The Final Features

Unfortunately my last scheduled book, Guilty Pleasures, was not able to come in on time. However, here is where having read many vampire books before works to my advantage. My absolute favorite vampire novel (series actually) is called Twilight (movie is coming out in December; picture is of the vampire part of the cast) and I definitely recommend that everyone read it because it is an awesome book. I seem to say that about a lot of books, but for this book it is especially true.

The series is about a clumsy teenager named Bella. Her parents are divorced and when her mom remarries, she moves in with her dad in the small town of Forks, Washington. At the local high school, she finds herself the center of attention of the entire school. Eating lunch with her friends, she takes notice of the Cullen family, who sits in their own corner of the cafeteria and don’t seem to associate with everyone else. She says that they all look like they could be supermodels and they move very gracefully. Bella especially notices Edward Cullen. Eventually Bella and Edward start to talk to each other and, after Bella almost gets killed in accidents, she finds out that he and his family are vampires.

However, Bella quickly finds that most of the information that people know about vampires is completely false. They don’t sleep in coffins. They can come out in the sunlight (but they sparkle like diamonds if they do!). They can’t be killed with stakes. BUT they do have do drink blood. The Cullens are different from most vampires. Others drink human blood without a second thought. However, the Cullens have resolved to only drink the blood of animals.

Looking at these four books, it is easy to see that there definitely have been changes in vampires throughout the years. In Dracula and I Am Legend, vampires were just evil, bloodthirsty monsters that were out to kill people. Interview with the Vampire gave the vampires consciences, but they still drank from people. The most recent novel, Twilight, has some of the vampires completely abstaining from human blood altogether. The methods for killing vampires vary slightly from book to book. Dracula and Twilight have similar transformations (biting the person who will be a vampire). The strengths of the vampires are basically the same (very strong, fast, etc.). The personalities of the vampires differ completely. The first two books had the vampires as monsters. Interview with the Vampire and Twilight give the vampires more human characteristics. They are capable of thoughts other than of blood and they can show compassion and love. So, overall, some things haven’t changed, but the vampires do seem to have become more human in recent years than they used to be portrayed.

Real Vampires

While waiting for my next book to come in, I decided to do a Google search on “real vampires”. (I figured I was going to do this sometime or another, so why not now?) I stumbled across a website that claims to offer information and support to real vampires. I wasn’t entirely surprised by the fact that there was a page like this; however, the contents of the page were slightly different than what I expected.

I had expected the page to talk about the vampires that one typically reads about. Information for those who run around at night, getting people to help them satiate their thirst, and general help for those who have some kind of mental problem and think they are vampires.

I found something a bit different. This site treats vampirism like an actual problem that people have. They are people who, generally in their teens, begin to acquire a physical need for blood or psi energy, increased sensitivity (either physically or emotionally), sensitivity to light, and waking up only at night. There are supposedly a few different types of vampires: those who feed off blood and those who feed off energy and emotions.

The entire site takes on a very serious tone. On the home page, the webmaster states that it is NOT for people into role-playing or pretending to be vampires. It is for the people who really need advice and want to connect with others like them. They say that they are different from the people with Renfield syndrome. Renfield syndrome is when people have a psychological disease that makes them excited at the sight/smell of blood.

I have never met anyone who claims to be a real vampire, but this sounds quite interesting. I don’t feel like I should be the one to judge whether they are telling the truth or if this is in people’s heads. I don’t know. I suggest you check this site out because there is a lot of information, but out of respect please do not leave messages trying to tell them that they aren’t vampires. People should be who they are regardless of what others think.

