Vampires

I know what you all are thinking....here's another vampire-crazed girl....and you are right to an extent. i do love vampires...I always have. I've had a fascination with them for as long as I can remember.  I remember my first vampire book that I read, when i was about seven years old.I forget the name of the book but it talked about a young boy who was a vampire and struggled to keep it from his friends. It didn't deal with the issues that come up in vampire novels for adults but it still started my 'blood lust' for vampires.

Vampires have been around forever, although not always in the same form. In almost every society in existence had an adaptation of the vampire. The vampire was a scapegoat for the ills of that society. when crops wouldn't grow, or people would get sick, with what we now would say was plague, the myth of the vampire would fire up again, and take the blame for the harsh times.
In older days when a vampire's presence would be suggested, people would go and dig up recently dead people, to see if they were the vampires. They validated their suspicions through simple tests. if the corpse's teeth were elongated, and if the fingernails and hair looked longer.---contrary to popular belief, vampire's did not look like a living human, but more a corpse that could walk...more like a zombie.---but lets go back to their "fool-proof" vampire tests. when decomposition starts skin starts to shrivel and peel back, making the hair appear longer, and the nails appear longer. the gums also shrivel back, making the teeth look unnaturally elongated....so were the dead bodies they mutilated with stakes and cutting off heads really vampires?? I doubt it highly.
The first time these vampire myths were combined to create a complete being was in Bram Stoker's Dracula---coincidentally my favorite book.  Stoker's Dracula was unnattractive, scary looking, and inellequant. He was a foreigner, in a time when England was wary of them, especially from the east--which is where Transelvania is located. Also...there is something sexy about a vampire sucking your blood....and that is what it's supposed to be. As we learned when we studied Dracula in english this year....Dracula's fangs are a phallic symbol. The fangs penetrate the skin....a little erotic really. Also, in this novel Stoker brings to mind to growing fear of syphillis that was growing in england at the time. This disease spreading is shown through the spreading of the "vampireness." Through this novel a few weapons to fight the vampire were credited. Firstly was the idea of a cruifix to ward them away. also the use of garlic to protect yourself against vampires. The last is driving the stake through the heart of the sleeping vampire, and if necessary cutting off its head.

Some of you are thinking, "wait, what about the sunlight thing?" well i have an answer for that. the sensitivity to sunlight part of the myth didn't come about until the vampire made it into the movies. the first 'Dracula' movie was made in Germany. this vampire was made to represent the first world war and its effects on Germany. This movie was called "Nosfuratu". He looked like he was half-rat and half human....creepy for sure. it was this movie that introduced the idea that vampires couldn't go out in the sun, or they would burn into dust.

Next came Hollywood's time to shine. They scooped up the vampire hype and changed the myth again...in a way to attract more fans....they made the vampire handsome and charming, and that set women's loins on fire....still do. They made this vampire's pursuit of blood more like a romance between the vampire and the woman. 

Something was missing though, the insight into the vampire. Anne Rice fixed this with her books, most notably her book "Interview with the vampire." she looked into the vampires, and their feelings and moral dilemma's towards being a vampire and asked the question, if vampires could be good people behind their monstrous need for human blood? I love these books too....and yes i have read them all.

Now we get to twilight, which i hate. ohhh all you twihards will be hate mailing me if you read this. but seriously, i love the idea of the sensitive vampire, one who wishes he was human again, that's cool. but what i don't like is the fact that she completely discredited all other vampire myths of garlic, sunlight, crucifix, and made her vampires invincible to humans. and don't get me started on the sickeningly subservient Bella....she's too self-sacrificing to be real.

I think that vampire myths will always be around, and i just hope that some stick true to the traditions of vampires, so we don't lose sight of its roots.  Yes i am a fangirl of vampires, all works and movies, but at least i'm educated, and am not just in love with vampires because i want an "Edward Cullen".

Love vamps.
xoxoxo
Becca


Ps. i'm going to list my fav vampire books below. i'll cut them down to my top 5

1. Dracula
2. Interview with the Vampire---or any other book written by Anne Rice
3. Midnight Guardian
4. Dracula the undead---written by Darce Stoker--Bram's great great grand nephew...or somehting like that
5. any book in the vampire accademy series---read them all.