The History of Vampires

Vampires have been around for centuries, they represent the fear of many things such as sexuality, race, gender, etc. and above all, they stand for the fear of diseases. Vampires have once been the symbol of horror due to their terrific depictions and were described as a threat to the humanity. Throughout time, the image of vampire has changed dramatically from a monstrous, inhumanely creature that doesn’t belong to human society to such an attractive and adaptive figure that expresses more of the human side than the evil. They developed human feelings, senses, and live within our society. Modern vampire movies are often more romantic and “sympathetic” comparing to the past. Vampires have abandoned their horror and evolved to a more

The vampire is the popular character in folklore from early civilization to modern life. The vampire appears in people mind with the passion of immortality, fear, love and mystery. People are attracted with vampire because the superstition of the vampire has done for centuries. Are they real? What are they? Where they come from? There are a few of thousand questions about the beliefs of vampire during many centuries. People don’t stop their curiosity with vampire- the legend that emulates the world cultures and religions. One of the most important reason that made vampire still popular until today is the great transformation. During the time, with the creative of human, vampire reforms to fit with modern age. According to the “Jung and the Jungians on Myth”, Steven Walke implies myth is a metaphor and come from the collective of human psyche. People use vampire as the tools to explain human thinking. Therefore, the charging in the thinking of people in different period of time will effect to the symbol of vampire. The research will explain the transformation of vampire by diving to three main topics: the vampire in the historical and religion thinking; the charging of vampire in literature and movie; the symbol of vampire in modern people thinking. Although three main topics seem separately, these connect and develop other idea like cause and effect. Depend on the information of history, the image of vampire in novel become reality. From the idea of vampire in novel, modern

Honors Theses. Paper 821.Meehan, Paul. The Vampire in Science Fiction Film and Literature, edited by Paul Meehan McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com.ezproxy.lib.apsu.edu/lib/austinpeay- ebooks/detail.action

The vampires many people image today are very different to those imagined in olden times. According to Michael Molina from the “Vampire: Folklore, Fantasy and Fact” video, many ancient societies had myths of vampire-like monsters. For example the Mesopotamians had myths about a creature called Lamashtu that drank blood, had a lion’s head and a donkey’s body. The Ancient Greeks also had myths about a creature that were described as “blood thirsty birds” called Striges. These ancient creatures differed greatly from different societies, but they shared one common characteristic: they all fed off of living organism (Molina). As the years went by, many of

This is the main aim of this investigation - to identify and discuss the factors which influenced the constantly changing literary and cultural depiction of vampires. What turned the symbol of threat and horror into a mysterious outsider?

The vampire is not by any means a new manifestation of the fears of a society. Their presence in human culture can be traced back for centuries in human folklore. The first Anglicized representations of the creature in literature date back to the English poetry of the early 1700s, and were then followed in the fiction genre by such works as John William Polidori’s The Vampyre, Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla, and of course, Bram Stoker’s Dracula. For the audiences of the 18th century, vampires embodied many of the following common fears shared between the people: of illness, both mental and epidemic, of an embraced sexuality, particularly that of women’s and homosexuals’, and of foreigners. As the archetypical vampire evolved throughout the

“The word vampire (or vampyre) entered the English language in 1732, according to The Oxford English Dictionary” (Skal 200). One can’t go living life without knowing about the vampire because they’re everywhere! Someone can

The cultural influences on vampires first affected their origins and setting; vampires were no longer limited to European countries like the United Kingdom or Romania. In fact, according to Dartmouth, the United States gradually became the vampire capital of the world in the twentieth century. American urbanization dramatically altered lifestyles and towards the 1920s, a majority of the population lived in cities, according to the

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

Dracula and vampires continue to captivate us because of their odd nature and strange relationship with human beings. This makes us wonder how humanity would survive if vampires were actually real. It also captivates us because they live very different lives than us which captivates us to learn more about them and how they adapt to their lives with humans.

Vampires have aroused a perennial fascination within humanity since their fictional materialization into history. However, it is over the course of the last century that these creatures have become an iconic symbol of mystifying horror and inexplicable desire. Recently, the vampire has undergone a significant reconstruction of physical appearance, behaviour, and surroundings, along with, extensive modifications to its super-natural disadvantages. These distinct character adaptations are imperative when considering two of the most notable vampires ever fashioned: Count Dracula and Edward Cullen. The dissimilarity between Bram Stoker’s 19th century, Count Dracula, and Stephenie Meyer’s 21st century, Edward Cullen, is a complex reflection of the contrasting societies from which these vampires emerged.

As one of the most attractive and enduring figures in the Gothic literature, the vampires have moved from being a peripheral element with the genre to a place near the center and are capable of generating its own massive tradition now. In the recent literary history, they have already been adapted to play a role of a rebel against the moral, social, religious, and even sexual taboos. Put simply, the vampires are now a metaphor of human beings in the modern society and life.

Britain, however, did not hear of these vampires until the 1700s. The eighteenth century in Europe brought a big vampire scare when even government officials were brought into the mass killings of vampires (Richardson). This scare started in East Prussia in 1721 and arose again in the

The legend of the vampire has emerged countless times within human imagination over the past few centuries. The first available representation of the mythical creature in prose fiction can be found in John Polidori’s “The Vampyre” (1810). It was not until eight decades later that Bram Stoker popularized the existence of this figure with the publication of “Dracula” in 1897. The folklore of the vampire has come a long way since and can be found in today’s popular media more frequently than ever before. However, with due course of time, the representation of the creature has taken alternate routes and today’s vampires are noticeable different – socially and physically – from their predecessors. One effective path to trace this

A few centuries ago, vampires drank human blood and spread plague flourished in time of disease in Eastern Europe. In 19 century, some Europeans who did not understand about disease thought that people who had serious illness became first vampire in their family (Eldridge.) Therefore, Europe people think that vampires usually attack their friends or family member. Following to Barber?s perspective, ?European folklore believed in the spirit of a dead person that return after death to haunt the living, in the form as vampire, was always the first person to die in the family? (Barber 827). In Chinese culture, vampires are living deaths that absorb energy from the moon, called Jiang Shi (Image 1). They usually hop or pop around to catch unsuspecting victims. They do not feed human blood, but they are controlled by bad priest to attack people and villages. In short, vampires have more strength than normal human beings, and they are undead. They always harm or otherwise kill people. Authors, Lindahl, Mcnamara, and Lindow, define a vampire ?is a revenant, reanimated corpse, or phantom of the recently deceased, which maintain its former, living appearance when it comes out of the grave at night to drink the blood of human? (Lindahl 424). In the Vampire book in 1998, Jocob Grimm states another definition vampires as ?dead men come back, who suck blood? (Dundes 161). In other words, traditional vampires are believed as killer that feeds on the blood of the