Robert Eggers beds his recent adaptation of Nosferatu in themes that are concrete, yet elusive. It is a gothic horror that sketches its philosophical and cultural standpoint vividly through dark, brooding, expressively stylish images of nineteenth-century Europe. The film questions heavily the benefits of progress in modern society, a society whose very existence stands on the condition of the subjugation of women and their sexuality. In Nosferatu, we see two worldviews in conflict—the modern secular world and the primitive world based on the unscientific that the former wants to abandon. In this article, I attempt to break down some of the recurring motifs and thematic concerns of the film. This exercise is a reminder that horror is not simply about spooky tales meant to frighten; what drives it is its own set of ideologies.
Spoilers Ahead
The connection between Ellen’s possession and her sexuality
The occurrence of hysteria, the etymological origin of which can be traced back to the Greek ‘hystera’ meaning ‘uterus,’ has been traditionally associated with gender, particularly femininity. The germination of ‘melodrama’ as a genre has this historical understanding of the confluence of gender and the psyche as its seedbed. Ellen’s possession in Nosferatu is not far removed from this theoretical perspective.
Ellen’s possession, which was for the longest time seen as a fault in her nerves, causes a change in her demeanor. Under spells of possession, she discards her regular demureness and becomes sexually transgressive when she invites the demon. Throughout the film, the female body and organs recur in tandem with the mention of hysteria and possession. On his visit, Dr. Seivers even suggests to Friedrich Harding that Ellen must sleep in her corset, which would calm her womb. This points to the early medical term “suffocation of the womb,” which was heavily deemed as being associated with demonic possession and what later came to be known as ‘hysteria.’
Interestingly, when Professor von Franz begins his consultation procedure at night when Ellen’s trance state begins, he draws out blood from her body to reduce congestion, including menstruation. While this seems to be an inoffensive medicinal treatment, von Franz is actually performing a ritual of purity, necessary for the possession, by expunging Ellen’s body of any abject element. This would draw Nosferatu to the fair maiden and make him one with her.
Return to the unscientific
When Ellen first shows signs of possession, her symptoms are conveniently ignored as a fit resulting from troubled nerves. For her friends, the Hardings, it is a malady. The period shown in Nosferatu is also the period of the ushering in of modernity, as Dr. William Sievers reminds us through his words, “This is a modern hospital, not a prison.” The old methods are pushed to the margins, and a new secular, modern way of life is encouraged. In Nosferatu, a point of conflict emerges when the new world orders try to repress primitive impulses as ‘unscientific.’ Prof. Albin Eberhart von Franz, despite being a revered personality, is shunned by the scientific community for his enthusiasm for the occult and mystic philosophy. Quite obviously, when Sievers suggests him as the only person who has answers to Ellen’s malady, Friedrich Harding, a secular modern man, is doubtful. The crisis in modernity occurs when von Franz further attests to Ellen being possessed by a demon. It brings back the very thing to the surface that secular modernity wants to cast aside. Nosferatu is the retrospective story of the anxiety that grasped the world at large regarding the unscientific troubled position in a world that would now be industrialized and capitalized.
The Rise of the Vampire and the Plague
Historically, the myth of the vampire emerged hand in hand with the bubonic plague endemic that left Europe devastated. In Nosferatu, therefore, the plague and its agents, the fetid rats, are foreboding messengers of the evil’s journey to Wisburg. It is also a cinematic representation of the Black Death’s eminence in European land. The appearance of the rats can also be paralleled by the re-emergence of the feeling of uncanny that has plagued Ellen since her childhood. The power of Ellen’s unconscious is so cumbersome that Ellen is no longer capable of spurning it away. The rats’ colossal migration to Wisburg is a reminder that Ellen’s mental floodgates have been opened.
The Cat, Which Has No Master Nor Mistress
The cats in Nosferatu are fountains of free will and femininity in a narrative otherwise marked by the subjugation of femininity and the risque subject of the sexual frankness of its women. When von Franz asks Ellen if the cat, Greta, belongs to her, Ellen proclaims that she has “no master nor mistress.” Greta, the cat, then stands completely at odds with the misery that clouds Ellen, who is made to feel like a doll that resurrects only when Nosferatu breathes life into her. Ellen unconsciously aspires to be like Greta, without any figurative weight hovering over her. The cats in the film are shown to be resilient, unlike the rodents who are driven by the demon. The rodents, being at the disposal of Nosferatu, kill and get killed. The cats, however, stand for the vitality of life and reproduction. The plagues do not touch them, and the demon does not curse them.
Thomas Hutter as a powerless hero
With Nosferatu serving as the anti-hero, we see Ellen pining for her love, her husband, and the hero of the story, Thomas Hutter. However, the possession of Ellen by Nosferatu leaves Thomas Hutter a powerless hero. The consummation of the marriage between Thomas and Ellen is wrecked by the demon’s pursuit of Ellen. Thomas is stunned upon learning that the association between Nosferatu and his wife was hidden from him. Towards the final act, upon his return to Wisburg, Ellen accuses him of selling her out to the demon and never repaying the Hardings the money that Thomas owed them. Under the possessed spell, Ellen falls to the ground and takes a jibe at Thomas by claiming, “You could never please me as he could.”
The film, in its portrayal of the sexual transgression of the female, also enacts the hero’s symbolic castration. He is powerless and dependent on others not only for his livelihood but also for the cure of his wife. He is unable to rescue Wisburg from the ravages of the plague; in fact, in a way, he is instrumental in rolling the dice metaphorically and inviting the vampire. It is his wife, and not him, who sacrifices her life to drive away the plague and the devil. He is challenged to display his masculinity, and only then does he consummate their marriage. Even then, he loses his wife to the demon and has nothing left but to drown in misery.
