Final Project: The Brides of Dracula

Ryne Tremmel
December 20, 2010
English 263: The Vampire Novel - Final Project Paper

The Brides of Dracula

For my final project, I chose to draw the brides of Dracula.  I chose this for a number of reasons.  Dracula is a classic vampire story, and one that seemed to fall right in the middle of the semester for us.  I enjoyed this because, to me, Dracula was kind of the "quintessential" vampire book.  Not only was it innovative for its time, but it was so innovative that many of the things that it introduced to vampire fiction evolved into what are today considered to be conventions of the genre.  One of these elements that Dracula seemed to introduce was the idea of using sexuality as a way to create a sense of fear about the vampires and what they can do to a person.

While sexuality in vampire fiction was more or less introduced to us in Dracula, it came up many times throughout the semester.  However, as the books got more and more modern, I found that the sexual aspect of the stories became less and less subtle.  I figure that it's just the way the genre is evolving.  That is why I chose to draw the brides at somewhat of a halfway point between Dracula-age vampires and the vampires of today.  While Stoker didn't come out and say that the brides of Dracula acted sexually, it was definitely implied.  In my picture, however, I decided to take it in a more modern direction, where the woman are obviously drawn in a somewhat sexual way.  To me, this is more where vampire fiction is today, which can be seen in things like True Blood and Twilight (although modern vampires do seem to have a certain level of romanticism to them.)

Another thing that I noticed about the sexuality in vampire fiction was that before we discussed it in class, I was totally oblivious to it.  However, once we discussed it and I understood the concept a little better, it started to really effect the way I read into many aspects of the stories that we read.  The way that I drew the brides of dracula are sort of how I imagined them once we discussed what they really represented, and it's relationship to Victorian society.  It was an edgey concept to me, especially considering the time period in which Dracula was written, and I think the edge just grew and grew in my mind until all of the subtlety of the concept was gone.

One thing that I enjoyed about this project was the 1st person perpective of the picture, from John Harker's point of view.  While I'm not an art student or anything, I thought that touches like that would really make the drawing more interesting.  Along the same lines, I really enjoyed the reflection of John in the mirror.  It provided a good oppurtunity to both make the picture a little more interesting, and an oppurtunity to touch a little bit on vampire folklore that was introduced in Dracula.  More specifically, it was an oppurtunity to show that Dracula's brides had no reflection, which was another element from Dracula that has stood the test of time.

One part that I don't like about my project is the shading.  I intended the picture to be in a dark room, with the only light coming in from the open door, but I was just unable to do that and I don't think it really came across very well.  Another thing about the drawing that I would have changed if I could have was the way in which I drew the brides.  One the one hand, I had never really tried to draw women before and I actually think it went alright--but on the other hand, what I was trying to show was a bit of a more subtle view of the sexuality of Dracula.  Granted, I didn't want it as subtle as it was in the actual book--the point of the drawing was to illustrate them in a more modern sense of the word "sexual".  However, I found it difficult to make them kind of seductive without making it super obvious.  I guess I just don't have that kind of artistic touch, or maybe I just didn't give myself enough time to work out all of the kinks in this project.

The process of creating this project was pretty long.  First, I outlined the things laying around the room because I knew that I wanted the picture to be from John's perspective, and I knew that might be tricky.  After I did that, I outlined all of the women without hair or too many facial features.  After that came the adding of details to the people and room, and the addition of some light shading.  Overall, I think it started strong, but after working on it for a long time I started to just run out of ideas on how to improve it.  When you're drawing on an 8x10 piece of drawing paper, it's not too hard to run out of space, either.   

Overall, I think I'm happy with the way the project turned out.  I think that it got across the sexuality that we found in the stories that we read throughout the semester, and I think that it is a decent representation of that scene from Dracula.  But, while I feel like I covered as many bases as I could content-wise, I was a little disappointed by the final product.  I'm a little bit of a perfectionist, and despite the fact that I enjoy the nice simple cartoony look that I gave it, I would have liked to have been able to create more atmosphere in the drawing (because I thought that that part of the book was very atmospheric and scary) through the use of shading and things like that.

Final Post

I actually had a lot of fun in this class this year, although I'd have to say that it isn't at all what I expected it to be.  Overall, the format of the class worked out much better than I had expected it to.  I enjoyed creating my blog, as well as adding to it every week.  While at first it seemed a little less organized than D2L, I think that it was easy to get used to, and was actually a more personal format than D2L usually is.

The content is probably what surprised me the most, though.  What I had known about vampires before this class was a lot less than I had originally thought.  Pretty much all I knew of vampires was what I had learned from TV shows and movies, mostly.  I had no idea that vampiric fiction had such a rich literary background, as well.  I mean, I knew about Dracula, of course, but vampiric literature goes so far beyond Dracula, and it so many different directions.

I think that, looking back on it, my favorite book to read was Bram Stoker's Dracula.  It seemed like the quintessential vampire book, and unlike the books we had read up to that point in the class, it actually had a pretty decent pace for most of the story. 

