The Romantic Vampire: Vampires in Popular Culture

The Romantic Vampire: Vampires in Popular Culture Garrett Adams Apy 377

The Romantic Vampire: Vampires in Popular Culture

The vampire or vampyr, prior to the modern era, was once considered a nightmare made flesh,
usually a poor mortal who upon death could not find rest and so rose every night to prey on their family and friends. These creatures possessed several characteristics that can be regarded as the antithesis of human nature. In essence the vampire was an embodiment of all that the normal person fears and reviles in their life, such as blood drinking, darkness and death. Today, vampires have become a pop culture phenomenon; due to books and movies such as Anne Rices Interview with a Vampire and Stephanie Meyers Twilight series, which alone has made over one billion dollars in ticket sales, they are the new superstars. Assuming that human nature has not drastically changed, what has happened to vampires that they are now so popular? I will be looking at the gradual romanticizing of vampires through popular media outlets, which has turned vampires from inhumane monsters to the cursed sparkling anti-heroes they are today. My theory is that writers and readers have altered the vampire mythology, in an attempt to rationalize the growing obsession with the vampire starting in pre-Victorian Europe. The Original Vampire Myth It is difficult to locate the exact beginning point or origin of the vampire myth, but the main essence of the more modern interpretation is focused mainly on the blood. Blood is a common metaphor for life and this is most likely due to the fact that before modern medicine, blood was considered a mysterious fluid of life in the human body. Without modern knowledge, the only thing premedicine man understood was that blood was important and lose enough of it and you died (Leatherdale 1985, pg16). And so blood was life and if you could drink blood you would perhaps gain life force from it. This idea goes hand in hand with ancient cannibalism, designed to gain the power of ones enemies who were slain in battle. The idea of drinking the blood of another human, however, was universally rejected.

The Romantic Vampire: Vampires in Popular Culture Next we have the idea of life after death. Humanity is, at its core, afraid of the unknown and death is the greatest of these unknowns, as there is no way to know about it before you experience it. This is why many cultures developed their own ideas of an afterlife. Once the corporeal body died, the spirit lived on in an extra-planar space for the rest of eternity. However, the vampire mythology begins to take form here. What if the spirit did not leave the body and go on to the next world once it was

dead, perhaps to resolve some issue from life or because of a need for revenge? The body lies dead, but the spirit still needs it to act in the material plane, so it needs something to power the rotting body. And so blood becomes the renewable resource of the undead, and thus it can be seen how the origin of the undead drinking the blood of the living began to take shape. The actual shape of the vampire however changes depending on where you are looking. Often , the vampire can take the shape of an animal, such as a cat in Japan, or in more European myths, the bat and wolf (Leathdale 1985). Generally, however, the walking vampire is simply a sight of terror. Long nails, distended bellies, and taut almost translucent skin are very common descriptions. Interestingly, the most common descriptions can be very easily explained if you examine a corpse in the process of decomposition. Gasses tend to build up in the belly which will distend it. It is now common knowledge that the skin of the dead shrinks which gives the appearance of hair, nails and teeth growing. Finally the gasses building up in the torso can often push blood into extremities and head causing the appearance of blush or blood oozing from the mouth. This shows such a clear correlation between descriptions of vampires and of a decomposing body that it seems likely the vampires description was born from a misunderstanding of the natural process of decomposition. The vampires association with the night is most likely related to the human fear of the dark. During the day we feel safe and warm because we can see everything and the sun keeps the world warm, however when night falls our vision becomes obscured; we literally cannot see. Predatory

The Romantic Vampire: Vampires in Popular Culture

animals roam at night, and dangers we may have avoided in the brightness of day are now easily walked into. Night time is dangerous, and so the human subconscious has developed a healthy fear of it, so what better time of day then night time for an undead monster to wonder looking for fresh blood? Now we have the more appropriate view of the original vampire; a gruesome monster of the night who wonders the countryside, killing and drinking the blood of the living, in an attempt to keep its decaying body fueled. Dracula and the Vampire Romance