Source: http://www.sanguinarius.org/intro.shtml

Loose Ends

The end of Interview with the Vampire was not overly happy or sad. In Paris, Louis really wants to be with Armand and, seeing this, Claudia has Louis transform a woman named Madeline into a vampire so she can take care of her in his place. However, Lestat has followed Louis and Claudia to Europe and he has the other vampires of the city kill Claudia and Madeline because she tried to kill him. Louis, completely distraught, goes to torch the theater and Armand doesn’t try to stop him even though he knows that he is trying to kill the other vampires. Louis and Armand travel the world for many years and Louis seems sadder and less alive than when he first met Lestat. Eventually they return to New Orleans where Louis finds Lestat completely overwhelmed and frightened about how much the world has changed. Later Armand confronts him about how emotionally dead he has been, how he hasn’t felt love, passion, or even revenge since he left Paris. Louis tells Armand that he has become like a mirror of him. Armand leaves and that is where the boy’s interview ends.

Referring back to an earlier post, the book does reveal how vampires can be killed. They can be burned by fire, like when Louis burns down the vampire theater in Paris. Vampires can also be destroyed when exposed to sunlight for a long period of time; such was the fate of Madeline and Claudia. These methods tend to work with the vampires of the other books as well, but these vampires have fewer weaknesses.

The vampires of this novel are somewhat similar in their characteristics to other books. They have enhanced sight and hearing. They are much stronger than humans, which probably works to their advantage so they can overcome their natural prey. The personalities differ from vampire to vampire as much as personalities differ between humans. Interview with the Vampire is dissimilar to the other books because it is told from the point of view of the vampire which, therefore, gives a different take on the life of a vampire.

From a casual reading standpoint, I thought that Interview with the Vampire was a great book. At the library, when I read the first few pages I found it difficult to put down. I only planned to read it there for a few minutes but those minutes quickly turned into about an hour. I would definitely recommend it to anyone mildly interested in vampires or just looking for something different to read.

Differing Dispositions

The vampires of Interview With the Vampire all have different personalities. Not every vampire is alike. Louis and Lestat are complete opposites. Lestat insists in living in luxury and enjoys toying with his prey before he kills them. Louis is very quiet, cultured, and doesn’t like killing more than he has to. Claudia is almost a combination of both Lestat and Louis because she was too young when she was changed to remember much of her human life. She enjoys killing but also spends a lot of time reading and learning.

When Louis and Claudia go to Europe, they search the central part of the continent for others like them. They find isolated villages whose people are very convinced that vampires exist and are attacking their village. Claudia and Louis look for the vampires and find them…but they are very different. These vampires of central Europe have an insatiable thirst. Blood is all they think about. They have no mind and attack whoever comes near them, human or vampire.

Eventually they end up in Paris and they stay in a hotel there. One night while wandering the streets and back alleys of the city, Louis realizes that there is someone following him. The man mimics him exactly but overpowers him. The next night he receives an invitation to the Théâtre des Vampires where he and Claudia see people scared out of their mind on stage by vampires. They later go backstage where the “actors” stay and talk to the vampires.

One of the vampires, Armand, is the sort of teacher that Louis would have liked to have had instead of Lestat. Louis and Armand feel very attached to each other. The vampire who invited them, Santiago, is very suspicious of Claudia and Louis because they refuse to talk about who made them. The female vampires adore Claudia as if she were the young girl that she looks like. Claudia notices that they are very into fads and conformity. All of the vampires are different from each other; none of them are alike.

This is different from the other books. In Dracula and I Am Legend, the vampires are all very similar. In these books, all of the vampires are blood thirsty monsters who are not at all concerned with the people around them. However, in this book, all of the vampires have different, more human, personalities.

Going for the Kill

In the beginning, Lestat tells Louis that vampires are extremely difficult to kill. This would be especially true in this novel because both crosses and stakes are ineffective. However, Lestat does not tell Louis how vampires can be killed; most likely for fear that this information may eventually be used against him.

In the blog before last, I mentioned that Louis nearly kills a young girl, Claudia, from thirst. Later on, Lestat and Louis find her in an orphanage. Lestat decides that he wants a daughter and he transforms Claudia into a vampire. The three vampires live together for many years and Claudia, being bitten when she was about five years old, only grows up in mind and not in body. Claudia becomes close to both Lestat, for his feeding techniques, and Louis, for his intelligent, cultured mind.