I expected to like Dracula, though.  A book that we read that I was actually surprised that I enjoyed was I Am Legend.  Maybe it was the fact that it was made into a movie so many times, but I was a little skeptical about it.  On the other hand, a book that I was really expecting to enjoy and kind of didn't was Let the Right One In.  While it was a unique twist on the genre, which I was looking forward to, it was a bit too weird for me to really connect to.

Overall, I really enjoyed this class and I'd be pretty surprised if everyone here didn't agree.  It was laid back, but also really informative.  I was never confused about what to do, and always felt like help was readily available if I needed it.  I really enjoyed reading all of the classes posts throughout the year, and I hoped you've enjoyed reading mine as well!  Bye!

Let The Right One In and the "Uncanny"

For this week's blog post, I decided to look up the suggested term, "uncanny", and try to relate them to Let the Right One In.

The first thing that I noticed about the term "uncanny" was that it doesn't seem to be very well-defined.  Rather than finding a set definition for the word, Google led me to sites with articles explaining the somewhat indefinable nature of the word.   Wikipedia seemed to break it apart in a way that way pretty easy to understand, though, so I mostly stuck to that.

The Wikipedia article defines the term as a "Freudian concept of an instance where something can be familiar, yet foreign at the same time, resulting in a feeling of it being uncomfortably strange."  In all honestly, that's pretty much all I got from the article.  The rest of it spent a lot of time going into the theories of different psychologists and their definitions of the concept.

The first thing that the definition made me think of was Eli.  The definition seemed to almost pinpoint that weird uneasiness that associated with her character.  It seemed to stem from the idea that she was not what she seemed; an innocent young girl on the outside, but something so much more dark and complicated on the inside.

While I at first found it hard to relate the term "uncanny" to Calhoun's article, I suppose that some of the things that he said about the relationship between children and adults could be related to the concept of the "uncanny".  The passage stated that “Parents and other adults are supposed to protect children, and their potential failure to do so can be a potent source of horror: for both children and adults” (27).   I felt as though that uneasy feeling of horror in Let the Right One In could have come from the fact that the role of the protector and protected change; it isn't Eli who needs protection from adults, but they who need protection from her, in a way.

(While I'm not sure if this comparison is legitimate, it was about all I could manage with the limited amount that I could understand regarding the concept of the "uncanny".)

Final Project

(Sorry about the late post.  I've had some computer issues recently and I must have lost track of this)

Anyway, I'm leaning towards doing one of the more creative projects for my final.  I thought that the script idea sounded really interesting.  I'd like to do that, however, I wasn't sure if it meant to do a full script, or maybe just script out a chapter.  If anyone has any information on how long this script should be, or what it should cover, any help would be much appreciated :)  Anyway, if I were to do a script, I would probably choose to script out a chapter selected from either Dracula or I Am Legend.

I was also considering doing an illustration or comic.  If I did an illustration, I think that I would again either choose Dracula or I Am Legend.  I think that both of those novels had thematic elements that could be easily represented in a picture or a comic.  For the illustration, I would probably just try to draw something that references the book's thematic elements and important symbols, and if I did a comic, I think that I would most likey try to do short comics for specific scenes from each book.  I enjoyed the ending of both Dracula and I Am Legend, and I thought that they were very important to the overall purpose of the books, so if I did a comic, I would probably do the end of one of those books.

Anyway, I'm not really deadset on anything yet, and I'd actually like to experiement with a couple different things before I decide on what to pick.  However, if anyone has any feedback or suggestions that might help me decide what to do, or if anyone has any suggestions for interesting scenes to script/comic/draw out, please let me know.  Thanks!

Let the Right One In

Let the Right One In has seems to be a pretty big departure from what we've read so far in this class.  While some of the themes seem to be similar to other stories that we've read, they are dealt with in a much different way.   One example of this was the idea of sexual taboo that was found in some of the other stories that we've read.  While we have seen stories that have dealt with the sexual desire between man and woman, woman and woman, and man and man, Let the Right One In introduces us to the idea of the desire between an aging man and a young child. 

In other stories that we read, such as Dracula, I felt as though the sexual element of the novel was sort of subtle and was usually hinted at rather than directly discussed.  While this was enough to make people uneasy at the time of Dracula's release, it was difficult to understand why (considering how different modern society is from Victorian society).  However, Let the Right One In seemed to maybe "modernize" this concept of taboo, giving it a form that makes even modern audiences extremely uneasy.

This kind of dark uneasiness carries on throughout the novel.  The characters were really interesting in their own way, as well.  While there were many interesting characters and relationships throughout the novel, I found the relationship between Oskar and Eli to be the most interesting.  It seems as though they are drawn to eachother because they are both outcasts, and neither of them are what they initially seem to be.  Not only is Eli not just your average friendly neighborhood girl, she isn't a girl at all, and she's also a vampire.  Oskar, on the other hand, is a small boy who gets bullied a lot, but beneath the surface is a dark and violent side that he usually keeps to himself.  It was interesting to see the way that they depended on each other.

Overall, I enjoyed the story.  It was a lot weirder than some of the stories that we've read, which was very hard to get used to at first, but it ended up making the story something really unique and unlike anything I've read before.

