Vampire Myths

Thus far throughout the course we have dove into vampires and their significance within Slavic lives as well as their development into western culture. We first learned how stories are made through a narrative. A narrative is basically any form of story telling that is fiction. More specifically, a story in the form of first-person is a memorate. The reason we need narratives is to “experiment with the real world” and we also are never satisfied with the endings. We desire new ones with the same plot to reinforce the lessons they are giving (Miller, 1995). After learning why stories exist, we sought out different ways of telling a story. These include, folklore, myths, and legends. Brunvard describes folklore as the traditional, unofficial,

Jan Perkowski explains there are four specific types of vampires. First, there is the psychotic vampire. This is usually a person who is mentally ill, believing that are indeed a vampire, need blood to stay alive, and have super human abilities. Second, there is the Psychic vampire. This vampire feeds on others emotionally. They use guilt and fear to manipulate and drain you of your energy. Third, there is the folkloric vampire. This vampire is at least partially supernatural and varies from culture to culture. There is also always specific ways to detect, ward off and destroy him. Lastly, there is the literary vampire. This vampire is fictionist and contains elements from the other three vampires. They usually share characteristics and the story line of “Dracula”. One of the last things we have spoken about in classes the concept of taboo. On January 29, 2016, we defined taboo as a ban against touching, saying, or doing something for fear of supernatural reprisal. This can be connected to vampirism because of the origins of vampires. Usually, peasants believed any individual doing or practicing taboo behavioral, would turn into a vampire. This was a type of punishment or consequence of taboo behavior. They may avoid this by using taboo substitution o taboo deformation. Taboo substitution is replacing the word or thing with something else. For example, at Ohio State it is taboo to say “Michigan”, so we substitute the word for the phrase, “that team up north”. Taboo deformation is disguising the taboo. For example, at Ohio State we have sweaters and gear that says, “Much Fichigan”. With a simple rearranging of letters, it’s clear what the message