After many years, Claudia talks to Louis about Lestat. She feels that Lestat is keeping them like slaves. She becomes insistent of killing Lestat. Louis protests because he doesn’t believe that she is capable of killing him. One night, Lestat comes home to find that there are two seven-year-old boys sleeping on the floor. Claudia tells him that she got them drunk on brandy; one for each of them. Lestat is very pleased and she watches as he drinks from one of the boys. Eventually he realizes, too late, that Claudia poisoned the boys and, therefore she has poisoned him. Then Claudia slashes Lestat’s throat and sinks the knife into his chest.

Louis and Claudia watch as Lestat “ceased to move. He lay now on his back. And his entire body was shriveling, drying up, the skin thick and wrinkled, and so white that all the tiny veins showed through it” (137). Lestat seems to be dead. Louis and Claudia wrap the body in a sheet and dump it in the swamp.

They then make plans to travel to Europe to search for other vampires. A few days before they leave, a young boy, who was a friend of Lestat, comes by to ask where he went. Louis lies, saying that Lestat is away on business and that he left him money. Louis also notices puncture wounds on the boy’s neck. The boy leaves and Claudia and Louis debate what exactly happened.

The night before they leave for Europe, Claudia tells Lestat that the boy followed her home. They look out the window and the boy is across the street with Lestat.

So, the vampires of this text are not at all easy to kill. Claudia poisoned Lestat and stabbed him. He appeared to be very much dead. However, he came back. If they can’t be killed that way, how does this book propose that they are killed?

Going for the Kill

In the beginning, Lestat tells Louis that vampires are extremely difficult to kill. This would be especially true in this novel because both crosses and stakes are ineffective. However, Lestat does not tell Louis how vampires can be killed; most likely for fear that this information may eventually be used against him.

In the blog before last, I mentioned that Louis nearly kills a young girl, Claudia, from thirst. Later on, Lestat and Louis find her in an orphanage. Lestat decides that he wants a daughter and he transforms Claudia into a vampire. The three vampires live together for many years and Claudia, being bitten when she was about five years old, only grows up in mind and not in body. Claudia becomes close to both Lestat, for his feeding techniques, and Louis, for his intelligent, cultured mind.

After many years, Claudia talks to Louis about Lestat. She feels that Lestat is keeping them like slaves. She becomes insistent of killing Lestat. Louis protests because he doesn’t believe that she is capable of killing him. One night, Lestat comes home to find that there are two seven-year-old boys sleeping on the floor. Claudia tells him that she got them drunk on brandy; one for each of them. Lestat is very pleased and she watches as he drinks from one of the boys. Eventually he realizes, too late, that Claudia poisoned the boys and, therefore she has poisoned him. Then Claudia slashes Lestat’s throat and sinks the knife into his chest.

Louis and Claudia watch as Lestat “ceased to move. He lay now on his back. And his entire body was shriveling, drying up, the skin thick and wrinkled, and so white that all the tiny veins showed through it” (137). Lestat seems to be dead. Louis and Claudia wrap the body in a sheet and dump it in the swamp.

They then make plans to travel to Europe to search for other vampires. A few days before they leave, a young boy, who was a friend of Lestat, comes by to ask where he went. Louis lies, saying that Lestat is away on business and that he left him money. Louis also notices puncture wounds on the boy’s neck. The boy leaves and Claudia and Louis debate what exactly happened.

The night before they leave for Europe, Claudia tells Lestat that the boy followed her home. They look out the window and the boy is across the street with Lestat.
So, the vampires of this text are not at all easy to kill. Claudia poisoned Lestat and stabbed him. He appeared to be very much dead. However, he came back. If they can’t be killed that way, how does this book propose that they are killed?

Warm and Cold Blood

I’ve read more than one vampire novel in which the vampires can survive by feeding on animal blood. I have noticed that when this happens, they drink the blood of animals like bears, deer, and rats but never any reptiles or fish. Just yesterday I started to wonder why that is.