Interview with the Vampire, Pt. 2: "Postmodernism"

For my blog this week I chose to work on option #5.  When I typed the word "postmodernism" into google, the first site listed was the "postmodernism" article on Wikipedia (which wasn't much of a surprise).   After reading the Wikipedia article for a short time, I started to see why the term might characterize the work of Anne Rice.  The article started off with a basic definition of the word itself.  "Postmodernism is a tendency in contemporary culture characterized by the rejection of objective truth and global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. It emphasizes the role of language, power relations, and motivations;". 

While I didn't completely understand the definition itself (I'm pretty sure I have no idea what the terms "global cultural narrative" or "meta-narrative" mean), it was what followed that passage that caught my attention.  The article goes on to say that "in particular [postmodernism] attacks the use of sharp classifications such as male versus female, straight versus gay, white versus black, and imperial versus colonial."  That part of the article immediately made me think about Louis, and what he represents in the context of the vampire genre. 

In earlier works of vampire literature, the relationship between humans and vampires--and, maybe more importantly, the relationship between the reader and vampires--was presented as a representation of good vs. evil.  It was a very "black and white" relationship, with few, if any, shades of grey.  Humans good, vampires bad.  However, Louis showed us a vampire who was conflicted; his compassion for humankind made his identity as a vampire and his thirst for blood something that actually haunted him for many lifetimes. He forced us to throw the black and white "humans good, vampires bad" mentality out the window, which seems to be the main idea behind postmodernism.

I also found the "straight vs. gay" aspect of the Wikipedia definition to be very relatable to Interview with the Vampire.  In the same way that Louis blurred the line between good and evil, the relationship with Louis and Lestat blurred the lines between straight and gay in some ways.  As we have read, culural anxieties involving sexuality have been represented many times in vampire literature through the relationship between the vampire and its prey.  However, before Interview with the Vampire, this relationship was usually between a male and a female (or sometimes female and female).  Interview with a Vampire was the first book we read where the predator/prey relationship was represented by two male characters.  While the book never directly mentions homosexuality, the relationship between Lestat and Louis blurs the line between predator and prey, as well as straight and gay.

This is the first time I've read much on postmodernism, but I think that it's clear to see why it could be connected to Anne Rice's works.  It seems like the main idea behind it is the throwing out of preconceived notions of absolute relationships such as black and white, and good and evil, and that seems to be exactly what Interview with the Vampire did in the context of the vampire genre.  That "blurring of lines" seems also to have carried over into modern day vampire fiction, and seems to have been used a lot in recent television shows, books, and movies.

Interview with the Vampire, Pt. 1

Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire is very different from what we have read so far in this class.  The main thing that sets it apart is the fact that it gives us an entirely new perspective on the life of vampires, and what it is like to be one.  Up until this point in the semester, the books we have read portrayed vampires as "monsters".  This is probably due to the fact that we have only read about vampires from the perspective of those around them, rather than that of the vampires themselves.   Interview with the Vampire, on the other hand, gives us the tale of a 200-year-old vampire's story told first-hand.

While the main character, Louis, does some  pretty bad things, it is easier to forgive him because we can see the way his mind works.  For example, it is very easy to sympathize with Louis early on in the story because of the loss that he went through with his dead brother.  This is what led him to long for death, and it makes his decision to (more or less) "accept" becoming a vampire more understandable.

It is also clear to see that Louis is conflicted about his destiny as a vampire.  While he accepted it at first, it becomes apparent that Louis feels too much compassion towards people to let himself fully become a vampire in the "monstrous" sense.  He says multiple times that he is unhappy with his life, and often mentions that he feels as though he has been/will be/should be condemned to hell.  He is unable to take human life, and often has to resort to killing animals in order to quench his thirst for blood.

Another aspect of the story that makes Louis seems more human is his "friend" Lestat.  Lestat, unlike Louis, has fully accepted his roll as a vampire who preys upon humans.  Louis, on the other hand, is often disgusted by Lestat's lack of any kind of compassion for human life.  Lestat's constant persistence towards getting Louis to accept his role as a killer also shows the difference between the two characters.

Overall, I am finding the "human" aspect of Interview with the Vampire to be very interesting.  It's an interesting change of pace to read a story where both the hero and villain are vampires, and I'm excited to see where it will lead, and to see how Louis deals with his inner conflicts.

