A Dowry of Blood

“You did not let me keep my name, so I will strip you of yours.”

Constanta never uses Dracula’s name in A Dowry of Blood. The decision not to name the most famous vampire of all time gives Constanta control over the narrative. She is taking ownership of her story and asserting her independence from her creator after escaping an abusive relationship.

“You always hated it when I overreached the carefully drawn limits of my knowledge.”

Abuse and Vampirism are intertwined in Dracula and Constanta’s relationship. Dracula uses his knowledge to control Constanta and to demarcate the limits of her freedom. By denying her information about herself and other vampires, he is able to keep her within the boundaries of his control.

“There was a darkness in your eyes and a tightness to your mouth I hadn’t noticed before—or perhaps hadn’t wanted to.”

Constanta is very conflicted by her feelings about Dracula. She adores and worships him but also catches glimpses of his terrifying nature. Throughout the book, she must wrestle with these feelings; she is afraid of him, but she tries to suppress or deny her fear whenever possible.

“You had lived too long to fear one culture more than another, and you had seen more empires fall than I could fathom even existing. War and desolation was par for the course, and so was the inevitable rebuilding and cultural flourishing that came after.”

A Dowry of Blood never states how old Dracula is, but he is implied to be thousands of years old. The fall of Vienna is a terrible event to Constanta, but to Dracula, it is merely part of the vast, never-ending cycle of history that all vampires eventually grow used to. Dracula’s advanced age is part of the power differential between the two characters.

“I had learned by then that it was better not to ask about your plans, since I didn’t have a say in them anyway.”

Dracula allows Constanta virtually no control over her own life while expecting her constant, unquestioning loyalty and obedience. She learns to make herself small in their relationship and to accept her loss of autonomy. Initially, she accepts that her position as consort means that she cannot be Dracula’s equal; this starts to shift as time passes.

“For a moment, under the scorching weight of your unadulterated attention, I felt like I was the only person in the world. Maybe it wouldn’t be terrible, a treacherous thought offered, to share you with another if you still looked at me like that when we were alone.”

Constanta often excuses Dracula’s controlling nature because of his ability to make her feel unique and special. This is one of the many ways that Gibson highlights the abusive elements of their relationship; there is conflict between them, and then Dracula showers her with attention and devotion. This cycle is typical of many abusive relationships, and it is part of what makes them so difficult to break free from.

“If any of her subjects had seen the kiss, they hid their disapproval well, restraining themselves to gossiping behind spread fans.”

Given the period in which this section of the book takes place (shortly after 1529), it is highly unlikely that a romantic kiss between two women in public would have been tolerated in high society. This is one of the many ways that A Dowry of Blood plays fast and loose with historical accuracy; it is a romantic fantasy, not a meticulously researched work of historical fiction.

“It felt like something that was happening to me, but I had agreed to it, hadn’t I? Part of me wanted this. Wanted her. I shouldn’t be feeling so dismayed.”

Constanta grapples with her feelings for Magdalena. She has spent so many years with Dracula alone that accepting someone new into the dynamic is a struggle that she never fully consents to. Despite her misgivings, her decision to act on her desire for Magdalena represents an important first step on her journey toward Rebirth and Self-Discovery.

“I was furious with you. You had manufactured my consent every step of the way, a mere formality. This had always been your design for the both of us, we were always going to end up here, in this bed.”

Constanta’s autonomy is complicated when she realizes that Dracula still holds immense power over her decision-making. Although she is attracted to Magdalena, her decision to join her and Dracula in bed is one that Dracula has orchestrated to serve his own desires.

“Far from stifling my love for you, my feelings for her simply stoked the devotion that enveloped my heart whenever you walked into a room.”

Constanta experiences her love for Magdalena as expansive rather than restricting. Her relationship with her two lovers subverts the expectations of a typical romance story, where the protagonist must choose between two people.

“You were fond of these paternalistic rules, always circumscribing our freedom with little laws.”

Dracula’s attitude toward Constanta does not change when Magdalena joins their family. He is not only their lover but also their maker, and so he often takes on a father-like role in their relationship dynamic as he exerts increasing control over them both.

“I supposed we wanted to see if we could do it, feed from someone without giving in entirely to frenzied bloodlust, and we didn’t think it was fair that every person we took our sustenance from should die.”

Many works of modern vampire fiction explore the dietary restrictions of vampires and question whether vampires need to kill the people they drink from. Series like Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles, Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight, and Charlaine Harris’s The Southern Vampire Mysteries all include vampire characters who try to avoid killing humans, to varying degrees of success. Gibson participates in this quintessential element of vampire fiction where characters must grapple with questions of Immortality, Violence, and Morality.

