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The history of the vampire
The history of the vampire
The history of the vampire
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Vampires Vampires have been seen and documented throughout history. The history of vampires goes further back in time than most people realize. The chaldeans, who lived near the Euphrates river in the southwestern part of Asia more than five hundred years before the time of Christ , feared vampire or creatures similar to vampires enough so that they created charms to protect themselves from being attacked by such creatures. The Assyrians and the Babylonians feared a creature similar to a vampire known as an Ekimmu. These creatures known as Ekimmus were believed by the Assyrians to roam the planet searching for food although it was not always a persons blood but rather a persons' vitality or that persons' energy force. It was believed that if such a creature would enter someone's house that person along with his or her family would slowly weaken, get sick and probably die. In the countries of Syria and Palestine references were made to such blood sucking monsters on ancient carved tablets. In Ireland the people believed in these creatures, which they affectionately came to call "red blood suckers" . Due to their belief in these mythical creatures they began the practice of placing stones on these vampires graves to kep them from escaping.This then became standard practice and is still used to this day in the form of a tombstone. Tombstones were used to control ghosts and other spirits instead of their original use in controlling vampires. Due to the fact that vampires seemed to be so commonplace around the globe, there was a large variety of vampires that differed in shape, behavior and method of becoming a vampire. All of these factors varied from region to region. In the country of Bulgaria a vampire had only one nostril. This Bulgarian vampire would rise out of it's grave nine days after death in the form of a shower of sparks and remained in this shape for a period of forty days. After the completion of these forty days the shower of sparks would regain it's human form. Once human-like the vampire goes from playing childish tricks, which it did in it's "spark" form , to more serious matters , such as the attacking of humans and drinking of their blood. Vampires are well known for their craving for blood but in many countries vampires were not limited to just that substance as part of their diet, but would also consume foods that humans ate such as eggs and rice. That, however, does not mean that their yearn for blood was any weaker than before. Most vampires would attack their victims and suck
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.
All fiction requires a reader to buy in to the world and characters that have been created, but sometimes stories can either be too unbelievable for the reader to relate to or they lean too much towards reality to be classified as fantasy. Karen Russell constructed a novel of exemplary short stories under the title Vampires In The Lemon Grove. Her stories are said to “vibrate with originality and life” with “imaginative reach and moral weight of works of much greater length.” The praise received for this collection of short stories is much deserved, and being her second novel after her award winning Swamplandia!, the author from Miami, Florida, has a bright future in short stories.
In the Malleus Maleficarum, Sprenger and Kramer’s basic argument about the origins of witchcraft is that witchcraft is found chiefly in women due to several reasons that focus on characteristics of women. Sprenger and Kramer argue that witchcraft in women is more probable because women were very naïve and impressionable, carnal lust is never satisfied in women, and they are of lower intelligence and weaker memories than men.
After reading the text, it would seem elementary to identify the vampire, Carmilla as a
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.
Towards the development of the United States of America there has always been a question of the placement of the Native Americans in society. Throughout time, the Natives have been treated differently like an individual nation granted free by the U.S. as equal U.S. citizens, yet not treated as equal. In 1783 when the U.S. gained their independence from Great Britain not only did they gain land from the Appalachian Mountains but conflict over the Indian policy and what their choice was to do with them and their land was in effect. All the way from the first presidents of the U.S. to later in the late 19th century the treatment of the Natives has always been changing. The Native Americans have always been treated like different beings, or savages, and have always been tricked to signing false treaties accompanying the loss of their homes and even death happened amongst tribes. In the period of the late 19th century, The U.S. government was becoming more and more unbeatable making the Natives move by force and sign false treaties. This did not account for the seizing of land the government imposed at any given time (Boxer 2009).
This led to a domino effect, as one conflict led to another as previous built up tension carried on to the
While the character of Renfield is ostensively extraneous to the central plot of Dracula, he fulfils an important role in Stoker’s exploration of the central themes of the novel. This paper will examine how Renfield character is intertwined with the three central themes of invasion, blood and otherness. Firstly, through Renfield’s inner struggle we learn that he is ‘not his own master’ (Stoker, 211). The theme of invasion is revealed by the controlling and occupying powers of Count Dracula. Secondly, the recurring theme ‘the Blood is the Life’ (Stoker, 121), is portrayed throughout the novel and has been interpreted through Stoker’s character Renfield. Then finally, a look at the social construction of the ‘other’ in Dracula and how, through Renfield, who is ‘unlike the normal lunatic’ (Stoker, 52), the Count emerges as the ‘other’ of all ‘others’.