Literary Criticism

Ryne Tremmel
November 5, 2010
Literary Criticism Essay

Echoes of Dracula

    In Dr. Kathy Davis Patterson's essay, 'Echoes of Dracula: Racial Politics and the Failure of Segregated Speace in Richard Matheson's I Am Legend', she discusses the idea that vampires have been used to represent racial politics in politics for quite some time, and introduces the idea by noting that 1954 was both the year of the Supreme Court's ruling on the Brown vs. Board of Education case, as well as the year in which Richard Matheson's I Am Legend was first published.  "Coincidence?", she writes.  It would seems as though Patterson doesn't think so.   She writes that "The link between literary vampires and racialized constructions of monstrostrosity is nothing new" (Patterson, 19), and uses the rest of her essay to reinforce this idea.
    The first example that she references is Bram Stoker's Dracula.  According to Patterson, "Numerous studies of [Dracula] have explored the characterization of Bram Stoker's infamous Count as an allegorical representation of late nineteenth-centure British anxieties regarding the influx of large numbers of Eastern European Jewish immigrants on English soil." (Patterson, 19)  She goes on to discuss the way in which gothic fiction is connected to xenophobia.  While Dracula was a representation of cultural anxieties in England at the time, Patterson suggests that I Am Legend is, in the same way, a commentary on cultural anxieties of white America during the Civil Rights Movement.  Patterson writes that "white Americans relied on their constructions of blackness, literary and otherwise, as  keys to defining their own white identies." (Patterson, 20)
    The essay then goes on to discuss the ways in which the plot of I Am Legend reflects these concepts through the treatment of the its vampiric characters.  It is first noted that the main character Neville's race is made known very early on in the novel.  He is described as being tall and white (English-German, to be more specific).  However, Patterson then goes on how to discuss that even though the vampire creatures have no obvious racial attributes, they are associated with 'blackness' time and time again.  Through multiple quotes from the novel, she illustrates that I Am Legend often associates blackness with that which is unholy or evil.
    Patterson discusses the nature of Neville's attraction to the female vampires, as well, and relates it back to the concept of whiteness and blackness in American society at the time.  She writes how, like John Harker of Bram Stoker's Dracula, Neville is somewhat helplessly attracted to the female vampires.  She writes that "the intense desire that he feels for the vampire women, when considered in terms of his whiteness and their "blackness," carries echoes of the very real sexual exploitation of black femal bodies by white men during the era of slavery and beyond." (Patterson, 21)
    Later, Neville's perspective on blood in I Am Legend is discussed as a representation of racial purity.  "In Neville's worldview, hybrid blood equals contaminated blood.  His obsessiev studies of blood and his efforts to identify, prevent, and possibly cure blood contamination reflect a desperate desire to restore homgeneity and, with, a social order that he recongnizes." (Patterson, 23)  Throughout the novel, this contamination of his "pure blood" is the ultimate 'worst case scenario', and it is something that he is constantly trying to avoid.  This is related in the essay to people during the Civil Rights movement (and other social movements), who are resistant to change because they find familiarity and order in their own culture.
    Overall, I think that Patterson intended this essay to be something that makes us look deeper into the nature of gothic horror and what makes it so scary.  While there are many theories regarding this, I think that this racial segregation concept is very interesting.  While I find myself still somewhat doubting some of the connections made in the essay, it is hard to deny that vampiric writing is at least somewhat of a product of social anxieties and situations that have been an important parts of society in the past.

Works Cited

Davis Patterson, Kathy. Echoes of Dracula: Racial Politics and the Failure of Segregated Spaces in Richard Matheson's I Am Legend. Print.

"I am legend."

I think that the last line in I Am Legend did a really good job of summing up many of the themes that we’ve been discussing in this class.  When he said “I am Legend”, it shows us that Neville finally understood what was going on, although it took him the entire book to figure it out.  Basically, the world was changing.  Since the introduction of the virus, everything changed which becomes apparent right away (and is to be expected in this kind of post-apocalyptic story).

At first, the major change seems to be that Neville is now all alone in the world.  He is the last surviving, uninfected human.  I feel like the point of these kinds of stories is to pose the question, “What would it be like if the world you knew was suddenly turned upside down?”  It seems to be a ‘worst case scenario’.  Most of us would have no idea how to deal with such a situation in the first place, and, speaking personally, I’m fairly certain that I wouldn’t have the know-how to survive for more than 10 minutes in a similar situation.  I think that this element is what introducing the first feeling of the unknown, which in turn gives us our first feeling of fear in the novel, and is carried on by the way the Neville has to push himself everyday, just to survive.  It’s a pretty scary situation.

Things really start to get interesting as the story drew closer and closer to its conclusion.  Before Neville delivers his last lines, he meets a woman who changes everything for him.  After having her locked up for a while, and then setting her free, Neville is knocked out by a woman who he suspected of being infected.  When he wakes up, he finds a note from the girl, Ruth, which explains everything to him.  He finds out the infected had already begun to rebuild society, and that they have actually come to fear Neville because of how many infected he had killed.

This twist in the book really drove home a lot of the underlying themes of this book.  The entire book, Neville has the mindset that he is the last living human being.  But then he finds out that he is actually just the last human of his kind, but that the rest of the world has already started to move on without him.  This could be reflective of race relations in America at the time, and how people were dealing with it.  The world was changing a lot during that time period, and, for better or worse, some people just weren’t ready for it, and many people resisted it.

This is how Neville fit into the new society.  He spends the entire book thinking about how threatening the vampiric creatures are to him, but he never considered that he was actually affecting the development of what would probably eventually become the new world.  At the end of the book, Ruth comes back to Neville and all of this becomes clear to him.  She says that his execution will be necessary, and she brings him 2 pills to “make it easier”.  As he takes them, he says those last lines to himself. “I am legend.”  He realized that there is no longer a place for him in the world.  He seemingly sees the irony in his situation as he chuckles to himself before he dies; while he spent the entire book thinking that he was surround by monsters, he now realizes that, in the new society, he himself with be built up as a monster himself.

