Vampires

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Vampires

Obsession. A persistent, disturbing preoccupation with an often-unreasonable idea, feeling, object or person; broadly: compelling motivation (Collegiate Dictionary). Many stories have been told of obsessed men and women who waste their lives on lost causes, calling them tragedies. But what if you were immortal? What if you were forever? Then your life would not be wasted, but instead a reason for living would become instinctive. And what if having an obsession, something criticized by mortal humans, was the only way to keep your sanity and appetite for life through eternity? When looking through the vampire's eyes in film and literature, we see that the foremost vampires have an obsession, a calling that drives them. Without this obsession, it seems, vampires would be lost through time, wandering the earth with no motivation, and though this may sound redundant, with no life. Vampires, it seems, are more capable of going through time when they have a passion. Whether this passion comes from love, knowledge, or power, vampires -- such as the ones from Blade, Bram Stoker's Dracula, and Interview with the Vampire -- are all driven by their own obsessions, without which they become lost, empty.

According to the film Bram Stoker's Dracula (1995), Count Dracula was a man who had sworn to protect the church from its enemies until he found out that his beloved had committed suicide because she thought he had been killed in battle. His love and obsession for her, "Whom he prized above all things on earth," was so strong that he then swore off the church and thus became vampire. When we again see Count Dracula, he looks old and weak, and has become very eccentric and seemingly insane. But when by accident he discovers that his...

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...for living. Since this reason for living had to be in eternal proportions, it could come as nothing less as an essential obsession that drives through the ages, without which the vampires would be lost. Yet this obsession comes in the same shape as those fundamental human obsessions (thus showing a glimpse of the vampire's fledging humanity) -- Love, Knowledge, and Power.

Bibliography:

Works Cited

Blade. Dir. Stephen Norrington. Perf. Wesley Snipes, Stephen Dorff, and Kris

Kristofferson. New Line Cinema, 1998.

Bram Stoker's Dracula. Dir. Francis Ford Coppola. Perf. Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder,

Keanu Reeves, and Anthony Hopkins. Columbia Pictures, 1992.

Collegiate Dictionary. Merriam-Webster OnLine. 5 March 2001.

Interview with the Vampire. Dir. Neil Jordan. Perf. Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, and Antonio

Banderas. Geffen Pictures, 1994.

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