After a little thought, I realized that these animals are warm-blooded mammals and the others are cold-blooded. From elementary science classes, I remember that cold-blooded animals will sleep or be otherwise inactive if their environment is too cold. Warm-blooded animals have to eat more to produce a constant, higher body temperature in order to counteract against the environment. From this information, I have developed a few theories as to why vampires would choose warm-blooded animals over cold-blooded ones.

One possibility is the activity of the different animals. Reptiles and fish aren’t always active; their liveliness depends on the temperature of their surroundings. Mammals, however, will generally always have the same level of activeness, independent of fluctuations of outer temperature. One could say that vampires live off the life of other creatures. Because mammals have a higher level of “liveliness” (best word I could think of) they would make better food for vampires.

Another possibility relates more to evolution than to the warm/cold-blooded issue. Humans are naturally related more closely to other mammals than to lizards or fish. Vampires may be created to feed off of humans, but bears, deer, etc. are adequate substitutes because they are closer on the tree of evolution than, say, an iguana. One could compare it to vegetarians and tofu (tofu isn’t related to meat, but it’s on the same idea).

The pictures above are examples to help show the difference between hot and cold blooded animals. The colors in the pictures signify differences in temperatures. Higher temperatures are yellow to white while cooler temperatures are more towards purple. The gecko on the human hand is cold-blooded and therefore, the same temperature as the background. In the other picture, it is easy to see that the child is much warmer than his surroundings.

Source:
http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/image_galleries/ir_zoo/coldwarm.html

Animal Fare

Generally when people think of vampires, they think of creatures that feed off of the blood of humans. However, there is a side expressed in “Interview with a Vampire” that isn’t seen in the older books. Are vampires able to survive off of animal blood? According to Louis, they can.

When he first became a vampire, Louis was uncomfortable with living off of the lives of others. After a while, Lestat is looking at some of the beautiful drinking glasses on the plantation and reflecting on how he misses them. Then he shows Louis “a little trick” (32). Lestat finds a rat, cuts its throat and “filled the glass rapidly with blood” (33). While sipping the blood from the crystal, he tells Louis that in certain places, like ships, he may have to live off rats and other animals.

Reluctant to kill people, Louis sees another option here. He begins to drink the blood of animals instead of that of humans. However, not too long later (for a vampire, anyway) he starts to wander the streets of New Orleans thinking about where vampires came from. Were they the devil’s servants? This question bothered him and he forgot how hungry he was. Then he came upon a young girl, crying by her mother’s bed. Her mother had died and she didn’t realize it. Hunger overcame Louis and he left the girl nearly dead.

Is it possible for a vampire to solely survive off of the blood of animals? I have recently read another vampire novel called “Twilight”. This series of novels is about a teenager named Bella who falls in love with Edward, a vampire. Edward and his family of vampires are very different from others of their kind because they can establish permanent settlements among humans. They are able to do this because they only kill animals. In the older novels I’ve studied, this doesn’t even appear to occur to the vampires. They are nearly obsessed with human victims. Modern-day vampires seem to have more of a conscience than the ones from books such as “Dracula”.

Through the Eyes of a Vampire

The books I’ve read all have their own descriptions of a vampire’s strengths. However, I found the description in “Interview with the Vampire” to be much more in depth and interesting. This is most likely because, unlike many other novels, the entire story is told from a vampire’s point of view.

When Louis wakes up after dying (as a human, anyway) he is awakened as a vampire immediately. He feels detachment from human emotions. Louis also sees things in a new way. As a vampire, all details and colors seem more vivid and alive. All sights and sounds have new details and he says the experience was “as if I had only just been able to see colors and shapes for the first time” (21). Lestat pays very little attention as Louis makes this transformation. In the weeks and months following, Lestat tells him that there is much that he doesn’t know and that only he can tell him, but Louis suspects this is only to keep him from leaving.

Compared to other novels I’ve read, the vampires in “Interview with the Vampire” have many fewer weaknesses. Louis mentions Lestat gave his father a rosary and the boy asks about crosses (because rosaries have crosses). Louis tells the boy that this rumor is “sheer nonsense” (23). He then goes on to say that stakes have no effect and that they aren’t able to go through keyholes by turning into steam. The vampires of this story have “no magical powers whatsoever” (24). However, they are unable to go into the sunlight like most traditional vampires. Just as a note of interest, they also sleep in coffins. Louis and Lestat have to drink blood every night to survive.

