CLASSIC VAMPIRISM AND RECENT CHANGES Change often occurs due to the simple nature of time. What once stood as a finite and steadfast definition will shift and evolve. Genres bleed into one another and mix mythologies. The realm of the supernatural in literature does not lie outside this trend. Wizards no longer call themselves Merlin and spend their days under the patronage of a heroic king; the average wizard now goes by common names like Harry or Ron and attends school, saving the world on the side. Cyclops presently means a man with laser eyes who wears leather and fights crime, not a one-eyed island beast. Vampirism does not escape such change. No longer can one consistently find a vampire to be the bloodthirsty life-sucking demon of a story. Recent popular fiction humanizes vampires, embodies them with the common individual struggles of humans, and twists the vampire ethos to suit such reformation. This trend exists outside of works traditionally classified as Vampire Literature and spans the breadth of fiction. Samples from across the spectrum of vampires in literature, Stephenie Meyer’s popular teen romance series Twilight and Christopher Moore’s absurd humor novels Bloodsucking Fiends and You Suck, demonstrate the common humanized portrayal of vampires and its effects. To understand the evolved nature and image of vampirism in recent popular fiction, one must first know of the previous representations and assumed standards. Vampires, and all monsters for that matter, typically exist to represent one of the greatest fears of humankind: fear of the unknown. Vampires embody this through many facets, namely death and the dark world of the night. Rosemary Ellen Guilley, Ph. D. and vampire scholar, succinctly summarizes th... ... middle of paper ... ...ated with their kind. They technically come from deceased humans and thereby have no body heat or need to eat, breathe, or go to the bathroom. As soon as the sun peaks over the horizon, Moore’s vampires automatically collapse and enter the “sleep of the dead” and survive only by drinking blood (Fiends 28). The vampires also possess heightened senses and immense strength, capable of completing impossible feats such as running up the side of a building and hearing the heartbeats of those around them (Fiends 24). Unable to be harmed by traditional means, Moore’s creatures experience little pain and heal at a rapid rate. The vampires possess the ability to shape shift from human form into mist. Moore bestows his vampires with the unique ability to see the auras of the humans around them. Healthy humans radiate a bright pink glow; the sickly emit a dim gray light.
J. Gordon Melton, in the excerpt “Sexuality and the Vampire” published in his The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead (1998), explains that vampires have a sexual appearance that started from their origin in Dracula. Melton supports his statement by analyzing the monsters' transition to sexual beings through the stories of Dracula’s desires, multiple countries’ erotic tales revolving around vampire-like beings, the manifestation of sensual themes in literary, stage, and screen works, and their current evolution of the once terrified immortals to loved heroes. The purpose of this essay was to outline the seductiveness of the written immortal creatures in order to explain the fanged-mammals’ appeal beyond their terrifying monster abilities.
In a world with ghosts, monsters, demons, and ghouls, there is one being that resonates in everyone’s mind. The idea of these creatures can be found in almost every culture on the planet in one form or another. They prey on the weak and they feast on the blood of their victims. They are compared to a fox for being quick and cunning, but also rather seductive in their nature. With their unholy existence one can only describe them as almost demonic. So what is this horrid creature? Well it is none other than the vampire, a creature as old as time itself. Throughout history there have been many different variations of the vampire, each with their own unique abilities. But one cannot help but mention
Carmilla is an example of a woman who loves her food far too much. Carmilla is consumed entirely by her food, even sleeping in a coffin of blood: “The limbs were perfectly flexible, the flesh elastic; and the leaden coffin floated with blood, in which to a depth of seven inches, the body lay immersed” (Le Fanu 102). There exists a unique relationship between the vampire and their victims. Food becomes defined in terms of victimhood, distinctly separated from humanity’s general consumption of meat. The need for human victims makes hunting synonymous with courtship, as intense emotional connections are established between the vampiress and her food. As seen in the intense relationship developed between Laura and Carmilla, the vampire is “prone to be fascinated with an engrossing vehemence, resembling the passion of love, by particular persons” (105). For Carmilla, cruelty and love are inseparable (33). The taking of the victims’ blood for sustenance is a highly sexualized exchange of fluids from one body to another. The act of consumption is transformed into an illicit carnal exchange between the hunter and the hunted.
Stevenson, John Allen. A Vampire in the Mirror: The Sexuality of Dracula. 2nd ed. Vol. 103. N.p.: Modern Language Association, 1988. JSTOR. Web. 6 Jan. 2014. .