“Perhaps I had given something away the night I had first tasted your blood, and now the place inside me where God used to dwell was empty.”

Vampires in literature, especially Christian vampires, are tormented by the association of vampires with evil and the devil and often feel as if God has abandoned them or cast them aside. Constanta feels this inner conflict keenly and wonders if her vampirism has removed the part of her that is able to connect to her god.

“The world turned on its axis, ever spinning, ever coming back to where it started, but we did not change.”

In many works of vampire fiction, the vampire is a static being, incapable of changing as the world changes around them. It is usually through connection with a human or newly turned vampire that the older vampire is able to make connections with a new age and adjust to the changing world. Dracula restricts Constanta and Magdalena’s contact with the human world, making it difficult for them to keep up with the times.

“The words went through me like an electric shock. I had all the evidence of your past love affairs I needed, but to hear it straight from your lips...It wasn’t the loving that made me sick, it was how much you had hidden from me, and for how long.”

Constanta believes that she is special to Dracula until she discovers that he has had brides before her. This is the point at which Dracula’s control over Constanta starts to unravel. Learning that he has lied to her for centuries shakes Constanta to her core and marks another step on her journey toward Rebirth and Self-Discovery.

“So I coddled her and shushed her and kept her shut up in our stuffy home just the way you wanted, without you even having to ask me to.”

Constanta is still so far under Dracula’s control that she becomes his unwilling accomplice in subduing Magdalena. Though it pains her to see Magdalena suffer, she is far more afraid of what Dracula will do if he is displeased, and so she feeds into and enables his cycle of abuse and control.

“None of us were immune to it. It was simply a byproduct of our unnatural lives. People aren’t meant to live forever. I know that now.”

While the idea of living forever might sound romantic or appealing, Constanta and Magdalena start to find that they do not have the stamina for it. They have tried to hold on to their humanity in a way that Dracula has not, and a human life is fundamentally incompatible with immortality.

“We were witnessing a rebirth, after all, a dark baptism into a new and unending life. But I could not summon mirth.”

The transformation from human to vampire is a rebirth of a kind, but it is one that Constanta has grown jaded about. She is not happy to welcome Alexi into an immortal life as she has lived too long suffering under Dracula’s controlling influence. She longs for true Rebirth and Self-Discovery, which she will learn she can only achieve when she is free of Dracula.

“You haven’t seen anything. After that whole debacle with the Harkers he was sullen for months.”

A Dowry of Blood purports to be a reimagining of Dracula’s brides, but the book engages very little with the plot or characters of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. This reference to the Harkers underscores the creative liberties the book takes with its source text’s plot: Dracula, Constanta, and Magdalena are not in England or Romania at the correct time period for the events of Dracula to unfold.

“You would think we would be happy to be rid of you, but we had been weaned on you like children on mother’s milk, and we were always just as relieved to see you come home as we were to see you ride off.”

Vampire relationships cannot always be confined to human counterparts; Dracula is Constanta, Magdalena, and Alexi’s maker, and so he plays a parental role, underscored by the reference to “mother’s milk,” but he is also their lover. He controls them because he feels a sense of ownership over his fledglings, and they initially worship him as their maker and lover in turn, even when he mistreats them.

“There was no huge argument that predicated my decision to betray you, no ultimate act of tyranny. I simply broke under the weight of a thousand tense nights, a thousand thoughtless, soul-stripping words.”

Constanta’s decision to kill Dracula is not a climactic or pivotal moment in her character arc. Rather than experiencing a dramatic moment of realization, she is eroded by Dracula’s repeated cruelty, abuse, and control until she finds she has no other choice. However, the moment when he hits Alexi is a turning point for her.

“‘It would be easier if he hated us,’ she said. ‘But he loves us all terribly. And if we go on letting him love us, that love is going to kill us. That’s what makes him so dangerous.’”

Often, what makes abusive relationship cycles so difficult to break is the knowledge or belief that the abuser loves their partner. Keeping with the long-standing tradition of Gothic fiction seen in works like Wuthering Heights, Gibson explores the idea that love is not always pure; it can also be toxic, possessive, and destructive.

“Fear for your life made you look like a man who could really love and be loved, like you might hand over your heart and all its secrets without my having to crack your ribs open to get to them.”

Even in the moment of her triumph over Dracula, Constanta is conflicted about whether he can change. His influence and power over her means that some part of her still wonders if he can still become the lover she always thought he was.