Dracula, revisited

I was just breezing through Creative Minority Report and I came across the phrase "he gave vampires souls".  It brought me back to an issue I have with Stoker's work and how he dealt with vampires and souls.

When vampire-Lucy was waylay-ed by Professor Van Helsing and his partners, Van Helsing imparts on Arthur the importance of what need to happen: by slaying the vampire-Lucy, Lucy's soul is free to enter into Heaven.  This gives a rather interesting perspective on the soul, salvation, damnation, and the link between the soul and body.

Catholic teaching on the soul and the body is such that both are intrinsically linked: the body is THE vessel for the soul, and during the resurrection, the soul will be reunited with the body (not a different one, but a glorified old one).  When the body dies, the soul is freed from this "mortal coil" and will be separated from it.

This means, in relation to vampire-myth, that when the body dies (and before it becomes a vampire) the soul is released and thus the soul is not trapped by the vampire's actions.  So then, it would appear that vampire-Lucy wouldn't really have been Lucy at all, but a demon using Lucy's body, or something to that effect, and Lucy's soul would have entered Heaven already.  But that isn't what Stoker presents.


Stoker actually presents two DIFFERENT perspectives in his work.  Lucy's soul is in jeopardy, as if it is trapped in the body while the body continues its evil, God-forsaken actions of feeding off others.  Killing the body will release Lucy's soul to enter into heaven.  The fate of Lucy's soul (whether it will be damned or saved) is unrelated to the actions of the vampire, it appears.

HOWEVER, both Lucy and Dracula know who they are.  Lucy recognizes her beloved, and with evil depravity presents herself in a lustful manner to seduce him in order to prey upon his blood and win him over to her (and possibly be his master, as Dracula is hers).  Likewise, Dracula is fully aware of his existence, who he is, what his purpose is, and what his plan is.  He recounts his history, what he's done, etc.

The two perspectives are mutually exclusive.  Lucy's soul cannot be trapped against its will by vampire-Lucy AND vampire-Lucy know who she is and act accordingly (although in an utterly depraved manner).  Either the vampire is Lucy or it is not.