A Modern Vampire in Reverse: The Legend of Robert Neville The last five paragraphs of Matheson’s novella I Am Legend turns the perception the main character has of the world on its head (Matheson 169-170). He goes from seeing himself as something of a tragic hero, a human remnant in a world descended into monstrous savagery, to understanding that to an emergent society of medicated vampires, he is a murderous terror stalking them when they are at their most vulnerable. The monster is not who he thought it was. He is the thing that will feature in frightening tales of tomorrow. However, with the new perspective that places Robert Neville in the role of the monster, the novel takes on an aspect found in later Vampire Fiction. Robert Neville …show more content…
While there are “true vampires; the living dead” (Matheson 38) there are also people infected with the vampire germ, who actually are alive. Both types of vampires act akin to zombies. They fit into Tenga and Zimmerman’s description: “Today’s zombies typically come in hordes, but generally still lack will, consciousness, and individuality; they constitute a collective body that acts without thought or understanding,” (Tenga and Zimmerman 80). They are not topical vampires. They are not solitary hunters stalking the night. The solitary hunter is instead Neville. He is the odd one out. While Neville does not thirst for blood, Brite shows in the novel Lost Souls that vampires can hunger for other things and still be vampires. In her novel, there is a pair of twins who sucks all life, the souls, from their victims to sustain themselves. Clasen says that it is “the hope of finding a companion it is what sustains Neville throughout the narrative,” (320). It can be translated as Neville’s equivalent of blood. He is as desperate for companionship as the vampires are for blood. All he does in the search of it. He tries to find a cure (Matheson 87) so that people will once more be people with whom he can interact. His toil with learning about medicine is only interrupted at a sign of life in a stray dog: “The eagerness he'd felt upon seeing the germ in his microscope was nothing …show more content…
Ruth explains in her letter that sky was spying on him, that her people will kill Neville once they are better organised because he has killed many of their numbers, Ruth’s husband among them (Matheson 154-155). Ruth thought like the people who sent her. She thought that Neville was a dangerous terror that had to be understood to latter be exterminated. Upon meeting Neville, however, she discovers that he is not a mindless monster, only someone operating with a set of instructions that are dated. This makes Neville kin to the modern vampires who have a strong connection to the past, hold within them history and past cultures (Tenga and Zimmerman 84). Because Ruth says “When we were together in the darkness, close to each other, I wasn’t spying on you. I was loving you,” (Matheson 155) to Neville in her letter, urges him to flee and latter comforts him before his execution their relationship is a mild version of the modern vampire love story. “The sympathetic vampire incites desire,” (Tenga and Zimmerman 77), and that is what Neville is and does. He is undoubtedly dangerous for her kind, yet he is sympathetic, trying to comfort Ruth and be kind to her all through their brief association, inciting, if not desire, then at least
The novel Dracula by Bram Stoker has plentiful examples of key concepts we have examined in class including: Purity and impurity, magical thinking, strong emotions such as disgust and shame, , formalization, and myth. In this essay I will summarize events that take place within the novel when the protagonists deal with Dracula and then relate these events to the key concepts to demonstrate why the characters view him as dangerous, and therefore something to be avoided completely.
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.
Carmilla is an example of a woman who loves her food far too much. Carmilla is consumed entirely by her food, even sleeping in a coffin of blood: “The limbs were perfectly flexible, the flesh elastic; and the leaden coffin floated with blood, in which to a depth of seven inches, the body lay immersed” (Le Fanu 102). There exists a unique relationship between the vampire and their victims. Food becomes defined in terms of victimhood, distinctly separated from humanity’s general consumption of meat. The need for human victims makes hunting synonymous with courtship, as intense emotional connections are established between the vampiress and her food. As seen in the intense relationship developed between Laura and Carmilla, the vampire is “prone to be fascinated with an engrossing vehemence, resembling the passion of love, by particular persons” (105). For Carmilla, cruelty and love are inseparable (33). The taking of the victims’ blood for sustenance is a highly sexualized exchange of fluids from one body to another. The act of consumption is transformed into an illicit carnal exchange between the hunter and the hunted.