Contrary to popular belief, Dracula is not the first vampire novel. In fact it is preceded by two novels, and one novelette. The first, chronologically, is the novelette The Vampyre, written by John William Polodori and published in 1819. The Vampyre is about a young man who through his adventures meets a Lord and foils his plots and eventually proclaiming that nobleman to be a Vampyre. Polodori was the personal physician of Lord Byron, and associate of Mary Shelley, of Frankenstein fame. The conception of his novelette was based around an agreement between these three (and a few others) to all write ghost stories (Joshi, 2010, 384). The main antagonist, Lord Ruthven, is commonly believed to be based on Lord Byron himself, and infused with Polodoris contempt with the man (Joshi, 2010, 385). So in an attempt to write his ghost story he takes a real life issue he is dealing with and transmogrifies him into the blood sucking vampire. But some changes need to be made to the character of the vampire for him to truly fit into the pre-Victorian age British society as Lord Ruthven does, so he creates what is now the stereotype of the vampire Lord, on which most other vampire characters in the 19th century are based. The book became wildly popular and the modern vampire myth is born.

The next book was the novel Carmilla, written by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu and published in 1872, which stars the titular female vampire known as Carmilla. So if Ruthven is the creation of our modern

The Romantic Vampire: Vampires in Popular Culture image of the vampire lord, giving birth to the stereotypes of the next nearly 200 years, then what does

Carmilla have to offer to the romanticization of the vampire? Carmilla was the first lesbian vampire, who would throughout the book have an erotic relationship with the main character, Laura. It is even eluded that she had something akin to the same relationship with another girl before arriving in the current setting.

The final pre-Dracula vampire novel is Varney the Vampyre by James Malcom Rymer and Thomas Peckett and published in 1847. Varney the Vampyre is important because it introduced many of the tropes which have become staples of modern vampire mythology: having fangs, hypnotic powers. He is also a reluctant vampire who is cursed by his affliction, because he killed his own son which led to his vampirism (Joshi, 2010, 388).

Finally we come to Dracula by Bram Stoker, published in 1897. Dracula draws elements from all of the above novels and creates the most well-known vampire and a catalyst for the modern vampire. Dracula is a lord in his land and as such a gentleman by any standards, yet he preys on the weak-minded and has a definite sexual connection with the character of Lucy. Dracula also follows in Varneys footsteps and possess most of the tropes attributed to him. What makes Dracula so different is his immense popularity, easily being able to claim the title of most well-known vampire, inspiring countless adaptations.

We can clearly see the steps being taken away from the original mythology of the vampire and its refitting for a mostly pre-Victorian European world. Besides the blood, there is one thing these new romantic vampires have in common with their ancestors: they are the villain. They are inherently evil and are out for their own good and no one elses. They a drawing on the blood of the living to fuel themselves for ever, praying on the weakness of the mind. And even though they are being removed from the mindless destruction of their literary predecessors, the rampant sexual deviancy is universally

The Romantic Vampire: Vampires in Popular Culture regarded as bad. For example, Carmilla and her victim are actually relatives, though separated by many generations, and so their relationship can be considered incestuous, and it is a same sex, or lesbian

relationship which was highly controversial at the time of publication. Meanwhile, Dracula is preying on a woman who is betrothed to be married only just before meeting him, which I perceive as the representation of the fear of female sexuality out of control.

There is one last step in the evolution of the vampire into the thing we see it as today, and that is something that was introduced in Varney the Vampyre: the idea of the reluctant vampire.

Anne Rice and the Curse of Vampirism

Anne Rices initial vampire novel was about a reluctant vampire, similar to Varney the Vampire. Anne Rice, in her novel Interview with a Vampire, 1976, was turning the vampire into the protagonist of the tale. While not exactly a hero, the main character Louis is cursed by his vampirism, and we are meant to connect with him throughout the novel. Louis can be considered a kind of Anti-hero, or person who we wish to succeed but whose means may be immoral. The general theme of Rices novel is that of loss and a disassociation from humanity. Louis struggles with his immortality and his lack of companionship, while his vampiric father is slowly losing touch with humanity.

This idea of vampirism as a curse, and that the vampire may be struggling with morality and instead of being a creature of evil, is in fact trying to overcome that and escape it. These themes are carried on into most vampire culture all the way up to the present. In the role playing game, Vampire the Masquerade, the player takes on the role of a vampire in the modern nights who is in a constant struggle with The Beast (Carl, Heinig, Woodworth, 1999, 21,), or, the predatory nature of the vampire. Vampires, in this game, have to struggle daily with their humanity so that they do not lose themselves to the beast and succumb to their predatory nature forever.