The vampires of this book are quite different from those in other book. They are monsters in the sense that they kill people and have to do so to survive. However, they are capable of interacting with humans and having intelligent conversations. These vampires aren’t mindless monsters whose sole purpose is to scare people and kill them. They live like people but on a different diet and time schedule. Maybe they just seem different because they are the ones telling the story and not mortals.

Tale of a Transformation

Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire is about a boy who is interviewing a vampire, Louis. The interviewer is only called boy and the reader knows nothing about him except that he is recording the interview on cassette tapes and that he is apparently not a vampire. The boy is listening intently as Louis tells him his life story, which, as one can imagine, goes back a very long time.

Louis was born in Paris and his family moved to New Orleans when he was quite young, but his story really starts when he was 25 (in 1791). At this time, Louis was moderately wealthy and living on a plantation with his brother, sister, and mother. His brother was religious and Louis encouraged his brother to follow what he loved. One night, however, he tells Louis that he had visions and they get into an argument. His brother walks out of the room and falls down the stairs and dies.

Louis feels guilty and, unable to cope with the loss, starts to roam the New Orleans streets after dark. Wanting to die, he nearly gets his wish when a vampire, Lestat, feeds off him until he is almost dead. Back at the plantation, Louis lays down while he confesses to his sister and a priest about the argument he had. When the others fall asleep, Lestat comes into the room and offers Louis immortality as a vampire in exchange for the plantation.

A few nights later, after all the necessary financial happenings were arranged, Lestat changes Louis into a vampire. Before proceeding, he tells Louis to “Be still. I am going to drain you now to the very threshold of death, and I want you to be quiet… It is your consciousness, your will, which must keep you alive” (19). With Louis weakened, Lestat bites his own wrist and has Louis drink from the wound. As Louis drinks he hears the pounding of two drums and when Lestat takes his wrist away, he realizes that it was the beating of their hearts. Lestat then sends him out to rid his body of waste as the human part of him dies and the vampire takes hold.

This is the type of transformation that I find is typical of most vampire novels. In Dracula, Dracula forces Mina to drink from him after he drank from her multiple times. Here, Lestat has Louis drink from him as part of the conversion. It doesn’t necessarily seem to be the bite alone that causes the change in many of the books I’ve read, but the exchange of blood.

Legend vs. Legend

After reading “I Am Legend”, I have noted many differences between the vampires in this book and the vampires of “Dracula”. Besides the obvious distinction of the transformation which I have already discussed as it is what makes “I Am Legend” controversial as to if it is a vampire story, there are other prominent differences as well.

The strengths of the vampires are slightly different. Dracula is very powerful; he is strong, can transform into various animals, etc. The vampires in “I Am Legend” have considerable physical strength, but that seems to be their only real advantage when hunting. Also, their strength doesn’t come from the bacteria as much as their minds telling them that as a vampire they are supposed to be strong.

Both vampires have more or less the same weaknesses. Dracula and the infected cannot stand garlic, crosses, mirrors, daylight, and the like. However, they suffer when faced with these objects for different reasons. Dracula can’t tolerate these objects because he is a supernatural being with certain limits. The infected of “I Am Legend” fear these objects (for the most part) from a psychological standpoint. They believe that they are vampires like Dracula and they will die if they come into contact with garlic or a cross.

There is an odd situation concerning the personalities of the vampires and their desire for blood. Dracula, as we know, is a cruel bloodthirsty monster willing to do whatever it takes to feed. The infected that are dead are the same way. However, the living infected are not in any way similar in personality to these two examples. They are able to live with the virus and they don’t need blood because they realize that they aren’t truly vampires in the sense that Dracula is.

