Ecumenism to Ontology: Stoker’s Theology of the Host

Abstract

Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula is replete with religious symbolism, from devotional objects to sacred imagery. Despite the novel’s theological richness, little has been written on Stoker’s theology, and most criticism has focused on interpreting the novel as an affirmation of either Anglicanism or Catholicism. Building on Alison Milbank’s argument in God and the Gothic, this essay shows how Stoker’s theology eschews the boundaries of rigid dogmatism, seeking instead an ecumenical and eccentric theology. It is through such theological exploration, I argue, that the novel discovers and frames questions of ontological hierarchy. Stoker’s use of the Host, in particular, enables him to engage with sacramental presence, and to subvert tropes associated with the Gothic in a manner which plunges the novel into a mode of free theological exploration grounded in the physicality of both sinfulness and grace. Focusing on the implications of the Host in the novel, this article provides an in-depth analysis of theological meaning, showing how the novel’s premise refuses to fit into any particular doctrinal framework, and demonstrates that what lies at the core of Stoker’s vision is an ontological system which reaffirms divine primacy over the human.