Are The Undead Dead As A Vehicle For Literary Expression?19:56 Jan 17 2011
Times Read: 478
First published on ezinearticles.com.
When the word "vampire" is heard, everyone thinks of something a little different. To some, a vampire is Bela Lugosi, with the piercing stare and satin-lined cape. To others, a blond-haired sociopath named Lestat. And still others will think of Blade, Edward Cullen, Celina, Markus Latimore. A few true diehards might even throw out Max Schreck as Nosferatu.
The first "true" vampire fiction tale featured an unnamed female vampire known as the Bride of Corinth in the late 1700s. But long before that, vampire stories were rife, dating back to the first known civilizations on earth in one form or another. There is even speculation, popularized of late by the White Wolf role-playing game "Vampire: The Masquerade," that Cain himself was turned into a vampire by God as punishment for the sin of fratricide.
The first vampires were far from seductive. Even the ones that had seductive traits ultimately revealed their true natures as vicious, soulless creatures who fed on the life force and fluids of people. Indeed, the Dark Ages and the pogroms carried out by the Spanish Inquisition gave us a great deal of the "traditional" vampire lore as we know it today. The cross, the stake, garlic, sunlight, holy water; all of these folk remedies began in Eastern and Central Europe, and were carried across Christendom on a tidal wave of religious hysteria.
The obvious problems with each of these "sure-fire" methods for killing vampires should be readily apparent. What if, say, your vampire is Jewish? (Yes, yes, it's an old joke.) Or Italian? If they're Jewish Italian, you're doubly screwed. Holy water was defeated by Bela Lugosi by simply holding a glass of it up to a fire and then drinking it. What if your vampire is an insomniac, or is wearing sunscreen? And a stake? Do that to a human and guess what happens. It is no shock, then, that the same would happen to a vampire.
Starting in the late 1700s, a clear and seemingly inextricable link between vampires and sex was forged, which continues to this day, albeit in a sometimes fairly covert form. This, in its turn, dates back to medieval times, when an orgasm was referred to as "the little death." Vampires were seen as the ultimate human predators at the time. Also, it was noted, although never widely commented upon, that funerals tend to make a lot of people desire sex, as a celebration of life. So these tangled threads came together to create the seductive vampire that we know today.
Vampires as brooding, demonic expressions of pure evil were status quo (one notable exception being Varney the Vampyre), up until Anne Rice's Interview With A Vampire. Louis was certainly brooding, and it was no chucklefest, but there was still a certain lightness to it that had been notably absent from vampire literature in the past. Mercedes Lackey introduced us to a vampire named Andre who was not only NOT evil, but a powerful force for good. And then, of course, the other examples I gave at the beginning of this article came to be, each with their own unique talents, problems, and capabilities.
The overarching themes which seem to obtain are: supernatural strength, speed, a thirst for blood, some form of reactivity to sunlight, heightened senses, physical beauty, preternatural mental talents, and the ever-present question of their "goodness" or lack thereof. These themes are so engrained in the vampire mythos that it seems all but impossible to divorce these qualities from a vampire without making them something else entirely. But why? We must ask.
Part of this seems to stem from a desire for qualities that humans would always like to have more of: strength, power, attractiveness. Part of it, no doubt, is that humans, as apex predators themselves, would much rather be devoured by something like them, only faster and tougher. Would you want to be gnawed on by the wimpy guy who lives in the apartment down the hall and keeps severed heads in his fridge, or the gorgeous woman who lives in the castle?
The vampire preoccupation with the question of their souls, or lack thereof, is also a throwback to the Inquisition, when the idea of saving one's immortal soul made it acceptable to release the soul from the flesh in many cases. There are vampires who seem not to be unduly burdened about this one way or the other, and there are vampires who obsess about it almost to the exclusion of all else.
The metaphors seem fairly clear: Life, sex, and death are all linked. Never more so than in our current age has death seemed sexy, proving the old maxim that "To feel truly alive, you must face death." Additionally, the question of death as the ultimate mystery and what happens to us after we depart this world makes the prospect of any form of life after death seem attractive. The vampire has become a virtual pyschopomp for adolescent uncertainty and angst and the confusion engendered by the changes in one's body, moods, and desires. And vampires have saturated popular fiction so much in recent years that many people have grown quite sick of them. Even Anne Rice, the grande dame of modern vampire fiction, said recently that there would be no more books featuring Lestat de Lioncourt. Consider too the Twilight phenomenon, which seems to be reviled as much as it is loved, and has taken vampires out of the dark and brought them, in a very real way, into the light.
As versatile and yet as stagnant as vampires seem to have become, is there any point in anyone writing yet another vampire story?
The answer, I believe, is still a resounding YES! Vampires speak to that dark place within us that dreams of being MORE. More powerful, more beautiful, beyond human limits and concerns, even beyond human laws. As morbid and moody as vampires tend to be, there is still that longing for redemption. The idea that a vampire can be good, and use their "dark" powers in the service of Good, is becoming ever more popular. Moreover, vampires are still sexy, and everyone likes sexy. Whether it's the understated sexual awakening of Twilight or the far more overt seduction of "The Hunger," vampires have still got it.
I believe that as humans progress and probe our inner selves more, so too will vampires progress. There's always a new slant or a new spin that can be put on the vampire mythos. When people run out of things to write about people, the vampire may finally, once and for all, be laid to rest. But I feel pretty safe in saying that fiction with fangs still has a long, long way to go before that day comes.
COMMENTS
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VampireLily
14:19 Jan 27 2011
This is an excellent write... methaphorically speaking, it's true that human beings do find much of themselves in vampirism, the cycle of life left open and untethered. And i think that's why Vampire culture has become so enticing....the untter abandonment of earthly rules, especially death.
Can't wait to read more from you~