Differences of the Legends

Over the Christmas break I made one of my infrequent trips to the movie theater to see the film version of “I Am Legend”. The movie, in which Will Smith stars as Robert Neville, was good, but extremely different from the book. The basic idea of both is the same: last man on Earth tries to survive the vampire-infested nights. However, that is generally where the similarities end.

There are so many differences between the two that it is hard to know where to begin. The book takes place in the mid-1970s, but the movie takes place in 2009. This change makes sense because 2009 is the near future for today’s audience while the seventies was the future when “I am Legend” was originally published. In the movie, Neville is a soldier/scientist in the army who conducted research when the virus was first discovered and after everyone else is dead. Matheson’s version mentions that Neville was in a war long before the virus broke out, but that isn’t a crucial part of the storyline.

The film version depicts Neville as living in New York with his dog and there is a lot of emphasis on his life during the day. According to the movie, every day he goes out with his dog hunts animals, waits for any possible survivors, and talks to mannequins he has set up around the city to make life a bit more normal for him. The Robert Neville of the novel lives in California and scavenges stores for food and kills whatever vampires and infected people he can during the day. Neville found a dog and kept it for a week before it died of the viral infection.

Though I haven’t quite finished the book yet, I am not worried about the movie having spoiled the ending because the book and the movie are so different. I suspect many other differences; however, I believe it would be best to finish the book before stating what I think was also altered for the film.

Beginning of a Legend

Richard Matheson’s I am Legend is about a man named Richard Neville who appears to be the only living survivor of a virus which has wiped out the rest of the world’s human population. During daylight hours he performs various tasks such as finding food and repairing his house, while at night he tries to survive being attacked by the vampires that the virus created. His wife and child killed by the virus, Neville is left alone and, for the first few months, resorts to loud classical music and excessive amounts of liquor to drown out the nightly sounds of vampires trying to make him leave the safety of his house.

The weaknesses of the vampires in this book aren’t overly different from those of Dracula. They fear crosses and cannot stand garlic. The vampires can only come out while the sun is down and go into hiding during the day. They also appear to fear mirrors. These vampires constantly taunt Neville in attempt to make him leave his house so they can drink his blood.

Neville tries to understand what has happened in the world and researches the virus in order to try to understand the disaster that has befallen the world.

Bark and Bite

In an earlier post, I mentioned that there is some strange relationship between vampires and wolves. I wasn’t exactly sure what that was, although I did vaguely recall a book that mentioned it. Going back through almost every vampire book I’ve read, I finally remembered which book series it was and came up with a possible connection (after looking up old wolf legends).

The series that made reference to the vampire-wolf connection was called Cirque du Freak. I unfortunately could not recall which book in the series it was, but I remember enough detail as to what was said. The series is about a boy named Darren Shan who, after a stolen spider nearly kills his best friend, is forced to become a vampire’s apprentice as a half-vampire. At one point, Darren and the vampire come upon a pack of wolves that protect and befriend them. When Darren asks why they act this way, his mentor replies that wolves and vampires are cousins.

I also looked up some wolf legends that would possibly support this claim. In most wolf myths, wolves are depicted as evil creatures, usually associated with the devil. This comes up in almost all myths and even childhood fairy tales, like Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs. The vampires generally described in novels are also evil and allied with hell. This would definitely relate the two beings.

However, this brings up another question: why are vampires and werewolves usually shown as mortal enemies? In movies such as Underworld and Van Helsing, werewolves and vampires are complete enemies who cannot stand each other. A possible explanation for this is that they compete for prey and control of the night. Maybe because they are both not quite human, but are able to take human form that causes their rivalry. They both can’t walk among normal people unnoticed – eventually too many people would die and that would arouse suspicion. Neither side wants to be found out so they want, or need, to annihilate the other.

Source: http://www.wolfcountry.net/stories/#myth

The Real Dracula

The Dracula of Bram Stoker’s novel could possibly have been based on a real person. Vlad Dracula (also known as Vlad the Impaler, and Vlad III among other names) was born in Transylvania in 1431. His father, Vlad Dracul (or Vlad II), was a member of a group called the “Order of the Dragon” which defended Christianity and the empire against the Islamic Turks. The name “Dracul” in Romanian literally means “dragon”; however, in the time period a dragon was about the same as a devil. The “a” in Dracula means “son of”; so Dracula was the son of the devil.

Vlad II was king of Wallachia, a region that is part of modern-day Romania. Dracula grew up in this region. Later in life, his father betrayed the order and sided with the Turks. In order to ensure his loyalty, the Turkish sultan took his two sons, Dracula and his brother Radu, captive. In 1447, Dracul was assassinated by one of his relatives who disagreed with his betrayal and his two sons were released.

While Dracula was imprisoned, his hatred of the Turks grew and he wanted revenge. In 1456, Dracula managed to kill his father’s murderer and the current ruler of Wallachia and he claimed the throne as his own. He tricked all of the families related to the ex-ruler into coming to an Easter banquet and had them arrested. Those who were in good health were made into slaves and were put to work building his castle (many of them died). The rest were publicly impaled.

Dracula was a harsh ruler, but he did so to ensure order in his land. He hated weakness, so one day he invited all of the lazy, sick, handicapped, and poor to a banquet. Once they ate, he asked if they would like to never be hungry or have to care about anything again. They all agreed and Dracula had his men lock them in the hall. The hall was then set on fire; no one managed to get out alive. There were many rumors that he ate the flesh of his victims, but this is unconfirmed. No one ever disobeyed his laws for fear of impalement or torture.