Dracula, Part 2

The concept that vampires could be considered more “alive” than the living was very interesting to me.  While they are sometimes seemingly ghostly figures, vampires have certain characteristics that suggest that they live a life beyond what a human life is capable of being.

Physically, they always seem to be nearly invulnerable.  Whether it be holy water, a spike through the heart, or cutting of the head, in most cases some kind of special criteria is required to kill a vampire that goes far beyond what is required to kill an average person.  This suggests a certain vitality that goes far beyond human life.  Another example of this vitality is shown in their ability to live for an extremely long time.  Not only does this provide the vampires with more life in terms of years, but it would also most likely give them a wealth of experience and wisdom, which only adds to their cunning and manipulative nature.

I think that sexuality is another way in which vampires show more “life” than humans.  I thought that this was illustrated well by Lucy’s transformation into a vampire.  Her illness caused by Dracula’s attack made her very sickly looking.  However, when she seemed to pass on, all of her beauty returned.  It is even stated that Holmwood finds himself surprisingly attracted to her when he first sees her.  Then, to add to her sexuality, she begs him for a kiss.  While her beauty and sexuality is represented as a result of Dracula’s evil, it doesn’t change the fact the it makes Lucy more vigorous and uninhibited, which some may these days call “being alive”.

Now that I’m done talking about the question of the week, though, I’d like to briefly move on to what I thought of the book.  This has definitely been the most exciting book we’ve read so far this semester.  I was constantly surprised by how often it kept “on the edge of my seat”, if you will.  While Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights was an interesting character, I never really felt as though I was grasping the full weight of his character.  Dracula, on the other hand, seemed much more in line with what I was expecting from this class.  He was a true figure of terror, which is something that I wasn’t really expecting.  Given the books age, I thought it would be more atmospherically scary than anything else, sort of like Wuthering Heights, but I’m glad that I was wrong.  Especially the ending! Wow!  That was much more intense than I was expecting (and probably my favorite part of the entire book).

Online Artifact Essay

Well, I kind of forgot that my artifact was due this week, so I ended up writing a blog post as well.  Oh well!  Guess I'll have to pay more attention from now on.

Anyway, Enjoy!

Vlad Tepes vs. Count Dracula:

Man vs, Myth

For my online artifact essay, I chose to look into the origins of the now infamous Count Dracula as he was initially portrayed in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.  Like some of the other characters we have discussed this semester, it seems as though the character of Count Dracula was actually based on a real person—a Wallachian ruler by the name of Vlad Tepes (which apparently translates to “Vlad the Impaler”).  I say “seems”, because, from what I have read, this connection is mostly alleged or assumed, despite the fact that there is little evidence to support the claim.  According to Elizabeth Miller’s online article, “Dracula: The History of Myth and the Myth of History”, it is stated that “. . . there has been much speculation about the exact nature of the connection between Vlad and the Count Dracula of Bram Stoker's classic novel”.  I hope to use Miller’s article to discuss the similarities and differences between Vlad and the Count in order to distinguish between the man and the myth.

The easiest place to start would probably be at the name of Dracula itself.  According to Miller’s article, “The name "Dracula" has links with the Romanian word "drac" (derived from the Latin "draco") which can mean both "dragon" and "devil".  Most Romanians still refer to Vlad as ‘Vlad Tepes’ rather than ‘Vlad Dracul”, however, there are multiple documents signed by Vlad himself that use the term “Dracula”, or variations of it.  While the name was actually first bestowed upon Vlad’s father, Vlad Dracul, by something called “The Order of the Dragon” in the 1430’s, the name seems to have stuck with the ruler (mostly in the west) as a testament to his “blood steeped” military career.  When considering all of that, “Dracula” seems to be a very intimidating word that suggests both violence as well as the unknown.  While the idea that Bram Stoker started building the character of Count Dracula based solely on a name seems unlikely, the nature of the word nonetheless seems to serve as a good foundation for understand the character of the Count.

Vlad the Impaler’s military history is another possible reason why Bram Stoker chose to base Count Dracula on him (if he did intentionally choose Vlad at all).  In Romania, Vlad Tepes is mostly known as a national hero of sorts.  At least that seems to be the way in which Romania would like him to be portrayed, although there is certainly a good amount of debate, which seems to have stemmed from the nature of Vlad’s military history.  According to Miller’s article, renowned historian Ion Bogdan’s treatise Vlad Tepes (1896) presented Vlad as “a bloodthirsty tyrant whose cruelty could only be accounted for in terms of mental aberration, a sick man who killed and tortured out of sadistic pleasure”.  This duality is another feature that can be associated with both Vlad and the fictional Count.  In Dracula, it seemed as though the Count was always very concerned with keeping up the appearance that he is nothing more than a kindly host.  However, we come to know better as the story goes on and we find out about the Count’s secret darkness.  To me, this revelation closely resembles the way in which recorded history itself works. (A good example of this would be the comparison between the way the Christopher Columbus used to be viewed and the way the he is viewed today).

