At first my world seems alien and different to you. My life and my experiences make you wonder what may be, what might have been. Does my world challenge you? Provoke you? Is it all that different from yours? Could yours end up like this? There are possibilities in my world - does your world offer as many possibilities.
Evaluate the extent to which these thoughts express the conventions, ideas and values of gothic.
The gothic is a unique synthesis of horror and romance - the many elements of the gothic combine together to invoke a gratifying terror in the mind of the reader. Gothic literature explores the aggression between what we fear and what we lust. Every gothic character diverges from the quantifiable norm of todays society. They are, in the vernacular, alien. Gothic fiction threatens boundaries and has always been used for coded articulations of desire and sexuality, as a way of writing about sex but without writing about sex. The vampire being the most prominent gothic figure features in countless gothic texts, two of which are Dracula the novel by Bram Stoker and the novel/ screenplay Interview with the Vampire.
The vampire has been a mysterious and enticing figure since its entrance into popular culture, usually regarded as the tale Dracula written in 1897. Stoker, and later Anne Rice, as well as many other writers and directors have capitalized on the fascination humanity has with these dark creatures of the night. Whether they are in books or on the silver screen vampires capture our imagination, tantalizing us with a taste of the darker side of life. But if vampires are so dark and so different than we are, is that what makes them so fascinating? Is it because they symbolize the forbidden? Is it because they resemble humans, but act nothing like them? Or is it because we all have a fascination with things that we don't understand?
In Dracula the vampire is seen as a foreigner: someone much removed from society who makes no attempt to fit in. His accent, dress, home and manner suggest that he is in no way human, and he is very much a cold, evil character that could not be seen in any other way. We cannot identify with him, nor are we supposed to even want to. These characteristic depictions are the obsolete codes which show humans as heroes, the vampire as enemy; humans as comrades, the vampire as recluse; virtue as a human trait, evil as inhuman; humans as Christian, vampires as Satanic. However, some do credit Stoker with the introduction of the new vampire.
Prior to the 1931 film Dracula the stereotypical vampire was presented as an ancient, decaying, walking corpse with distorted features, razor-sharp fangs, and extended fingers. After Bela Lugosi's performance in the 1931 film version, the vampire became middle aged, extremely pale, and of some aristocratic descent, usually with a horrible accent; Ay vant to sack yor blud!. This vampire lived in a derelict castle, or dark dank quarters, sleeping in a coffin amidst cobwebs and spiders. He lived a solitary existence, and was not given any sort of redeeming qualities that would make the reader or viewer sympathize with him.
The introduction of Anne Rice's novel Interview with the Vampire, however, changed all of that. By changing the mythology of the vampire she has modernized the nature of the vampires; no longer simple or single-minded personifications of evil, her blood-drinkers are fully realized characters who sensibly confront the problems of their lives. Vampires suddenly seem much more human, much more realistic, and much more accessible.
There are several distinctions between the traditional vampire and the modern vampire. Most new vampires are aristocratic, blood-thirsty and nocturnal, just like their predecessors, that is basically where the similarities end. Rice's vampires do not transform into other creatures. They do not prey solely on virginal women in the night. Her male vampires are as fashionable as the earlier vampires, but are also young, handsome, and passionate, living in luxury and for the most part delighting in their vampiric nature and immortality. Probably the most profound and important change however was that Rice told the story from the vampire's point of view, making her vampires not only sympathetic but also glamorous and exciting. In another departure from traditional middle-aged male vampire, Rice created Claudia, a child vampire both beautiful and intensely horrible at the same time. And much unlike the mob chasing down Count Dracula, Rice's vampires are not vanquished by normal humans; her vampires thrive in their own nocturnal world, facing little threat from the mere mortals who appeared in her novel as secondary characters and mostly a convenient meal.