Vlad the Impaler was not a real vampire, but there are indeed some similarities to the character in Stoker’s book. Dracula really was from Transylvania. Both thoroughly enjoyed killing people. Whether Vlad III actually drank the blood of his victims isn’t known, but he certainly enjoyed watching bloodshed. They both did have castles; the one belonging to Vlad III is in ruins. However, Stoker didn’t quite put his castle in the right place. According to Stoker, Dracula’s castle is in the Borgo Pass. While there is a Borgo Pass that fits his description, there is no castle anywhere near that location. Stoker’s castle (Bran Castle) is near Bran and Brasov, Romania (click wikipedia link for pictures). On one of the source sites is a bigger list of myths and facts about the two Draculas.

Sources:

http://www.vladtheimpaler.com/vlad_the_impaler_bio_001.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bran_Castle

Show on History Channel (cannot remember name)

Fatal Finale

The last chapters of Dracula pass rather quickly as Van Helsing, Seward, Morris, and the Harkers search for Dracula and eventually destroy him in order to keep other innocent people from harm as well as to help Mina avoid a dreadful fate.

Throughout the book, Dracula is described as the stereotypical vampire that one generally sees around Halloween. As a vampire, Dracula has a ridiculous amount of power that he uses to overtake his victims and accomplish his goals. He is able to turn into mist or small particles of dust so he can go where he chooses for the most part unnoticed. Dracula can “within his range, direct the elements; the storm, the fog, the thunder” (261). The vampire is able to control the nocturnal “meaner creatures” such as owls, moths, rats, bats, and wolves. One of the passages from an earlier blog entry describes how Dracula has the ability to transform into a dog. Later the reader is able to discern that he is also able to change into a bat, like most people believe a vampire can.

No matter how strong vampires are, they always have weaknesses that lead to their eventual downfall. They are only powerful when the sun is down; sunrise comes and they are weakened, hence, why they usually sleep in the daytime. Dracula “may not enter anywhere…unless there be some one of the household who bid him to come” (264). Vampires cannot cross water unless carried across it somehow (like by sailing in a boat). He has to sleep somewhere that has a connection to his home. In the novel, Dracula keeps boxes of Transylvanian earth in multiple locations around London so he can sleep soundly. Then there are the more obvious limitations such as garlic and holy objects.

Stoker describes Dracula as a bloodthirsty animal, without human emotions (except for rage, fear and the like). With sharp teeth, unimaginable strength, and an insatiable thirst for blood, vampires are monsters that should be feared, according to Stoker.

An Enigmatic Description

After Jonathan’s diary entries in the beginning of the book, there is very little to show the reader what a vampire’s personality is like. Dracula turns Lucy into a vampire and a newspaper excerpt reveals that a woman, who the reader infers to be Lucy, has been seen by many children in the middle of the night. Known as the “Bloofer Lady”, Lucy’s corpse takes children into the graveyard where they are found later with small wounds on their necks. Van Helsing, Arthur Holmwood (Lucy’s fiancé), and Quincey Morris (who had asked for Lucy’s hand but was turned down) went to the cemetery one night and they see her holding a young child. Lucy’s “sweetness was turned to adamantine, heartless cruelty” (231).
Later on, Renfield, a patient at Seward’s mental institution, is severely beaten; his back is broken and he suffers severe injuries to his head. Renfield admits to letting Dracula inside in the past because he promised to give him the animals he desired. However, Renfield had noticed Mina’s recent weakness, and, believing it was the Count’s fault, he attempted to stop him from entering through the window.
Seward, Van Helsing, and Morris rush up to Mina and Jonathan’s room and break the door down. They find Jonathan cowering in fear on the bed as Dracula holds Mina’s face to his chest, forcing her to drink his blood. This incident had “a terrible resemblance to a child forcing a kitten’s nose into a saucer of milk to compel it to drink” (311).
Through these events, the reader can see that in Dracula, vampires are portrayed as ruthless beings. Lucy, who had been so caring in life, was transformed into heartless monster. When Dracula is unable to get his way, he nearly kills whoever is trying to stop him. Stoker doesn’t go much further than this in his descriptions of his vampires. The mystery behind these creatures makes it seem as if they were only meant to be beasts and nothing more. Stoker makes it clear what Dracula the vampire wants, but not what the Dracula with possible feelings and emotions wants.

Death of the Undead

There seem to be as many different ways to kill a vampire as there are vampire stories.

In Dracula, Lucy becomes a vampire. Through a newspaper article, Dr. Van Helsing figures out that she is hurting young children. He takes Dr. Seward to the cemetery where she is buried to keep watch. At one point they open her coffin to find her body missing. Seward, who doesn’t believe Van Helsing, suggests that her body has been taken by grave robbers. They return the next afternoon to find Lucy in her coffin, lips deep red and cheeks rosy as if she were still alive, but sleeping. Van Helsing says that to kill her they must “cut off her head and fill her mouth with garlic, and ... drive a stake through her body” (221).

Other books, movies, and TV series claim there are other methods to killing vampires. In “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” as well as many movies, the only way to kill a vampire is to drive a stake through its heart. There is an old myth that I’ve heard that says that if you decapitate a vampire and throw its head in a fast-moving river, the river will trap the vampire’s spirit, thereby killing it. Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight argues that the only way to be sure a vampire is dead is to tear the body into small pieces and then scatter the remains. There are other books and many movies that portray vampires as slightly more human, dying only from serious injury (serious being more serious than a normal human being, but not to the point where they have to have their heads severed from their bodies).

Though there are differences in the techniques to vampire slaying there is one thing that they generally have in common. Most killings involve severe mutilation of the vampire’s body.