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“Anti-mothers” invert the stereotype of the caring mother and prey on children and seduce and dominate men.

The trope of the monstrous feminine popular culture may be linked to Freud’s concept of the “phallic mother.”

Freud’s monstrous anti-mothers represent an enduring trope that deserves our full attention.

In one of the lesser-known but truly scary parts of Bram Stoker’s classic book Dracula, we hear reports of a woman stalking the night and attacking children. They call her the “Bloofer Lady.” It turns out that this villain is Lucy Westenra, a character who is already dead. She was killed by Count Dracula. Now reanimated as a vampire, Lucy feeds on children in the London night.

A band of vampire hunters finds Lucy in a graveyard. The sight of her is terrifying. “[W]e saw a white figure advance, a dim white figure, which held something dark at its breast…We could not see the face, for it was bent down over what we saw to be a fair-haired child.” Lucy is no longer human. She is a monster. Dressed in the pale clothes she was buried in, her eyes are “unclean and full of hell fire, instead of the pure, gentle orbs we knew.” Her crinkled features remind the hunters of “Medusa.”

The vampire Lucy tosses aside the child and even tries to seduce one of the men before........

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