Stoker And Rices Books About Vampires

Stoker and Rice's Books About Vampires

Bram Stoker's Dracula and Anne Rice's series The Vampire Chronicles are books about vampires. The way the two authors write about the vampires' powers, the way they live and how they are created and destroyed prove that two books about the same subject can be different in many ways. It also shows how the vampire legend has evolved over a long period of time.

Special powers are used in both of the authors writings. A few of the powers are the same, or very close to it, in each account. enhaced or super- human strenth is one of these abilites. On page 7 in Anne Rice's book The

Vampire Lestat, her main chacter Lestast says “As for my strength, well it was three times what it had once been. I could bend a copper penny double.” After becoming a vampire he notices his super human strength. Not much is written about Stoker's use of super-strength for Count DraculaTherefore, One tends to believe that Dracula in fact did not have enhanced strength. Stoker did use the power of morphing into animals in his novel. In Dracula , the Count can morph into a bat and he can turn into a greyish-green mist. He uses these powers so humans dont detect his presence. As a gas he can pass by humans without them even noticing and as a bat he can cover more ground in a shorter amount of time.

Rice's novels mention nothing of being able to morph into a bat, mist or anything else for that matter.

The ability to fly is used in each novel but they are used very differently. In Dracula the count can fly but, in order to do this he must turn into a bat and fly as a bat would fly. More powerful vampires in The

Vampire Chronicles can fly as , for example, super man would fly. In order for a vampire to fly it requires lots of energy and a great force of will Lestat says “ It was as if a current of air had caught me. I went up hundereds of feet in one instant, and then the clouds were below me-a white light that I could scarcely see. I decided to drift.” (Rice, Queen of the damned 286)

Mental powers are used extensivly in both of the authors' creations.

Mind reading is common in The Vampire Chronicles. Vampires in the Chronicles can not read the minds of vampires they themselves have created or minds that are skillfully cloaked against them.