The character of the Count was first shaped by the history of Vlad, but in more recent years, it would seem as though the fiction of Bram Stoker’s Dracula has begun to shape what people think about the real figure of Vlad Tepes.  The fictional Count Dracula was actually virtually unknown in Romania until the fall of communism, however, in the few decades since then, Romanian tourism has greatly benefitted from the myth.  Consequently, though, as is stated in Miller’s article, “This has created an interesting dilemma for Romanians: how to accommodate this demand while at the same time keeping clear the distinction between the fictional vampire and their own national hero”.  According to Miller, this has cost the Romanian people a lot in the area of maintaining their own history.  She states that “A far more serious problem [than tourists getting fact and fiction confused with each other], in my opinion, is a tendency on the part of some enterprising Romanians to cash in on the confusion, at the expense of their own history and culture.”  She states that at various locations on different “Dracula tours” in Romania, she found things that further the confusion between the real Vlad Tepes and count Dracula.   In her travels, she encountered things like “a T-shirt depicting Vlad Tepes with fangs extended, leaning over a bare-breasted and willing female victim”.  She even stated that in the courtyard of Vlad’s birthhouse, there is “a life-sized model of Vlad where tourists were invited to have their "bloody photo taken"”.  While this is mostly a testament to the overwhelming power of commercialism, I think it also attests to the power of Stoker’s Count.

Vlad Tepes certainly did have some similarities to the character of Dracula.  It is easy to see why Stoker chose to model his horror icon after a man like Vlad.  Both Vlad and the Count have a certain ambiguity and mystery to them which I think is essential to any form of art that is supposed to instill fear in its audience.  It is just human nature to fear the unknown.  Also, while the Count’s continued prevalence in our culture is definitely a testament to Stoker’s success in creating a truly horrific figure, it is somewhat of a shame to see the way in which it has effect Romanian culture and history.

Sources Cited

Miller, E. (2005). Dracula, myth and history. Retrieved from http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~emiller/myth.html

Dracula, Part 1

Bram Stoker’s Dracula seems to touch a lot on the themes that we’ve talked about so far in this class.  Whereas Wuthering Heights had some Gothic elements that were pretty spooky at time, I think that Dracula has more obvious gothic themes, which in turn keeps the book pretty scary.  The wolves, the creepy old castle, the count himself—it seems as though these are all things that stuck with us through years.  I mean, look at Halloween.

I also had no idea how much sexual repression played into the development of vampirism.  Seeing female vampires licking their lips in vampire movies used to just give me the impression that Hollywood added that aspect to vampirism and vampire movies with the whole ‘sex sells’ thing in mind.  It’s very interesting to see that the sexuality in vampirism actually comes from a much more interesting social situation.

Considering the way that sexuality was perceived in Victiorian culture, I would imagine that the ‘brides of Dracula’ were downright terrifying when this book was first published.  The way that Jonathan was simultaneous repelled and drawn in by them was a good example of the power that people thought that sexuality had over people’s minds.  Also, I think they provide a strong counterpoint to the much purer female protagonists of the story.  Seeing what ‘good’ Victorian women were supposed to be like made the ‘bad’ vampire women that much scarier.

Overall, I am enjoying this movie for multiple reasons.  It’s pacing is a bit quicker than some of the other readings we’ve done, which is nice.  Also, it’s pretty spooky, which is also nice (especially with Halloween right around the corner).  Most importantly, though, I think that Dracula is really helping to drive home some of the themes and ideas that we’ve been talking about.  I think that Carmilla made it easier to understand the themes of sexual repression in Victorian culture, and it’s similarities to Wuthering Heights is helping me to understand many of the themes associated with gothic literature.

Victorian culture and vampirism

Tamar Heller’s essay “The Vampire in the House” was quite interesting.  At first, I wasn’t sure what to expect.  I suppose I was just expecting a bunch of weird, ill-defined connections between vampirism and female hysteria in Victorian culture.  Sometimes these essays that make connections between fiction and reality are kind of a stretch (for example, for a film class we discussed an essay linking the Western movie “High Noon” to the McCarthy era or communism or something).  However, while some of it was a bit hard for me to follow, I was pleasantly surprised.  This essay contained a lot of insight into Victorian culture and how it relates to “Carmilla” and vampirism in general.

To be honest, thought, I found it hard at times to follow all of the concepts presented in the essay.  Whether it was due to the essay’s language or its abstract concepts, I’m afraid I was only able to get away with a few main points and notes.  To me, the thing that was most interesting to read about was how little people knew about medicine and the human body in those days.  It seemed as though female repression in Victorian culture lead to many misconceptions about women and sexuality.

