The Role Of Vampires In Ancient Civilizations

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.

which has the upper body of a woman and the lower body of a winged

The earliest known mention of vampires comes from Ancient Mesopotamia, where people feared and respected Lamashtu, Sky God Anu’s daughter and the most terrible of all female demons1. Dimme, as she was called in Sumerian, was frequently blamed for the dominant struggles experienced by the population, such as bringing nightmares, infesting rivers, killing foliage, miscarriages, diseases and even muscle cramps. Yet perhaps the most dreadful of all her evil deeds was murdering unsuspecting men and children to later devour on their flesh and blood, much like the literary vampires.

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

Vampires are one of the most oldest and most prevalent creatures known to world mythology. The beginning of vampires has remained unknown for thousands of years, but according to legend it all began in the Mediterranean sea.Only vampires can create another vampire but nobody knows the total insight into how the first vampire was made until recent history.

His skin is pale, with slicked-back hair, lips blood red, and his pearly white teeth sharp; he’s Dracula, the original vampire. Bram Stoker’s famous novel Dracula, which was written in 1897, started the vampire craze that still lasts today. It has sparked numerous novels, movies, and songs across the world through the year, and its popularity is still growing. As times have changed, so have Dracula and his predecessors. Dracula is about Count Dracula meeting this human Jonathan Harker for business and Jonathan along with his friends learn that Count Dracula is a vampire. In the end Count Dracula is killed before he can reach the safety of Transylvania. Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula is the pinnacle of all modern concepts of vampires; however,

Professor Jeffrey Weinstock a professor in an English department in the Central Michigan University wrote the article “Vampires, Vampires, Everywhere!” Weinstock talks about how vampires are everywhere from cereal boxes to horror movies, and he explains certain principles that most vampire stories go by. The fist principle explains that all of the vampire stories are all about sex. He assumes that it is due to establish and reinforce proper sexual roles. A good example that he gives us is Lugosi’s Dracula in 1931. The second principle that he mentions is that the vampire is more appealing to the audience than those who pursue it. He argues that vampires seek self-satisfaction and eternal life, therefore explaining why it seems appealing to

The vampire of today is most commonly associated with the type that was created by Bram Stoker when Dracula was published in 1897 (Florescu and McNally 221). This popular cultural icon is described by Stoker in his novel: "The teeth were strong and white, and the canine teeth protruded over the lower lip when the mouth was closed. The [vampire's] hands were large and powerful, the nails black and pointed like a bird's talons" (qtd. in Florescu and McNally 227).

The last early literature being that Murgatroyd pointed out was similar to a vampire and vampiric legends was a strix. A strix was supposedly an unclassified type of screech-owl who feasted on human blood. Nobody would be able to see them coming as they

The origins of the female vampire in literary fiction of Victorian period arise from male anxiety of the ‘Other’, epitomized in a form of powerful and authoritative, thus dangerous, woman threatening the patriarchal power and domination. The vampire genre provided appropriate literary platform for writing about these anxieties and sexual desires through allegories of vampirism without specifically defining its subversive ideas; delivering them as ambiguous and cryptic. Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu even furthered the idea of vampire genre by presenting the first lesbian vampire, Carmilla. The vampire text became a medium for exposing the 'forbidden and unmentionable ' perceptions undermining the heteronormative discourses of Victorian society.

Before the 19th century, the vampire mythos was largely unknown to the English readers. It was only following a series of incidents that took place at the beginning of 18th century in Silesia and the Balkans, mainly in distant villages in Hungary and Serbia, that the stories and beliefs in those carnivorous creatures attracted the attention of English scholars and the common fans of supernatural fiction alike.

People! Hey, people! People! Listen up, because this will blow your freakin’ minds. Modern fantasy fiction? Totally based on a retro role-playing tabletop game. For real. I know, I know, I had trouble containing my amazement at this epic discovery I just made today. I’m probably like the first person ever to make this connection. In all seriousness though, modern fantasy would not be what it is without the influence of classic tabletop roleplaying games like the Dungeons & Dragons and World of Darkness series. I spent countless hours as teen and college student tossing D20s and D6s, my mind drowned in The Forgotten Realms and the adventures of Drizzt Dro’Urden and Wulfgar son of Beorngar. To this day, I still see the influence of D20 games

From ancient civilizations to modern day pop culture, vampires has been an ingrained idea of human history. The name "vampire" was not used until a massive outbreak of hysteria in Western Europe during the 18th century. Societies of the ancient era all had some form of a entity that would come back from the dead and drink the blood of those who lived. Persia was the first of these to have record of creatures taking the blood of men, and similarly ancient Egypt had a goddess the dedicated to that of suding men and then taking their life. Vampires still exist to this day, their persona has changed significantly, but the idea for why they are created has remained the same. The cultural beliefs of all civilizations differ, but they all share the

Tales of mythical beasts and creatures have been told for centuries from family to family. The story of the vampire has been a nightmarish epic that was designed to scare the youth of today. The Strain takes this idea even further, however. The vampires in this series are far more sophisticated and less humane than the original blood suckers. The vampires despise the light, weakened when cut with silver, and can’t respawn when their head is cut off and burned to finish the deed. They roam well in groups, are hard to kill, and have a stinger that reaches quite a ways out from their tongue. Relatively speaking, they aren’t very similar to the original vampire and are more like zombies if anything.

When ancient societies did not understand some unusual phenomena, they attributed it to some mythological creature. They did not know for instance that the reason behind the appearance of fangs is the Porphyria disease. Only scientists did. They did not know for instance that the reason behind lightning is a massive electrostatic discharge between the electrically charged regions within clouds .Only scientists did. Thus, it is this inclination to provide explanations for themselves that led ancient societies to invent a mythological creature like the vampire. It is this same inclination that led ancient societies to attribute lightning to an angry God. Asking a scientific question like “Are Vampires real ? “ represents the real wooden stake that penetrates the heart of this supernatural myth. In truth, vampires have no real existence. Yet, despite the absence of concrete scientific explanations for the vampire myth, the subject continues to fascinate many people generation after generation. For instance, nineteenth century artists and thinkers who do not believe in its existence find the subject very intriguing and see numerous metaphoric possibilities in a mythic creature from the past. Nineteenth century thinkers and artists are using the popularity of the vampire myth to raise awareness of very real and potential anxieties. In nineteenth century Gothic novels, particularly, the vampire figure has been exploited and transformed from myth into a metaphor to