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!)

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