“Since Victorian culture associated menstruation with the incursion of unruly desires, we can read Carmilla’s advent in the story—the entry of the woman who drains blood—as symbolizing the menarche of the adolescent narrator.” (82)

“First associated solely with boys, but then, from the 1860s onward, increasingly linked with girls, masturbation was the target of a vehement and weel-organized nineteenth-century medical campaign arguing that autoeroticism caused hysteria in girls and was encouraged by such practices as eating red meat.” (83)

Passages like those were very interesting.  It would be very hard to make a connection like that today, but when looking at the writing in the context of the time period in which it was written, this kind of stuff starts to make sense.  These concepts now just seem completely ridiculous.  Associating menstruation with “the incursion of unruly desires”?  Autoeroticism “encouraged by such practices as eating red meat”?  These things are obviously very dated ways of thinking, but it is easy to tell that their purpose was to scare women into acting a certain way rather than to actually inform.

So, while most of the connections presented in “The Vampire in the House” seemed to be mostly based on misinformation of the Victorian era, they certainly provided a lot of insight on when the book was written, and the mindset of people in society at that time.  While I didn’t fully understand all of the information presented, I think I got enough of it to be able to better understand the underlying themes that were present in “Carmilla”.

"Wuthering Heights" and it's place among vampire stories

Of all of the questions for our blogs this week, I thought that Question #4 would be interesting to discuss.  Should Wuthering Heights be read in a class about vampires?  I don’t think there is really any straight forward “yes or no” answer.  In some ways, it feels right at home among vampire stories.  It definitely has the gothic qualities that Krishnan references in the following passage from “Why am I so changed?”: Vampiric Selves and Gothic Doubleness in Wuthering Heights:

“. . . the Gothic persistently emphasized the presence of darkness and despair, of ambiguity and uncertainty amidst seemingly definite surroundings.”

Also, if the ‘Byronic hero’ turns out to be a big figure throughout the semester, then that would be another thing that Wuthering Heights has in common with vampire novels.  Heathcliff definitely seems to fit the description of a Byronic hero, however, I’m not sure if that quality is enough to link him to vampire stories.  After all, we have only read one vampire story with a Byronic hero at this point, so it’s hard to tell how prevalent it will be in the genre as a whole.

Beyond that, however, I can’t say that I completely understand the link between Wuthering Heights and vampire novels.  I mean, I see how they are similar, but if the question is ‘do I think it fits in with a class full of vampire novels’, I think my answer would probably have to be ‘no’.  But, to be fair, I don’t consider that to be an informed decision.  I think that it may be a little too early in the semester for me to be able to really appreciate the link between Wuthering Heights and the rest of the material that we’ll be studying (maybe just due to the fact that, at this point, our class has spent more time on stories with no vampires at all than on actual vampire stories).

All things considered, I think that Wuthering Heights is probably a good example of the dark and mysterious tone that early vampire novels had.  However, I would say that the more that vampire stories change, the less Wuthering Heights becomes relevant to the genre as a whole.  It would seem that the genre has undergone many changes over the years—from gothic, to straight-up horror, and now even more towards the realm of romance.  I remember reading another student’s blog that reminded me of this point where the student says that even though Wuthering Heights is referenced in comparison to Twilight, they are actually quite different.

I suppose I’d probably give the book a 7 out of 10.  Not because I didn’t think that it was well-written—the characters were interesting and deep, and the narrative was very emotionally powerful at times, but in the end, the difficult wording and excessively negative subject matter just weren’t my cup of tea.

Wuthering Heights, Part 1

While it got off to a pretty slow and confusing start, Wuthering Heights is turning out to be a really interesting read.  The thing that I am finding most interesting is the complexity of all of the characters’ relationships with each other.  The story doesn’t really have very clear cut representations of good and evil, or right and wrong, as far as the characters go.  While some of certainly more cruel than others, it seems like even the characters who started out innocent are somewhat corrupted by the cruelty of life.

Of all of the relationships in the story, the one that seemed to be the deepest and most complex was the relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff.  There love is so powerful that it almost seems destructive.  It seemed as though the stronger there love was, the further they were driven apart, and the more pain it caused everyone involved.  Even when Catherine tries to approach her love for Heathcliff in what she thought to be a rational way, by marrying Edgar and using his fortune to help Heathcliff, she broke both of their hearts and, in some ways, caused the self-destruction of multiple people (including herself).

Heathcliff alone was a very interesting character, too.  The way he had spent his entire life being built up, only to be knocked down over and over again, has shaped him and hardened him into a man with no heart.  While he did feel deep love for Catherine, it seems that the only way he was able to channel it was through deep resentment and hatred that served only to damage their relationship in the end.

Heathcliff also interests me as a character because of how intimidating he is.  At some points in the story, he seems almost demonic.  His apparently above-average size, along with his often malicious motives, made him seem like a man with a beast lurking inside of him.  One of his most frightening qualities is how motivated he is by the idea of revenge.  He has been built up and knocked down many times in his life, and it seemed as though time slowly took away all of the things that he had to live for.  Eventually, everything in his life—from money to relationships with people—became tools for his revenge.

Overall, I am really enjoying the book, although the tone is a bit heavy at times.  It can be hard to push through such tragic and dark stories, but the fact that it is so well-written and developed makes it much easier. 

