Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor is an instructional text that provides an algorithm to analyzing and interpreting literature, and also argues that all literature is interconnected. Because of this premise, I found one of its chapters, “Nice to Eat You: Acts of Vampires,” to be extremely helpful in analyzing Nosferatu and its relationship to other vampire stories.
One point that Foster makes, and which I found to be especially valid in Nosferatu, is that vampirism often depicts an evil man corrupting and violating an innocent woman. Obviously, in this film, Ellen is the archetype (haha see what I did there?) of this innocence and femininity, and is thus sacrificed as “deliverance is possible by no other means but that an innocent maiden maketh the vampire heed not the first crowing of the cock–this done by the sacrifice of her own blood.” This aspect of the plot is what irritated me most about this film and what it speaks of its time period.
Ellen’s “innocence” is characterized by her endless devotion to Hutter, her husband, and her pathetic helplessness in his absence. The fact that she is the heroine of the film, and for doing nothing but acting subserviently to her husband and whining about her loneliness, is just disappointing. Ellen communicates to men and women of her time a false standard of how women should behave to better society, and so, I just can’t approve of her character or the movie.
Foster also points out how the hidden sexual implications of vampire novels make a greater statement about society’s suppression of natural occurrences by deeming them improper. For example, Murnau makes an obvious innuendo to homosexuality when Count Orlok asks Hutter to suck on his bleeding finger and Hutter retreats fearfully due to his (and Victorian society’s) homophobia. A similar statement is made regarding a woman’s fidelity and chastity, as Ellen dies upon having her neck sucked by Count Orlok. In this sense, she became a “ruined” woman. It was interesting to watch how a society’s conservative values were translated into a film, especially with my modern and more accepting perspective.
That’s right, girl. You flash that ankle and show him that your legs are for walking and not for his viewing pleasure!
Your post was a flashback to senior year, I remember reading “How to Read Literature Like A Professor” for my Ap Lit class. Unfortunately it didn’t come to mind when I was reading the movie. But, I completely agree with you, the movie definitely reflected the values of the times. The woman is depicted as this chaste entity that is defined by her chastity. Still, I feel that the movie was more trying to scare you then send a message about feminism. I think the misogyny was just a reflection of the times.