Strive for Dominance The obtention of dominance is a motivator that drives rivalry among people. People strive for dominance, the ability to influence others, through wealth and leadership, but this status is only achieved by those who earn it. Anne Rice’s Novel Interview With The Vampire explores the positions of characters in a hierarchy of dominance that transforms as the non-dominant characters evolve. The author’s use of characterization, symbolism, and an anecdote conveys that dominance is transferred to the wisest characters in a reversal of roles in order to suggest that dominance is earned from knowledge alone and that the human race progresses due to rivalry for that dominance. Louis and Lestat are characterized as human-like creatures …show more content…
Armand reveals that vampires can die through “fire, dismemberment … the heat of the sun,” yet he states that hat “[vampires] are immortal” (287). It is paradoxical for an immortal being to die. Admittedly, vampires are unaffected by age, but they are not truly immortal if they can be killed by something as seemingly harmless as the sun, something that even a mortal can survive. Even vampires that are never killed will eventually “live until the end of the world” (139). Vampires are dependant on humans for blood and entertainment, so outliving the end of the world would mean outliving the human race, which may not be possible. So, even the most dominant vampires will lose their dominance through death or the anguish of life without humans. Fire is a symbol of this paradoxically mortal weakness of vampires because Louis uses fire to set “the Théâtre des Vampires [. . .] burning to the ground” which kills Armand’s vampire friends (309). The fire leaves Armand alone with no more theater to manage and no one to control except for Louis, but Louis is immune to Armands manipulative attempts to keep him and he eventually abandons Armand. This suggests that Louis is able to surpass Armand’s dominance. Since Armand, the oldest and most powerful vampire in the novel, loses all of his dominance due to the fire, the fire suggests that even the most dominant individual will lose all dominance to someone else, someone who becomes superior. Thus, the symbol of fire conveys that all dominant and immortal vampires are vulnerable to death and to the loss of dominance by superior individuals in order to suggest that no person can acquire ultimate dominance; nobody can become too powerful to be
This fire, though typically used to symbolize the end, represents a cleansing and a chance at a new life. The fire washed away everything that was holding the Grapes in Endora. Gilbert and Arnie were finally able to travel and see the world, while Ellen and Amy travel a few towns over to start a new life where nobody knows them. The fire created an exit from their drab lives to new adventures.
J. Gordon Melton, in the excerpt “Sexuality and the Vampire” published in his The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead (1998), explains that vampires have a sexual appearance that started from their origin in Dracula. Melton supports his statement by analyzing the monsters' transition to sexual beings through the stories of Dracula’s desires, multiple countries’ erotic tales revolving around vampire-like beings, the manifestation of sensual themes in literary, stage, and screen works, and their current evolution of the once terrified immortals to loved heroes. The purpose of this essay was to outline the seductiveness of the written immortal creatures in order to explain the fanged-mammals’ appeal beyond their terrifying monster abilities.
Fire and flames have been used as symbols by many authors. Fire is representative of Montage. He was a fireman who made fires rather than put them out. He was around them all the time, whether it was around a campfire or burning down a house. Montag and fire were very close and almost part of each other. In the beginning of the book Montag is shown to love fire, It was a pleasure to burn. It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. (3) He didnt perceive it to be bad and destructive thing. But in a larger sense, Montag did identify fire with warmth and spirit.
To begin with, fire is one of the symbols that represents life. Initially, Jeannette Walls was with her
Bradbury first depicted fire as a hurtful force through Montag, a fireman, who burn books. With the converted mentality of his culture, “it was [Montag’s] pleasure to burn. It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed” (3). Montag’s culture sees burning as an enjoyment; however, the fire portrayed here demonstrates the destruction of knowledge and personality. While Montag’s profession brings him joy he does not understand that burning is the most permanent form of destruction. He is oblivious to his governments’ strong desire to eliminate the ideas and knowledge that books hold. In this society, where ignorance is bliss and their phobia of unhappiness controls all aspects of life, people believe that their destructive fire “is bright and…clean”, as it is used as a means to keep themselves oblivious and happy (60). In addition, Bradbury establishes the difference in the symbolisms of fire by naming part one of his novel “The Hearth and the Salamander”. The hearth is the fireplace of the home and is the most positive image of fire. This fire contributes warmth and restores relationships between people. The salamander, the symbol of the firemen, and who personify fire’s destruction is contrasted with the hearth, which represents restoration.
In Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, Stoker’s use of inverted gender roles allows readers to grasp the sense of obscureness throughout, eventually leading to the reader’s realization that these characters are rather similar to the “monster” which they call Dracula. Despite being in the Victorian era, Stoker’s use of sexuality in the novel contributes to the reasoning of obscureness going against the Victorian morals and values. Throughout the novel the stereotypical roles of the Victorian man and woman are inverted to draw attention to the similarities between Dracula and the characters. Vague to a majority of readers, Bram Stoker uses Dracula as a negative connotation on society being that the values of the Victorian culture are inverted amongst the sexes of characters, thus pointing out the similarities of the characters and the so called “monster” which they call Dracula.
The novel “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Bronte, and the novella “The Turn of the Screw” by Henry James, both display the treatment of pride for upper and lower class similarly. Furthermore, the treatment of pride will be compared and contrasted in this essay to examine and understand how pride is treated. In novel and novella both the lower class characters believe their pride makes them superior beings. Although the pride of lower and upper-class characters led them to their corruption. Moreover, the upper-class characters in each narrative maintain their respectability by their pride. However, in “Jane Eyre” all casts must have their emotions controlled by their pride, or this will lead to inappropriate behavior. Nevertheless, in “The Turn of
Unlike other latter-day adaptations of the vampire legend -- such as films like The Hunger and Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire novels -- which actively shatter accepted tenets of vampirism, such as the danger of sunlight or crosses to vampires, "Buffy" relies heavily on the guidelines for vampirism established by Stoker in his novel. In "Buffy," as in Dracula, vampires can be killed by direct sunlight and harmed by holy water and crucifixes (Golden 125). When, for instance, Buffy's crucifix necklace touches her vampire boyfriend Angel's chest, it leaves a burn-mark similar to that left on vampire-defiled Mina Harker's forehead by application of a Holy Wafer in Dracula ("Angel;" Stoker 302). And unlike the sympathetic portrayals of vampires advanced in Rice's novels and in the 1960s soap opera "Dark Shadows," the vampires shown are not good or even human. They are, in the words of Buffy's Watcher Giles "demon at the c...
The desire for power is prevalent in our day to day life from wanting control over little insignificant aspects to control over others. The Crucible by Arthur Miller is
In conclusion, Fire has 3 different meanings which lead you to new thinking and insight towards the world. Fire represents change which is shown through Montag’s symbolic change from using fire to burn knowledge into using fire to help him find knowledge; fire can represent knowledge as demonstrated through Faber, and fire can represent rebirth of knowledge as demonstrated through the phoenix. Overall fires representation is not one of destruction but one of knowledge, thinking, new insight, and acknowledgment.
In the book Dracula the vampires would be killed by a stake to the heart, and then the removal of the head (411-12). In The Vampire Diaries however there was many ways to kill them. For example you could use a stake to kill them, but it would have to be a White Oak ash dagger or stake. Also instead of the decapitation you could also burn then to ash. However the easiest thing for the vampires to die from was a werewolf bite. To the vampires the werewolf bite was like a poison to them. Next in The Vampire Diaries they had some vampires called the originals. These vampires are the oldest, and they were the first to ever walk the earth. So if one of the originals were killed then everyone that they turned would also die along with them. This is because there blood has the DNA of the original. Finally we do not truly know how Dracula was created he was the very first vampire. Then over the many years he was alive he made new vampires by feeding off people. In The Vampire Diaries however we do know how they were created. A witch created the vampires in The Vampire Diaries. She later regretted the creation she made, and wanted to undo what she had already
Humanity has always been fascinated with the allure of immortality and although in the beginning vampires were not a symbol of this, as time passed and society changed so did the ideas and perceptions surrounding them. The most important thing to ask yourself at this point is 'What is immortality?' Unfortunately this isn't as easily answered as asked. The Merriam Webster Dictionary says immortality is 'the quality or state of being immortal; esp : unending existence' while The World Book Encyclopedia states it as 'the continued and eternal life of a human being after the death of the body.' A more humorous definition can be found in The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce:
The author’s op-ed piece was published in 2009, the very peak of the vampire contagion, where one could find these creatures wherever they looked. This pandemonium that arose from vampires is what drove del Toro and Hogan to pen “Why Vampires Never Die.” Furthermore, the purpose behind this essay is to give an abridged description of the past of vampires for the people who had become fanatics of the creatures. Also, this essay showed how vampires have persisted in pop culture. They suggest that vampires have been remade by diverse cultures at different times, and this change echoes that society's angst and concerns. The novelist’s imply that Stroker’s Dracula may mirror an exaggerated human on a prim...
As the male wolf submits to the clever role of a powerful and threatening being, he underscores the authors message that society in this time period thought males to be the more powerful gender. Males were thought of as the smarter ge...
This conclusively demonstrates that lust for power can drive people to do the cruelest things in order to capture it. Works Cited The Tragedy of Macbeth William Shakespeare