The late nineteenth century Irish novelist, Bram Stoker is most famous for creating Dracula, one of the most popular and well-known vampire stories ever written. Dracula is a gothic, “horror novel about a vampire named Count Dracula who is looking to move from his native country of Transylvania to England” (Shmoop Editorial Team). Unbeknownst of Dracula’s plans, Jonathan Harker, a young English lawyer, traveled to Castle Dracula to help the count with his plans and talk to him about all his options. At first Jonathan was surprised by the Count’s knowledge, politeness, and overall hospitality. However, the longer Jonathan remained in the castle the more uneasy and suspicious he became as he began to realize just how strange and different Dracula was. As the story unfolded, Jonathan realized he is not just a guest, but a prisoner as well. The horror in the novel not only focuses on the “vampiric nature” (Soyokaze), but also on the fear and threat of female sexual expression and aggression in such a conservative Victorian society.
All he does is drink blood,” is something Neville asks himself, and this also raises many other questions regarding the natural prejudice against vampires, which is an essential issue since it indirectly displays one of the main messages of the book, which is that unfamiliar or smaller groups are mostly alienated. Moreover, this quote also shows how Neville’s thoughts are now sane and contrast with his thoughts of when he was depressed. His logic and reasoning when wondering about the prejudice against vampires are not that expected, since he is alone and his main focus is to save himself. In this manner Matheson portrays Neville as a character who later develops sanity in his actions and inspite of his situation still displays intelligence and curiosity, which is essential to further analyze his character and
Bram Stoker’s Dracula illustrated fears about sexual women in contrast to the woman who respected and abided by society’s sexual norms. Joseph Sheridan LeFanu’s “Carmilla” represented not only the fear of feminine sexuality, but also the fear of sexuality between women. John William Polidori’s “The Vampyre” showed society’s fear of sexuality in terms of the seductive man who could “ruin” a young girl.These texts are representative of vampire stories in the Victorian Era, and will be the focus here.
While Bram Stoker’s Dracula has been described as the “quintessence of evil creatures we meet in our everyday lives” and “the Darkness” in the hearts of men (Herbert, 2004, pp. 62), Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight
These two scenarios from Anglo-Saxon and modern times are similar, as well. They are similar because of the continuity of “monsters” terrorizing a society being a great influence among audiences of the past and present. The two works of both eras demonstrate the continual interest in defeating villains and “feeding” it’s listeners with tales such as these.
Count Dracula has been the frontrunner for the modern day vampire lore and legends since being printed back in 1897, pop culture took the vampire traits from Bram Stoker’s Dracula and twisted them. In modern portrayals of vampire lore, each author chooses an original aspect from Stoker but then creates a little bit of their own lore in the process. Count Dracula appears to be a walking corpse from the pale and gaunt visual aesthetics to the coolness of his undead skin (Stoker). In some cultures, the vampire is able to transform from the body of a human being to that of a fellow creature of the night, a bat. In the novel Dracula more than one town was easily visualized through the detailed descriptions throughout the novel, thus
Within Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the reader is introduced to two “men”, a term that is applied loosely, whom come to represent the realization of the dying days of the Victorian Era. Heart of Darkness’ Kurtz comes to be the representation of the realization in that he sees what is required from him, as well as the rest of humanity, in order for them to survive. Dracula, in contrast, is the idealization of what has to be done in order to survive. Furthermore, Dracula comes to represent the next step, in almost evolutionary terms, in that he starts to attack England on its home soil, going to so far as to transplant his own soil onto England. This reverse colonization by Dracula is the resultant action he takes based on the fact that he was able to do that which Kurtz is seemingly unable to do, sacrifice the last of his humanity to become a monster.
In Twilight, Edward Cullen presents the question; “ But what if I’m not the hero? What if I’m the bad guy?” The role of vampires is very controversial. Back in the day they were evil, soulless monsters and people genuinely feared them. However, in the present day it seems that we have grown to love them and even hope to one day be them. There are a plethora of vampire stories and many of them have become immense hits. With so many vampire stories, it is not uncommon that readers are able to identify a vast amount of similarities. Although similar in aspects, there are still many differences between the classic and modern day vampires. Two highly popular stories, in which we can easily identify similarities and differences, are Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight.
Baldick, Chris. In Frankenstein's Shadow: Myth, Monstrosity, and Nineteenth-Century Writing. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990. Print.
Nowadays, people are still enticed by fear, they have a curiosity for the supernatural, evil and frightening. Although modern day society is supposedly politically correct, we are still an immoral society and many of us would treat a creature like Frankenstein’s creation or a vampire like Dracula like a monster. In this way, the novels still have social significance.
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...