Both vampires are killed in the same way as well. Dracula-type vampires can be killed with a stake through the heart or other very serious injury. The vampires in “I Am Legend” can be killed in this way, but Neville gives a scientific reason for why it works. The bacteria in the host can live with or without air. When they live without air, as it normally does, it causes the vampire-like behavior in the host. On the other hand when it lives with air, as it has to when a deep cut is made, it becomes parasitic and “it eats the host” (134).

I thought that “I Am Legend” was a very good book. The movie twisted most of the story, but it was also acceptable for entertainment purposes. It wasn’t quite the best pick for vampire information, but it was good to see a 1950’s view of vampires. For them, vampires were still scary, still a force to be reckoned with. I cannot wait to see what differences may lie in Anne Rice’s “Interview with the Vampire”.

Legendary Characteristics...or are they?

The personalities of the vampires that Neville originally knew can be compared to those of Stoker’s Dracula. These vampires are obsessed with blood. Every night, they try to coax Neville out of his house so they can feed. The female vampires make obscene sexual gestures to try to tempt him, like the female vampires in Stoker’s novel. However, there is more to the vampire infections than at first met the eye.

Unknown to Neville, there were many people who were infected with the virus, but did not show signs of the vampire infection. This is similar to when someone is a carrier of a genetic disease: the person has a gene for it, but they only show certain, less threatening, signs of the illness. Neville has been killing these people while they were asleep without knowing about this information. Many of these people have flocked together to start society again. They live their lives as they would have without the bacteria. This is completely different from the vampires of Dracula. These semi-vampires are able to live out life like they were really living, compared to Dracula whose life was consumed by what he had become.

Bacillus Vampiris

The cause of vampirism in this book is drastically different than that of other vampire books that I have read. In “I am Legend”, vampires are created when humans are infected with bacteria. Neville manages to train himself in the uses of microscopes and other scientific instruments. When he discovers that there really are bacteria in vampire blood, the dubs the bacteria bacillus vampiris.

Neville conducts experiments in order to try to understand the nature of this bacteria and how it works. He learns that when “conditions became unfavorable for life” (76), bacilli can create spores from themselves. These spores are possibly carried, by some means, to where the bacteria can thrive again. Then the spores become like the original bacteria. With this information, Neville realizes that the dust storms that frequently occurred must have been how vampirism spread so quickly. The dust storms must have carried the spores from the comatose vampires and infected other people.

As stated earlier, this method is completely unlike that of most other novels. Other novels, generally, have a vampire transformation when a human is bitten by a vampire. This process is what makes this book more science-fiction than fantasy and creates the thought, especially with the release of the movie, that this cannot possibly be a book about vampires.

The Infected

It may seem that the book is more about a virus than it is about vampires; however, I believe this interpretation stems from the recent film adaptation of the novel. While Neville does study the bacteria (not a virus…there’s a difference), he goes out during the day and kills infected people before they kill him. Considering that Neville treats the infected people as if they were vampires and not people suffering from a disease, I see no reason why this book cannot be used for my topic.

The people infected with the vampire bacteria exhibit symptoms similar to the vampires in Dracula. They show the same weaknesses: daylight, garlic, mirrors, crosses. Neville tries to make sense out of the symptoms and how they can all be related to the bacteria, but finds he has difficulty with some of them. He finds that the crosses are psychological and that, when held up to a vampire that was Jewish, it sometimes has no effect. However, when the same vampire is faced with a torah, they will have an adverse reaction. As time goes on, Neville discovers that many of the vampires’ weaknesses were derived from the mass panic that occurred as the virus spread. There was religious hysteria as people flocked to churches in order to try to save themselves from what appeared to be impending doom. The method in which he kills these people is like that of Dracula, with a stake through the heart. Every night, vampires come in droves to Neville’s home to try to coax him out for his blood.

The vampires portrayed in the novel are different from the movie counterparts. These vampires can speak and appear to retain memories from when they were human. One of the vampires that frequents Neville’s house constantly calls him by name because they were friends when he was human. I feel that there is more to what has happened than Neville knows about. There is something important that he doesn’t know (different from the movie!)