While Bram Stoker’s Dracula has been described as the “quintessence of evil creatures we meet in our everyday lives” and “the Darkness” in the hearts of men (Herbert, 2004, pp. 62), Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight
After analyzing The Scarlet Letter, Roger Chillingworth is the ideal vampiric figure, supporting Thomas Foster’s perspective about vampirism from his book, How to Read Literature Like a Professor. In fact, Roger Chillingworth, presents many instances of how vampires might act and appear in literature. Even though he is not a literal vampire, it does not
From Transylvania to Hollywood, vampires have transformed from unfamiliar, mysterious personalities to one of the most dominant monsters in the horror genre today. Vampires are one of the oldest and most noted creatures in mythology, with many variations of them around the world. Although the most famous version is Bram Stoker’s Dracula, many variants have come before and after telling of the same legend with their own added ideas and modifications to relate to their cultures. Today, there is a multitude of literary and film works that convey and resurface peoples’ fear of vampires. As gothic works like Dracula, by Bram Stoker and Scooby-Doo! and the Legend of the Vampire directed by Scott Jeralds share certain traits reflective of the genre; These factors include setting, actions of each vampire, the initial reactions to news of them, and how their presence affects the people who live within the region the vampires inhabit.
Pale, bloodthirsty, and fangs are some words that trigger images in readers’ minds of one particular being: a vampire. Stories of these creatures have been around for centuries depicted as malevolent characters, including in Bram Stoker’s novel: Dracula. Jonathan Harker, a lawyer goes to Transylvania to meet with his new client, Count Dracula, to discuss the topic of purchasing a property in London. Over the course of his stay, he discovers that the host is actually a Nosferatu (vampire in Latin). Jonathan barely escapes and finds himself in the hospital where he suffers from brain fever due to being traumatized from his experiences. Halfway through the novel, Count Dracula’s plan is exposed: living in different properties in London where he
In Twilight, Edward Cullen presents the question; “ But what if I’m not the hero? What if I’m the bad guy?” The role of vampires is very controversial. Back in the day they were evil, soulless monsters and people genuinely feared them. However, in the present day it seems that we have grown to love them and even hope to one day be them. There are a plethora of vampire stories and many of them have become immense hits. With so many vampire stories, it is not uncommon that readers are able to identify a vast amount of similarities. Although similar in aspects, there are still many differences between the classic and modern day vampires. Two highly popular stories, in which we can easily identify similarities and differences, are Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight.
At first glance, Joss Whedon's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," the hour-long TV series which premiered in 1997 and is now in its third season, bears little resemblance to the book which started the vampire craze -- Bram Stoker's Dracula, published a century earlier. And yet, looks can be deceiving. Although the trendy -- and often skimpy -- clothing and bandied about pop-culture references of "Buffy" clearly mark the series as a product of a far different culture than that of the Victorian England of Dracula, the underlying tensions of the two texts are far similar than one might think. Beneath the surface differences in the treatment of their heroines, the two texts converge in similarly problematic anxieties about gender and sexuality.
Based on the previous findings, it seems fair to suggest that Polidori’ s The Vampyre is not just a story of a monstrous figure of the vampire from folklore tradition waiting to be destroyed by a wooden stake through the heart, it is rather that kind of nineteenth century vampire whose literary presence is highly loaded with metaphorical connotations. For instance, Lord Ruthven’s presence in the story is but an attempt made by Polidori to tackle issues related to moral standards like vice and virtue.
To begin with, let’s talk about how the reader might feel sympathetic for the appalling, blood-sucking vampire,
The Twilight series is a bestselling series written by Stephanie Meyer that has captivated millions of teenage girls. Twilight diverges from the vampire lore quite a bit and contains very little information about any other supernatural beings. Most vampire stories stress that vampires are night dwellers; that they cannot remain “alive” when the sun rises. Nevertheless, Twilight ignores that known ...
Gothic stories often provide differentiated frameworks for the appearance of many characters within the stories. We find a multitude of characters ranging from the hunter, to the prey, from damsel in distress to women appearing as sexualized monsters. Bram Stroker’s Dracula, John William Polidori’s Vampyre and J. Sheridan LeFanu’s Carmilla provide a keen insight on the culture, norms, societal values and the writing of early gothic literature. It is imperative to note that in the Victorian era, sexuality as a gender role was assigned to men and the placement of women as vampires in the gothic stories either challenge or reaffirm these expectations of sexuality of the women. Stephen D. Arata in his article, “The Occidental tourist: Dracula
The author’s op-ed piece was published in 2009, the very peak of the vampire contagion, where one could find these creatures wherever they looked. This pandemonium that arose from vampires is what drove del Toro and Hogan to pen “Why Vampires Never Die.” Furthermore, the purpose behind this essay is to give an abridged description of the past of vampires for the people who had become fanatics of the creatures. Also, this essay showed how vampires have persisted in pop culture. They suggest that vampires have been remade by diverse cultures at different times, and this change echoes that society's angst and concerns. The novelist’s imply that Stroker’s Dracula may mirror an exaggerated human on a prim...