What's Evil, Anyway, By Cole Bowman

Bram Stokers, Dracula, from the late-Victorian era, is one of the best stories of vampire folklore. Dracula was tall, dark, handsome, and mysterious with immense sexual character. His snow white teeth which outlined his rosy red lips made us fantasize of him and ultimately become obsessed. The overwhelming fascination of Stoker’s novel has created individuals to overlook the true metaphoric mechanism behind the story. “Technologies of Monstrosity: Bram Stoker’s “Dracula””, Judith Halberstam points out the metaphor in which Dracula was created.

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

To start off, the manner Arnold Friend and Dracula 's facial and physiological traits are described allow us to compare how monstrous they really are. The Count is said to be a tall thin old man with a shaved face, except for his heavy mustache. His face is a strong aquiline with a high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils. Stoker notes that his ears are pale and pointed, his chin is broad and strong and his cheeks firm and thin. There is an insistence on Dracula 's mouth that is fixed and cruel-looking with sharp white teeth that protruded over his vital-looking lips. His eyebrows are massive, almost meeting over his nose and he has bushy hair that grows around his temples and his lofty domed forehead. Another element that is focused on in Stoker 's novel is the vampire 's extreme pallor. This description is not particularly frightening since we immediately know the character is a monster : he does not look human at all and is not hiding it. There is no place for

Bram stoker has used the technique of visual imagery to describe Dracula’s appearance because he was dark and suspicious The vampire looks this way because in 1897, during the Victorian era many english men and woman feared foreigners and all evil. Therefore, vampires are represented to be evil creatures from the devil, foreigners, dark and mysterious and look like a old

According to one view, Dracula, in many ways, can be seen as a “metaphor for human evil.” A vampire’s devil-like characteristics creates a profile representing all the evil that can manifest in human beings. For instance, one common characteristic between vampires and evil humans is Ego-Centrism, when one’s ego acts like a “tyrant”. This kinds of person is self-centered and takes little interest in the desires or needs of others. Dracula illustrates a form of ego-centrism in that his ego is so high that he believes that there’s no spirt or higher authority that he needs to answer to other than himself. He believes that he’s perfect and judges the rest of the world according to his own standards. Another common characteristic between vampires and evil beings is their continuous hunger for power and need to be able to control others so that they can do them as they please. If vampires are an extension of humans, some people may ask how can vampires justify their actions and be able live with themselves after all the bad things they’ve done. The simple answer is they don’t. Vampires, as many evil humans are, tend to be in denial, lying to themselves about who they really are. They know that they would not be able to handle the guilt associated with their sins, such as murder and sucking the blood of others. Therefore, vampires disguise themselves to make themselves appear normal, in

To answer this question, I decided to look at three of the most influential pieces of vampire literature from the 19th century, including: John Polidori’s The Vampyre, Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Firstly, I will examine and compare the portrayals of each antagonist in their text. I will then compare the literary and folkloric depictions of vampires to see how faithful the writers’ work is to the original lore, as well as identify the possible reasons behind any alterations made by the

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

Good and Evil: Words one associates with fiction. With heroes and villains, protagonists and antagonists. Still, these words can also describe events here, in the real world, where sometimes the villain isn’t a person who is easily vanquished by the main character. Sometimes the villain is an entire nation, hiding its deeds, leeching off the goodness of the rest of the world. Although many strides have been made towards goodness internationally, the United States itself has many evil elements, which can by extending empathy and belonging to others.

Anne Rice writer of such vampire books as Interview with a Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, Queen of the Damned, etc has what I think one the best takes on what it means to be a vampire. “Interview with a Vampire”, for example, is a book that follows the life of a man named Louis and his journey in becoming a vampire. You don’t learn much on how the vampires in this universe came to be, but you do learn what their weaknesses are. The vampires must drink blood to maintain themselves whether it be human or animal and it must be part of a fresh kill. Drinking old blood will kill them if they drink too much of it. Now there is another rule to this that will be addressed below. They cannot go out into the sunlight and if they do it will surely mean the death of them, almost instantly turning them into dust. The sun is really the only true death for these vampires. Beheading can be consider a true death for them but it is not necessarily one and to think that

People have always and will always be affected by the infamous vampire. “Norine Dresser, a folklorist at UCLA also wrote a book at that time called American Vampires in which she documented vampire images in the media and described the effects on people who claimed to be vampires. She sent out a questionnaire, and out of 574 respondents, 27 percent admitted to a belief in vampires” (Ramsland 65). Certain individuals would file their teeth into a razor-sharp weapon, sleep in coffins, avoid the sun, and dress entirely in black. Some people would even form small groups to exchange blood in secret. Sadly enough, people would go too far to become their fictitious character. Known as “Lust Murders,” people would kill in order to get a sexual pleasure as a vampire would. In 1827, a moody 24 year old vine dresser named Leger killed a 12 year old girl in the woods. He admitted that he drank her blood, mutilated her genitals, tore out and ate a part of her heart, and then buried her remains. When he was questioned about his horrific event, he talked with no emotion or remorse. Two other “Lust Murders” comprise of a man cutting his arm for his wife to suck on before sex because it would arouse his wife so strongly. The second is “a man dissected his victims and got so caught up in the gore that he trembled with the desire to wallow in it and consume it” (Ramsland 105).

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

Art is a form of communication. Art is a form of language. The language of art can be elaborated in a multitude of ways, as well. These methods include the content, process, or themes of the artwork. The pieces “Who Tells the Truth?”

Dracula may be blood-curdling but he is not that frightening, to say the least. Just as Jonathan Harker (a lawyer) entered the barren castle in the outskirts of Transylvania, a strange but unique looking man answered the door, and here are Harker’s thoughts: “Within stood a tall old man, clean shaven save for a long white moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of colour about him anywhere” (Stoker 20). As one can see, Stoker really is trying to emphasize his notion of vampire qualities. Once again, Jonathan recollects his thoughts saying:

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 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