American Vampire Myths

Since the beginning of time vampires have been categorized into different "types” and are portrayed in different ways throughout several books. This paper will focus on three vampires from the following books: Dracula by Bram Stoker, and I am Legend by Richard Matheson. Dracula is considered to be the traditional vampire, where it all started, and the vampires in Matheson’s book, follow somewhat Stoker’s concept, but is more of a modern “type” of vampires. Certain vampire elements have been presented, but others have been completely removed or altered. In addition, elements along with appearances are used to infer if the vampire is a form of “the other”. There are two types of vampires; the traditional or modern vampire which can be distinguished based on the elements present in their storyline.

Twilight, written by Stephenie Meyer was the first part of a four book series that begun in 2005. The story begins with a girl and a vampire falling in love, and was the first series in a while to bring vampires back into the lime light. The girl, Elisabeth "Bella" Swan and the vampire Edward Cullen, have a complicated love that although they are destined to be together, everything is working against them to do otherwise. Throughout the work of literature, although it is a modern day love story, Twilight displays many gothic characteristics in its writing including the plot and the role of the woman character throughout the story. Just like any other supernatural creatures, vampires originated from literature.

The myth of the vampire existed in a multitude of civilizations and cultures under various names such is strigoi (for the Romanian territory), Apotamkin, etc. But no matter the name, vampires will always refer to gothic creatures that drain the blood of humans, thus being monstrous.

One of the oldest and well known mythological monsters throughout history are blood sucking immortals known as vampires. They transgress the boundaries that humans are always trying to establish. Vampire lore has reflected the values and social structures of the culture it has existed in, but over the past century the values have transformed. From the classic story of Stoker’s Dracula where he is presented as sinister and non-human, the vampire aspect of literature has evolved drastically to a more heroic immortal.

Vampires can be traced to Greek mythology in the story of a young Italian man named Ambrogio and love of his life, Selena. The story includes many

The first record of vampires’ undead activity was in Sebia (Butler 77). The local inhabitants’ lives were uneasy, because they were confused about their identities and what they should follow (Butler 77). In this circumstance, vampire myth appeared to express the society’s anxiety by their irregularities, such as upsetting healthy sexuality and destroying normal patterns of reproduction (Butler 78). Places like back alleys and hidden recess provide opportunities for vampires to gain their powers and their exotic influence

In the late nineteenth century vampires started to evolve into to what is the modern day vampire. Although they were still seen as “evil”, the vampires of the late twentieth century were no longer creepy creatures that would crawl out of their coffins to seduce women and feed from their blood. This was the start of a new period of

Vampire legends and myths are thousands of years old and find homes in most cultures around the world. From the chiang-shih of China to the Lamia of Greek legend, a mix of a woman and winged Serpent (Richardson, 2007). These myths, however, have little in common with modern tellings of the vampire, which are based on European myths. The European vampire myths originated in places like China, Tibet and India and was taken back to the coast of Greece and into the Balkans, which include the Carpathian Mountains and Transylvania (Richardson, 2007).

Throughout history, many reports of vampirism were told in Eastern Europe. Beresford (2008) Writes that the vampire folklore and superstition

The generalization for vampires has been displayed in films and literature for hundreds of years. The stereotypical versions of vampires are that they have long fangs, sleep in coffins during the day, and suck the blood out of humans. Both novels contradict those stereotypes in different ways. To understand the diversity of the vampires described in both novels, one must examine the characteristics that the vampires display and the meaning and purpose behind them. David D. Gilmore’s book “Monsters” analyzes monsters and other mythical creatures. Gilmore describes why humanity invented the idea of

The most famous literature about Vampires in early stage was Dracula. The author Bram Stoker, who was not the first writer wrote Vampires, but was the most popular one. He created a new image of Vampires, instead of the no class, dirty and horrible figure. Under his pen the count Dracula has mysterious background, mighty super-power, unlimited material wealth. He has immortal life. The new form of Vampires got indescribable successed,

An Empusa is one of the closest and earliest accounts of vampires in literature. They were considered similar to Lamias in how the cultures feared them. An Empusa would trick an unsuspecting man into falling in love with her. She would produce an illusion of finery about her so that the man would eat and drink and fill himself up on his desires. Then, after they were married, she would have sex with him and drink his blood, filling her only two true desires. She was intelligent, and used this intelligence to get what she really wanted.

Vampires have been around as long as the start of the first civilizations. One of the early civilizations to depict vampires were Persians. Edgar Comden wrote a book named The Esoteric Codex: Corporeal Undead in which he explained the ancient beliefs about vampires. As he explained in his book, Persians carved pictures of blood sucking creatures on their pottery shards as an indication of vampires. (110) Ancient Babylon is also one of the early civilizations with the beliefs similar to vampires. Lilith was believed to be a demon who sucked blood out of babies and their mothers. Later, Sumerians described Lilith as “an infertile "beautiful maiden" and was believed to be a harlot and vampire who, after having chosen a lover, would never

The exact origin of vampires is unknown and there have been many speculations and theories of these monsters’ origins. Many scholars believe that vampires originated from folklore tales, which spread all throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, England, and Ireland. In addition, early civilizations associated vampires with unexplained events such as death, disease, and misfortune.

According to an Indian lady Issabella, “she said that practically every culture in the world has some sort of ancient story about a blood-sucking creature that relates to the vampire. India is no exception. In fact, Indian mythology has several creatures that could easily be considered ‘vampiric’ in relation to the modern view of the vampire. Some match our modern description better than others, but all play a role in vampire mythology. A malevolent female spirit called the Chedipe rode naked into homes on the backs of tigers and drank men's blood through their toes while they slept. This is indeed vampiric behavior, but the resulting effects have the man drained of energy rather than killed or transformed. This behavior is much more closely associated with the Western Succubus, than with the