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Vampires: the origins of the myth
Clive Leatherdale, in his book “Dracula: the romance and the legend”, sustains that the mythical figure of the Vampire is based on two popular beliefs as old as manhood:
a) Faith in a Life after Death
b) Faith in the magical “power” of blood. ... Also vampires fall in this category, dead in body but living in spirit, suspended forever on the thin borderline between Life and Death. ... The European versions of this myth are centred on the Balkan area; there are three historical periods that contributed in a crucial manner to form the present image of Vampires, the X, XV and XVIII centuries. ... Probably these are the real roots of Vampires and Werewolves legends alike. ... In 1490 Pope Innocenzo VIII with the Papal bull “Malleus Maleficarum” fixed that suicides and excommunicates were destined to “live” again as vampires, because they were out of God’s Grace and therefore Evil One’s easy preys. The Bull reduced strongly the abjurations among the ignorant rural populations; consequently both Churches developed their own peculiar methods against “vampires”. ... Needless to say, farmers charged vampires with the plague and defended their cattle with holy symbols, circles of blessed fire, etc. ... This disease provoked a fresh outbreak of vampire tales, and its easy to link this recrudescence with vampires’ success among Romantic poets and writers: After numerous apparitions on works of poetry like Goethe’s Braut von Corinth (1797), Byron’s Giaour (1813), W. Scott’s Rockeby and Coleridge’s Cristabel (1804), in 1819 with Polidori’s novel “The Vampire: a Tale” , vampires resurrected another time from their grave, free to run-amok in the dreams of millions of horror readers and writers.
Vampires as an archetype
“Begin by considering that the tale of horror, no matter how primitive, is allegorical by it’s very nature: that is symbolic. ... In fact, for a novelist or a scenarist, vampires come equipped with a solid, well-know background, but so large and versatile to leave always new paths to explore. ... They have common traits that makes them recognisable as vampires, but their are very different in many way: in King’s Salem’s Lot, vampires cannot sustain daylight, while Dracula can walk in the streets of London at noon. But the Count have to rest in a coffin: in Steakley’s Vampires, they can rest almost everywhere. ...
First of all vampires are a great symbol: they embody at the same time desirable qualities like beauty, strength, immortality and taboo-breaking traits like being undead and feeding on human blood. ... Vampires have a cathartic function: a part of ourselves needs sometimes, at least emotionally, to share destruction and violence, in order to “keep the beast inside”, to maintain control over our irrational feelings. ...
Vampires and literacy themes
· Melancholia
Romanticism found in vampires a strong symbol for melancholia. ... Moreover, vampires still remember their lost affects or lovers: they are the extreme heights of love desire, a desire so big and possessive to trespass in to a sort of cannibalism. ...
· Outside Evil
Since Victorian Age, vampires are considered the heralds of “outside” evil, a kind of evil that is predestinate, coming from outside like a stroke of lightning. Vampires are not Furies wishing to punish sinners; not only their victims are randomly chosen, but they are often innocent. ...
· Anarchy
In every horror tale when vampires meet human society they bring anarchy with them. ... In Stoker’s work, like in many other horror tales, Vampires symbolise the primitive freedom: you can do whatever you want, if you have the strength to enforce it.
· Mark of the Mutant and the fear of diseases
Vampires are the ultimate mutants: they are at the same time the Wandering Jew and the Freak. ... Sex, blood, disease and paranoia: a fertile ground for vampires tales. In fact, it’s not a case if we have a great return of vampires stories in films, books and comics. ... Steakley’s Vampires) and a short story (Polidori’s The Vampire: a Tale). ... I choose Polidori’s and Stoker’s stories because they are landmarks of the genre; King’s Salem’s Lot is interesting for its parallelism with Dracula; Vampires is clearly a pulp book, but has some hints that I think deserve some attention. ... Van Helsing is the opposite of the protagonist of Faust: he is a scientist that became a shaman to fight the Evil, another form of the myth of the Double. ... It can be interesting to note that the old Dutch is the only Roman Catholic character of Dracula and that he uses only Catholic symbols and rites against his opponent: this can probably be attributed to Stoker’s origins (he was born in Ireland).
Another interesting character is Mina Harker: she and Lucy, her best friend, form a couple of opposites that generates many interpretations: Lucy is the archetype of the weak and sweet woman designated to succumb to the ruling man; on the other hand Mina will resist to Dracula because she has woman’s heart and man’s head (against the myth of the Double). ... Ben, Susan and the teacher, with the aid of a young boy, Mark Petrie, who resisted to one of the vampires, discover the truth, but it is too late: Susan became a vampire after trying alone to confirm their theories on the owner of Marsten House, the teacher die of an heart-attack, and Ben’s other allies ( Father Callahan and Jimmy Cody, a young doctor) are eliminated by Barlow; the Father with the same dark communion of blood of Mina Harker, the doctor falling on a floor littered with knives pounded through boards.
Approximate Word count = 4368
Approximate Pages = 17.5
(250 words per page double spaced)
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