Otherness in Charalaine Harri’s Novel, Dead Until Dark

969 Words2 Pages

Charlaine Harris, the author of Dead Until Dark, familiarized us with the world of supernatural creatures from Sookie’s point of view. Vampires, shapeshifters and Sookie represent the otherness in their world.
Since Bram Stroker published his horror novel Dracula in 1897, vampire stories have become popular. His novel is considered to be the main influence on writing vampire stories. Vampires are usual described as notorious creatures of the night that attack humans and drink their blood, and people fear and abhor them, connect them with Satan. Charaline Harris’s modified her vampires and made them live together with humans; the fear and the notorious reputation started to blush, “Ever since vampires came out of the coffin (as they laughingly put it) four years ago, I'd hoped one would come to Bon Temps” (Harris 1). They have rights, pay taxes, can own a bar (Eric, owner of Fangtasia), they want to be equally treated as humans and they do not have to drink human blood because the Japanese developed synthetic blood, although “I'd always heard that the synthetic blood the Japanese had developed kept vampires up to par as far as nutrition, but didn't really satisfy their hunger, which was why there were "Unfortunate Incidents" from time to time. “(Harris 3). Harris’s vampires could be seen as 21st century vampires, they have the abilities to glamor people, heal them with their blood, are fast “He made a vampire entrance; one minute he wasn't there, and the next he was, standing at the bottom of the steps and looking up at me.”(Harris 25) and they can be infected with Sino-AIDS if they feed from an infected human “but it left the undead very weak for nearly a month, during which time it was comparatively easy to catch and stake the...

... middle of paper ...

...ities who accepts all the otherness and therefore the society looks at here with different eyes.

Works Cited

Harris, Charlain Dead Until Dark WEB: 15.12.2013. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/101853511/01%20-%20Dead%20Until%20Dark.pdf Lindgren, Maria, Umeå University “What are you?” Fear, desire, and disgust in the Southern Vampire Mysteries and True Blood WEB: 15.12.2013. http://ojs.ub.gu.se/ojs/index.php/njes/article/viewFile/1604/1407 Kindinger, Evangelia, Reading Supernatural Fiction as Regional Fiction: Of “Vamps,” “Supes” and Places that “Suck” WEB: 15.12.2013. http://www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/genderstudies/kulturundgeschlecht/pdf/Kindinger_Regional_Fiction.pdf Yurguis, Katia The Dark Gift: Vampires in the AIDS Era WEB: 15.12.2013.
http://www.arts.cornell.edu/knight_institute/publicationsprizes/discoveries/discoveriesfall2002/01katiayurguis.pdf

More about Otherness in Charalaine Harri’s Novel, Dead Until Dark

Open Document