The Romantic Vampire: Vampires in Popular Culture

In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a popular TV show from the 90s, there are two kinds of vampires. There are soulless killers, who are possessed by a demon and whose only goal in life is to destroy everything while bringing pain and death. These vampires resemble the more ancient vampire myths by being ugly, deformed people raised from the dead to murder and hurt. There are however a few rare examples of vampires who are either still in possession of their soul, or who for some external reason have been forced to act human and develop a new morality. These vampires still resemble their other more vicious brethren but consider themselves to be cursed instead of blessed. They are treated with hatred and fear by other people and yet the viewer begins to connect to these characters due to their isolation. They become true Anti-heroes, who are fighting for the forces of good, all the while being plagued by their vampiric nature, and we as viewers or readers can relate to this, and do relate to it. And so the modern vampire craze begins.

Stephanie Meyer and the Sparkling Vampire

It is hard to be involved with the pop culture world at all today and not known at least a little bit about Stephanie Meyers new hit book series The Twilight Saga and its movies. Stephanie Meyer has capitalized on the popularity of the vampire anti-hero and reluctant vampire to create a bestselling series of novels that are written for the young adult audience. While in the Twilight saga there are still the vampires that feed on human blood and are at least partially related to the original vampire, the main vampire family do not drink human blood, go to school, and are just trying to be an ordinary family. These vampires are so removed from the original myth that they are basically super-humans, instead of being evil undead. They get the great benefits commonly associated with the undead, such as super strength and immortality, all without any of the negatives such as fear of the sunlight or having to drink blood. Twilights vampires only sparkle in daylight, they can keep themselves full satiated on animal blood only, and while they suffer from the vampiric equivalent of peer pressure from the more savage

The Romantic Vampire: Vampires in Popular Culture vampires, they have an entire social support system built into their vampire family. It seems that the vampirism is really just a backdrop to a Romeo and Juliet style romance between the main characters.

The Meyers generation of vampire is no longer an anti-hero, their struggle between humanity and their vampire nature simply the hint of danger used to spice up a played out story. The vampires are undergoing a process of humanization, in an attempt to rationalize our obsession with them. The vampire in Twilight, Edward, is three literary generations of vampire away from Dracula and a fourth away from the original undead, and following in following the pattern he has become more disassociated with the vampire then any who came before him. We want to like these characters because they are the protagonists, and they have been written so that we find ourselves drawing parallels between our lives and theirs. We know that they are inherently evil due to their vampirism, and so we try to remove them from it, make them the exception from the rule, as is the case with Edward and his familys refusal to drink human blood. They are not like the rest of the vampires so it is okay for us to like them.

The Vampire today

So now we have the most human-like vampire ever, whose resemblance to the original vampire, the manifestation of our fears of death and the afterlife is merely remote at best. Due to the vampires popularity the mythology has became more and more romanticized by its audience in an attempt to defend their obsession with it. As a result of their humanization they became more popular as more people could connect to them on an emotional level and so the vicious cycle began. Now instead of being an embodiment of fear a vampire protagonist is the embodiment of human morality over a lesser, more predatory nature. I believe this is the direct cause for the massive popularity vampires have in modern pop culture.

The Romantic Vampire: Vampires in Popular Culture Resources Cited:

Carl, Jason, Jess Heinig, and Peter Woodworth. Laws of the Night. Clarkston, GA: White Wolf, 1999. Print. Click, Melissa A., Jennifer Stevens. Aubrey, and Elizabeth Behm-Morawitz. "A Very Queer Refusal: The Chilling Effect of the Cullen's Heteronormative Embrace." Bitten by Twilight: Youth Culture, Media, & the Vampire Franchise. New York: Peter Lang, 2010. 103-18. Print. Joshi, S. T. Encyclopedia of the Vampire: the Living Dead in Myth, Legend, and Popular Culture. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2011. Print. Leatherdale, Clive. Dracula: the Novel & the Legend : a Study of Bram Stoker's Gothic Masterpiece. Wellingborough, Northamptonshire: Aquarian, 1985. Print. Rice, Anne. Interview with a Vampire. McGraw, 1976. Print. "Twilight Moviesat the Box Office." Box Office Mojo. Imdb.com. Web. 01 Dec. 2011. <http://boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=twilight.htm>.