On a separate note, I really don’t see all of this ending well.  I mean, it definitely seems as though Heathcliff’s plot for revenge has done nothing to remedy his problems.  He still seems to be quite unhappy in the ‘present’ part of the book with Lockwood.  Also, it would also seem like it would be wise for Mr. Lockwood to steer clear of Wuthering Heights, but I’m not sure if that will happen.  Hopefully it won’t be a ‘curiosity killed the cat’ type situation, but who knows.  I’m still trying to get a feel for the book’s tone and overall message.

THE VAMPYRE actually seemed like a pretty classy guy...

I had a bit of a hard time getting into our reading for this week.  The Vampyre starts off very slowly, and I was a little bit confused about the writings the other writings that preceded the actual story.  When I read things that are as old as The Vampyre, I never really feel as though I know what is going on.  I mean, I do, but in a more general sense than when I read more modern literature.
  
While the writing style is very elegant and pleasant to read, some of the language of the story left me feeling only a brief understanding of what was happening in the story.  This was probably the worst at the beginning of the story, when the story is being set-up by the author with some background information about the current mythology of vampires, but it got better as the story progressed.

Once I got past the overall tone of The Vampyre, I really ended up enjoying it.  It definitely seemed more subtle than the vampire stories that I am familiar with, but I’ll have to admit that the occasional talk of stakes through hearts and decapitation definitely made me feel more at home.  While I do appreciate all of the intricacies of vampire lore, I enjoy blood and guts just as much, so naturally I really enjoyed passages like the following:

“To prevent further mischief, the inhabitants having consulted their Hadagni, took up the body, and found it (as is supposed to be usual in cases of vampirism) fresh, and entirely free from corruption, and emitting at the mouth, nose, and ears, pure and florid blood.  Proof having been thus obtained, they resorted to the accustomed remedy.  A stake was driven entirely through the heart and body of Arnold Paul, at which he is reported to have cried out as dreadfully as if he had been alive.  This done, they cut off his head, burned his body, and threw the ashes into his grave.” Polidori

This passage reminded me of how sometimes before horror movies, they will put in some fake news casts about the horrific events that happen in the movie, in order to make is feel more real.  The matter-of-fact way that the passage was written in makes it sound like a newspaper clipping, and therefore makes the story sound that much more believable.  I would imagine that things like that were much scarier in the 1800’s, as well, because I would imagine it would be much harder to check the validity of such claims in those days.  That’s probably why it’s so much harder to scare people these days—they just know too much.

 I also enjoyed how all of the death and blood was somewhat spread out throughout the story.  I always find the best horror stories and movies to be the ones that take enough time to make us care a little bit about their characters before they kill them off.  It just adds even more to the believability of the story overall.

To wrap things up, I would also like to say one more thing.  I really enjoyed the way that the vampire in The Vampyre was so well-liked.  Now that the genre has been changed so much, I feel like it is more common to see vampires presented more like monsters (see: 30 Days of Night).  It was very interesting to see a vampire depicted as a sharp-tongued gentlemen who people are mysteriously drawn to.  I think that is much scarier than presenting them as monsters, because, once again, it’s just a lot more believable.

Overall, this story has really opened my eyes to how much vampires have changed over the years.  I’m very excited to see the transition and to be able to understand it more, and I think that reading stories like this—the trailblazers in vampire fiction—will really help.

Alright, this is my first blog ever. I hope I'm doing this right...

Hey everyone--

My name is Ryne and this is my 3rd year at UWM.  I decided to take this class because I have always wanted to know more about vampires.  They are all over the place in movies and books and TV, but they are always different.  I've seen a few vampire movies (the Blade series, From Dusk Till Dawn, Dracula, Underworld, etc.), and it seemed as though each movie depicted radically different forms of 'vampires'.  What I am interested in is seeing the roots of vampire 'mythology', as well the way it has progressed and changed into what it is today.

While I don't really limit myself to any specific genre when it comes to reading, I often find myself drawn to the fantasy/sci-fi side of things.  I really enjoy books that feel really long and epic, as well as books that take the reader to a whole new world. I don't necessarily mean that literally, but I enjoy being immersed in unfamiliar and exciting locations and stories.

This isn't the first online course I've taken, and I have grown to really enjoy the format.  It's a good way to communicate thoughts and ideas in an organized way.  Discussing books in an online forum can actually be pretty fun, and its really helps you get the most out of what you are reading.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

One place I'd love to visit is Japan.  The culture just seems very interesting to me.

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I don't frequent too many websites, but I'd say that I go to GameSpot's website the most.  Either that or IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes.  I enjoy movies and games a lot, and those websites are pretty much all you need to keep up with everything.
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I always thought that this video was pretty cool.  I really enjoy the blues and bluegrass music, which has a lot of harmonica, but I've never seen anyone play harmonica like that.  It's pretty awesome.

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I don't really think I have a favorite vampire character.  I just don't know of enough vampires to makes that decision.  But here are a couple honorable mentions:

(I'm hoping I'll be able to make a more informed list by the end of this semester)
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Anywhoo... To wrap things up, I'm looking forward to reading everyone's blogs this semester, and I hope you enjoy mine!