The story of Chugoro is a classic vampire tale. Although, it doesn’t strictly follow the most common idea of what a vampire is; it carries many of the themes within it. Chugoro is the main protagonist in the story. Chugoro falls in love with a woman and continues to pursue the love despite it clearly being against his better judgement. He marries her on a spur of the moment decision made under a supernatural spell. The marriage had to remain quite secretive, due to laws of the paranormal. Hiis nightly escapades become worrisome to his fellow ashigaru that he was living with, due to him visibly becoming ill. To ease their fears Chugoro chooses to break his vow of silence and tells a comrade of his marriage, sealing his death later that night. For readers who associate vampires with modern tales, Chugoro links to vampirism do not show clearly on the surface. Especially, when glossing over finer points as the summary above does. However, it has vampire traits in the use of the …show more content…
This is a common theme, especially within the tales that we have seen;most notably comparable is the tale The Girl with the Hungry Eyes. A magical lust is used by the vampire. This tactic seems to be most common in literature about female vampires and Chugoro is no exception. Love is used as a manipulation tactic, but it is compounded with being forbidden which makes the love all the more enticing. Chugoro even recalls briefly a tale warning him of such follies made by foolish lovers, when he falls for the vampire. Forbidden love is a commonplace in modern day vampire tales. Romeo and Juliet is often thought of as a perfect love story and a modern comparison is Twilight. Twilight, although heavily mocked as a vampiric story within pop culture, seems to follow a trend of forbidden love stories that date back to novels such as Carmilla and Dracula.
Fairy tale is a story that features folkloric chapters and enchantments, often involving a far-fetching sequence of events. Fairy tales have been around for thousands of years, whether it comes from Grimm’s Fairy Tales which is what most people consider the “classic” or “traditional” fairy tales to Disney movies, the idea of the fairy tale fills our society with lessons and examples of how we should behave and live; fairy tales teach the same things in different ways, or teach different things with the same tale. A couple of these tales are “Beauty and the Beast”, by Jeanne-Marie Leprince De Beaumont and “The Pig King”, by Giovanni Francesco Straparola. They are both tales about falling in love with someone despite their appearance. The similarities and differences between “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Pig King” is captivating while still depicting a similar tale. They are similar in the way they find love and their love story but they also share a similar behavior pattern in the way the girls behave towards the prince. However, the two tales do display a difference in the attitudes of the princes and their actions towards their love
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.
Stevenson, John Allen. A Vampire in the Mirror: The Sexuality of Dracula. 2nd ed. Vol. 103. N.p.: Modern Language Association, 1988. JSTOR. Web. 6 Jan. 2014. .
Vampires have been viewed with fear and fascination for centuries. Of all the vampires in literature, Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula is probably the most prominent vampire. Recently, there has been an upsurge of public interest in socially acceptable vampires, like the Cullens in the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer. This essay will contrast Stoker’s Dracula with Carlisle Cullen, one of the newer vampires from the Twilight series. They will be examined in terms of their origins and how they dealt with immortality.
In Bram Stoker's Dracula, the most blatant and powerful symbol is blood. He takes the blood that means so much to the believers of this legend and has it represent more than even they could imagine. Blood is the main object associated with vampires and vampirism. From a mythical standpoint, it is the basis of life for the vampires as they feed off of the blood of young, vibrant souls. From a more scientific standpoint blood is what would drip out of the corpse's mouth when family members would dig up their dead kin to check for the dreaded disease. Stoker takes the significance of this symbol and puts his own unique twist to the meaning of blood. He combines the traditional folklore of vampirism and the immense sexual undertones of the Victorian era to create a simply horrific tale which completely confuses the emotions of his readers. Stoker knew bloods importance in vampire history and used the overwhelming symbolism to convey his own personal lust and sexual obsessions. The scenes where Lucy is receiving transfusions; first from Holmwood, then from Seward, and the unforgettable vampire baptism between Dracula and Mina all have these very erotic, sexual feelings associated with them. What makes these so powerful is the combination of violence and sex. As a reader, you know that what Dracula is doing are horrific and wrong, but because they are so sexually described and associated you think you should enjoy them, but you can't. This is the confusion which stoker implements into his readers minds, especially ones of the Victorian era. This is why stoker used blood as the most important symbol in the novel; to create an intense horror that was not just in the words of the book, but in the minds of the reader.
