With his left hand he held both Mrs Harker’s hands, keeping them away with her arms at full tension. His right hand gripped her by the back of the neck, forcing her face down on his bosom. Her white nightdress was smeared with blood, and a thin stream trickled down the man’s bare chest which was shown by his torn-open dress. The attitude of the two had a terrible resemblance to a child forcing a kitten’s nose into a saucer of milk to compel it to drink.
– Bram Stoker
Dracula, Chapter 21. In one of the most horrific scenes in the novel, Mina’s friend Dr. John Seward describes how he and Van Helsing break into Mina’s bedroom one night. Mina is kneeling on the edge of her bed while a tall figure, dressed in black, is bending over her. Mina has been bitten on the neck by Dracula and he is holding her head to a wound in his own chest, forcing her to drink the blood pouring from it. The final simile using the kitten and the child underlines Dracula’s power to take something pure and taint and distort it. The attack on Mina is viewed as a form of rape.