As the protagonist begins to recall the events which happened whilst in the room, use of the short sentence, ‘I was not alone’ adds to the build up of suspense and terror. Drifting in and out of consciousness, Harker is visited by the three female vampires. The motif of the three evil women alludes to the witches in Macbeth. The use of a familiar motif imbues the vampires with myth and folklore. Harker spends a lot of time wondering whether what he experiences and the visions of both repulsion and delight are real. He is unsure whether the women actually bend closer and closer to him, or if he merely dreams of their approach. The idea of the deliriousness between sleeping and waking is often drawn upon in the Gothic; and this passage in particular suggests the existence of an intermediary world, in which nothing is clear or coherent. Here, the reader is given a sense of Jonathan’s confusion as he notes, ‘I thought I must be dreaming when I saw them…though the moonlight was behind them, there were no shadows on the floor.’ The moonlight is a common motif in the Gothic and the lack of shadows a characteristic of the vampire which would be especially terrifying to the Victorian reader. As they begin to dance around him, the vampiress’ appearance in the room where Harker is sleeping is undeniably sexual. The Englishman’s characteristically staid language becomes suddenly elaborate; Harker notes “the ruby of their voluptuous lips” and feels “a wicked, burning desire that they would kiss me.” The Victorian response to sexuality was often a mixture of pleasure and guilt. Victorian moral standards expect Jonathan to resist the seductive nature of the women, but his own hidden sexual desire tempts him. There is ambiguity in the language which surrounds them, there is a somewhat paradoxical and contradictorary quality about them. This is reflected in language such as ‘a silvery, musical laugh…but as hard...a sound could never have come through the softness of human lips.’ When describing the women, Harker also mentions that the women have a bitter-sweet air about them, ‘There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive.’ It becomes apparent to the reader that the protagonist is simultaneously confronting a vampire and another creature equally terrifying to Victorian England: an unabashedly sexual woman. The vampiresses are associated the idea of female sexuality which is linked to the emergence of the ‘New Woman’ who came at the end of the nineteenth century, demanding her independence and asserting her rights. What is most feared is their sexuality, and the way in which they threaten the traditional concept of Sex being limited to the marriage bed. Harker’s reaction to them represents the deep schism about sexuality centred on the New Woman in Victorian society.
The vitally important terror and apprehension induced in the Gothic is revealed again here as the women begin to prey on Jonathan, and he describes a feeling of ‘languorous ecstasy’ as he feels the ‘hard dents of two sharp teeth’ against the skin of his neck. Even as the vampire approaches his throat, Jonathan's terror is mixed with lust. There is something inimical in the fact that the vampiress can induce such feelings when preparing to kill, this kind of horror laced with something sweet is another vital aspect of the Gothic, there is an inimical irony about these two opposites meeting. Jonathan recalls becoming suddenly aware of the Count’s presence, ‘as if I a storm of fury.’ This metaphor outlines the impression of power which surrounds the vampire. The angered count comes to drive the female vampires away; Jonathan observes his ‘white teeth, champing with rage.’ Use of the word ‘champing’ is linked to the violation of Mina in chapter twenty-one, during which Dracula’s teeth ‘champed together like those of a wild beast…’ Here, the Count awakens sexual desire in Mina, this seems to be a kind of echo if the way in which the Vampiresses did the same to Jonathan. Harker’s experience in chapter may be read to foreshadow the events which are to come. As he drives the women away, Dracula seems to take a possessive attitude towards Jonathan which hints at the theme of Homosexuality. His desire to corrupt Jonathan may be read as a parallel to homosexual desire. This idea would have been a sensational one in the time of Stoker’s reader: an idea to be frowned upon.
In order to send them away, Dracula presents his three brides with a potato sack containing a newborn baby for them to feast on. The women close in on the bag like wild animals, at the sight of this, Jonathan is ‘aghast with horror’. He recalls hearing ‘a gasp and a low wail.’ This incident shows a distinct lack of maternal instinct on behalf of the vampiresses, which can be read as a link to some of Darwin’s ideas. In his ‘Origin of the Species’, he puts forward some ideas about the ‘survival of the fittest’, which link to Dracula’s brides as ‘Darwinian Types’. They are predatory, cruel, bent on the fulfilment of their own sexual desires, and most notably, they deny their maternal instinct in the race for survival. As the passage ends, we are reminded that the Gothic is preoccupied with death. Our fascination with the genre reflects our own desire for death, which Freud calls ‘Thanatos.’ The chapter ends with a dramatic final sentence, leaving the reader in suspense; ‘then horror overcame me, and I sank down unconscious.’ The very word unconscious reminds us about the theme of dreams and reality, which once again, is a vital aspect of the Gothic. Overall, this passage is a clear indication that Bram Stoker’s Dracula is undeniably a novel of Gothic horror.