From Transylvania to Hollywood, vampires have transformed from unfamiliar, mysterious personalities to one of the most dominant monsters in the horror genre today. Vampires are one of the oldest and most noted creatures in mythology, with many variations of them around the world. Although the most famous version is Bram Stoker’s Dracula, many variants have come before and after telling of the same legend with their own added ideas and modifications to relate to their cultures. Today, there is a multitude of literary and film works that convey and resurface peoples’ fear of vampires. As gothic works like Dracula, by Bram Stoker and Scooby-Doo! and the Legend of the Vampire directed by Scott Jeralds share certain traits reflective of the genre; These factors include setting, actions of each vampire, the initial reactions to news of them, and how their presence affects the people who live within the region the vampires inhabit.
Love is often misconstrued as an overwhelming force that characters have very little control over, but only because it is often mistaken for the sum of infatuation and greed. Love and greed tread a blurred line, with grey areas such as lust. In simplest terms, love is selfless and greed is selfish. From the agglomeration of mythological tales, people deduce that love overpowers characters, even that it drives them mad. However, they would be wrong as they would not have analyzed the instances in depth to discern whether or not the said instance revolves around true love. Alone, true love help characters to act with sound reasoning and logic, as shown by the tales of Zeus with his lovers Io and Europa in Edith Hamilton’s Mythology.
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.
"The Eyes" by Edith Wharton was quite a weird short story and is by no means, my favorite of the ones we have read so far. The language was a little more difficult to understand at times and I felt a little confused, especially in the beginning with Wharton's syntax. However, the story inside the story, of Culwin's eyes was very interesting. I felt there was a little bit of a sexual undertone to the story as a whole, but especially in the story Culwin tells. In the beginning, the narrator says "we had been put in the mood for ghost," which was an oddly phrased sentence to me. But when I read the story for the second time and had realized the sexual undertone of Culwin's story. I realized that the narrator had the same sexual undertone. The narrator's description of Culwin had the
The Count is the benchmark of the vampire archetype as the monstrous Other that “announces itself as the place of corruption” (Anolik and Howard 1). Dracula is associated with disruption and transgression of accepted limits—a monstrosity of great evil that serves to guarantee the existence of good (Punter and Byron 231). The “Otherness” Dracula possess reinforces our own norms and beliefs through his transgression that separates him from society and the polarity to Western norms and ideals makes him an effective device for extorting revulsion and horror. Stoker’s novel employs Gothic tradition, providing “the principle embodiments and evocations of cultural anxieties” from which the very Gothic mood and horror is produced, establishing the baseline used to distinguish the modern vampires, as part of vampire mythology within the Gothic (Botting Aftergothic
Le Fanu’s approach using gothic tropes is obvious here, as he uses the tabooed deviations from the sexual norm, to explicitly showcase the rise of the New Woman, chasing sexual freedom. One of the main differences between Dracula and “Carmilla” is the way each author interconnects the gothic trope of sexuality. Carmilla is portrayed as beautiful and majestic (Le Faun Chapter III). Whereas, Dracula is portrayed as a horrid, hairy and harmful looking man (Stoker Chapter II). While both Stoker and Le Fanu create creatures that both hold power over there victims, Le Fanu effectively uses Carmilla’s beauty, to portray her victims as more willing. Therefore, readers’ are lead to believe that Carmilla depends more on the act of seduction, referring to the very strong lesbian undertones. By drawing on this, Dracula is predominately a more vicious attacker. This separates Carmilla from her male counterparts as Carmilla is seducing victims in a very literal sense, opposed to Dracula whose victims are just under his trance. Therefore, what has already been alluded to in Carmilla’s case, becomes explicit in Stoker’s Dracula. This is apparent during Johnathan being tempted and repelled (Stoker Chapter III) by the three vampires. However, Dracula focuses mainly on facets of male homosexuality and male hegemony, and
The vampire genre is one that is so widely exploited, that anything can be done with it. It can be made into a horror story made to induce nightmares, into a story that displays humans can be just as monstrous as the monster, or into a romance that proves that love conquers all. The mystery and sensuality that shrouds vampires allows for a vampire story to be anything and everything the writer or reader desires.
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...