The first Neanderthal remains, discovered in Germany in 1856, were presented to the world of science at a meeting of the Lower Rhine Medical and Natural History Society held in Bonn in February 1857 and named a species, Homo neanderthalensis, by William King in 1864. Some Neanderthal fossils and other remains are in excellent condition, giving a good idea of Neanderthal culture. In 1887, two complete skeletons were found in a cave near Spy in Belgium, and more from sites in France in 1887, 1908 and 1911. These and other finds showed that the Neanderthals had populated Europe widely from about 130,000 to 28,000 years ago after which they became extinct. Most of these fossils were found in caves. Usually they are associated with cold adapted species such as reindeer, arctic fox, lemming and mammoth. The current conclusion drawn from fossil evidence is that Neanderthals emerged at least 230,000 years and maybe even 300,000 years ago. In the Far East, in contrast, there is quite a clear evolution from Homoerectus, by a generalized Homosapiens to Homosapiens sapiens with Mongoloid features, but no Neanderthal presence. In northern Spain, fossils of an 800,000-year-old fossil named Homo antecessor, has also been proposed as the common ancestor to humans and Neanderthals. Others say that Homo heidelbergensis is the more likely of modern and primitive features hints at some surprises as more fossils from this period are unearthed. One line of thought places Homo ergaster as ancestral to Homo antecessor in Africa. A population of Homo antecessor migrated via the Middle East to Europe about one million years ago and evolved into Homo heidelbergensis and then into Neanderthals. The population of Homo antecessor that remained in Africa evolved into Homo sapiens. Another possibility is that Homo antecessor is ancestral to both Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis. The Neanderthal was not human. Genetic evidence from a comparison of human and Neanderthal mitochondria shows that while chimpanzee and human lineage's diverged four million years ago, the Neanderthals diverged over 550,000 to 690,000 years ago. Human trunk and limb bones of Homo antecessor, recovered from the Ran Doling site, in the Sierra de Atapuerca have been dated at about 780,000 old and are said to represent the last common ancestor for Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis. Living humans have on ...
Were Neanderthals the same as modern humans, or were they an entirely different species? This is a major topic of debate among Anthropologists, and many people strongly argue each view, backing their opinion with evidence from physical remains and inferred ideas about behavior.
Dracula, by Bram Stoker, is a classic tale of Gothicism. Traditionally, gothic tales only carried single theme of horror. Through Dracula, Stoker breaks this single theme barrier. The theme throughout Dracula is clearly displayed through the characters as they step from ignorance to realization in this tale of horror.
In the early days of English settlement in the American colonies, the Indian-European relationship of each area was the determining factor in the survival of the newly established colonies. By working together and exchanging methods of food production and survival, an English colony could maintain its population and continue to support the arrival of new settlers. However, a colony that had trouble maintaining ties with their Indian neighbors had a tough time attracting settlers and adapting to their environment. The role of the Indian helping the white man in North America played an important part in the survival of the American colonies. In the Jamestown colony, very few people survived the disease and sickness which accompanied the low, swampy landscape. In their attempt to survive, they raided Indian villages in search of food and kidnap natives. Because they didn’t see Indians as equal in status, the Jamestown colony’s growth was limited. In fact, as the winter of 1609-1610 arrived, the colony was barricaded by Indians who killed off the wild animals of the woods, leaving virtually nothing for the settlers. The result: fewer than 60 people remained when the next English ship arrived the following year. The reason the Virginia settlement ended up surviving was because of the disease the white man exposed the natives to during contact. Weakening the Indian population was the only way the Jamestown population could grow. Things were a bit different in the northern colonies...
Frogs are needed for everyday life. They are part of pond life. Each animal is important because even in the pond, there is a food chain. Frogs are amphibians, animals that spend half of their lives under water, and remainder on land. The first frog appeared in the early Jurassic period about 200 million years ago.