Along with this change in the vampire itself comes a change in the narrative. Instead of the vampire being merely a creature within the story, the no-question-about-it outside antagonist who must be defeated, the vampire is now the centre of the story. Anne Rice's vampires become our narrators; but more than that, they become the protagonists. They are no longer set completely apart from humankind. They talk like humans, dress like humans, look like humans (at least in the dark of night anyway) and act like humans. In fact, Louis and Lestat in particular go to great lengths to achieve the appearance of normal human beings while they are living at Louis' house. And great pretence was necessary....Lestat and I sat down to dinner each night with the old man and made nice noises with our knives and forks, while he told us to eat everything on our plates and not to drink our wine too fast. The fact that Rice's vampires are so much like us makes it easier for us to sympathize with their plights, Louis in particular. Unlike Lestat, who enjoys the taking of human life, Louis does not relish the kill. Yes, the blood is necessary, and he does try to avoid it by killing rats and other animals for a while. But the blood is a necessity, and he struggles with coming to terms with his blood lust. He doesn't want to kill humans and enjoy it. He knows he needs the blood, but doesn't feel that its right, because he is still clinging to his humanity. he is a troubled vampire, depressed by evil in himself, disturbed by his need to murder innocents but unable to act otherwise. He constantly struggles with his new-found immortality, searching out others of his own kind to enlighten him about their existence. He doesn't even know what he is. He desires to find his identity in his new life, his new un-death. He is confused and lost and constantly questioning his purpose. This is an incredibly human trait. We all struggle with our purpose in life, which begs the question What does it all mean? The fact that Louis is immortal, and yet still struggles with the same things that we do is incredible.
We want him to find answers, to find meaning in his life. We are rooting for him, as one of our own. Sure, he drinks blood, but he doesn't want to. Contrary to this humanity is Count Dracula. We are not given any sort of detail about his life as a vampire, other than what we learn from Jonathan Harker who is his prisoner for a short time. Not everyone is of the same mind however. The counts appearance resembles a bat more than a human being in this scene, Stoker's character even smells of his unsavoury habits. However, despite the gruesome physical description, Dracula was a turning point for the literary vampire, for Stoker's central character is often more attractive than he is here. Indeed Stoker sometimes reveals him as no more cruel than his human opponents. Following Stoker's lead, twentieth-century writers and directors often portray the vampire as a more sympathetic character than he had been in either folklore or literature. That could be a valid point if not for the fact that we learn nothing about his thoughts, desires, or feelings, other than his lust for victims and servants. And what's more, we come to find that we don't want to learn about them. He is presented as no more than a blood-thirsty villain, stopping at nothing to get what he wants, killing anyone that gets in his way. He has no motives other than evil; he does not wish to search for meaning in his life or answer questions about his immortal existence. He does not have any other desire than blood: Your girls that you all love are mine already; and through them you and others shall yet be minemy creatures to do my bidding and to be my jackals when I want to feed He is foreign, mysterious, dark, and evil, the furthest from human that one can get. This creates a sort of loathing in the reader, and we desire nothing so much as to see the good guys win in the end.
There is also a distinct change in the mythology starting with Anne Rice. In the sake of modernizing, she has revamped the vampire legend. Traditionally vampires feared sunlight, any objects of religious significance, such as holy water, the consecrated Host, and the crucifix, as well as garlic, and could be killed by stakes through the heart. Rice's vampires, on the other hand share none of these weaknesses, save sunlight. In fact, Louis professes that he is actually quite fond of looking at crucifixes.
They are more invincible than Count Dracula, yet much more human. They survive by drinking the blood of humans, but generally have no hatred or desire to kill humans for anything other than food. In fact, the antagonists in Rice's novels are mostly other vampires, or sometimes other supernatural forces, not humans at all; she focuses not on vampires confronting mortals but vampire against vampire.
It is because of these changes that society has come to, in a way, embrace the vampire. These new vampires have given us a new insight into our own desires and questions about our own existence; they have become pseudo-humans almost one of us minus the blood lust, fangs and eternal life. Could we handle the passing of centuries as well as a character like Lestat does becoming a rock star, turning other people into vampires, enjoying the excesses and luxuries of the world as only a vampire can? Would we spend the centuries as Louis, bitterly lamenting our damnation to a life of skulking in the shadows, trying to reconcile our evil nature with our humanity? Or would we take the route that Armand tells of unable to cope with the idea of immortality, at first so seductive and alluring but soon becoming boring or overwhelming committing suicide by going out into murderous daylight? These are questions that we may never know the answer to. But that makes them all the more intriguing; there will always be room for the vampires and their stories.
In the end Dracula and the writings of Anne Rice serve as manifestations of our own dark desires and thoughts. The Vampire is a classic gothic figure, in one form or another it has existed before there was gothic or sublime genre. As Nina Auerbach stated in her book Our Vampires, Ourselves Each Generation gets the vampire it needs and deserves"
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