Journal of Dracula Studies 14 (2012)
[Dr. Janet
Goodall is a Research Fellow at the Institute
of Education , University of Warwick
[Dr Emyr Williams is a Lecturer of Psychology atGlyndwr University
[Dr Emyr Williams is a Lecturer of Psychology at
It would be difficult to speak about
contemporary views of vampires without considering the effect of Meyer’s Twilight saga. The story moved swiftly
from print to film, so the black covers of the original books are almost as
familiar a sight as the soulful gaze of perhaps the most sincere vampire in the
literature. Edward Cullen looks out at us from a million movie posters and a
hundred thousand ads. Blockbuster
vampires are, of course, not a new phenomenon; they’ve been with us at least
since the rise of Anne Rice’s characters, not to mention the string of 1950s
Hammer Horror films. However, with Mr. Cullen and family, Meyer offers
something new to the genre.
Throughout this progression, the image of
the vampire has undergone a more or less subtle transformation in its
representation, as others have pointed out (Hjelm; Ramsland).
Hjelm’s notion of the shifting paradigms of vampirism within film is
apt. For Hjelm, the old paradigm is
reflective of vampires as demonic, motivated by malevolence and desire. For example, the original film vampire, Max
Schreck’s Nosferatu, (a name which means, significantly, “living corpse”) had
nothing whatsoever about him to attract the viewer; he may have had a certain
fascination, but it was the fascination of horror; one would not have been
tempted to share a quiet evening with him.
He was foreign, totally other.
Human only in form, he could never be mistaken for anything other than
the dangerous monsteri he was.
In comparison, the new paradigm sees vampires as motivated by survival
and power, and represented as sexualized and sexual creatures.ii
This, of course, accords with the early
folk beliefs about vampires; at times little more than vaguely animate sacks of
blood, they were monstrous of essence.
They generally sought no refuge among human society, polite or otherwise
(although there were some folkloric exceptions) (D. Keyworth). Indeed early folk-lore would tell that
vampires were the reanimated corpses of the ‘other’ in society – of sinners,
the unbaptized, heathens, prostitutes,
black magicians, suicides, or
people whose corpses had been in contact with various animals (Miller A Dracula
Handbook; Spence;
Johnson).
More unfortunate, however, are those babies who were believed to become
vampires because a cat (a symbol of evil) had jumped over their cot (Holte).
However, there was still something that set vampires apart from the
“normal” run of humanity, an example of the sociological phenomena known as
“othering” (Canales).
By the Victorian era this image had changed
enough that a serial penny dreadful
about an aristocratic vampire could run for two years, until Varney did the
noble thing and took his own life.[1]
And the best known Victorian vampire could move among humans with relative
ease, often not even restricted to the hours of darkness (Stoker).
But still, there was no question that these
were, quite literally, the dead walking. The pallor, the unease engendered in
those around them, and in Dracula’s case, the need to rest in the soil of his
homeland, and above all, the need to take human blood to survive are all
markers of the undead. Vampires in both the folkloric view (Caciola) and most modern representations remain
just this – animate corpses (Greer).
Stith Thompson’s motif index includes being a corpse as one of the
defining features of being a vampire (Miller "The Question
of Immortality: Vampires, Count Dracula, and Vlad the Impaler").
There are differences about what that
animating factor might be: a demon (Buffy and some older traditions (Johnson)), the personality and/or soul of the original human (Saberhagen and
Angel in Buffy, and many others) (Ramsland), but the point remains that the vampire is
marked out as other, and has not relinquished his (or her) connection with the
grave. Sunlight has caused the demise of countless TV and movie vampires,
emphasizing the connection between vampires and all that is dark, hidden and
evil. Even if they are able to withstand
the rays of the sun, they tend to prefer the dark.
Other characteristics, of course, link
vampires to death. In the Buffyverse[2],
vampires, when about to act as vampires, “vamp out”; their faces change and
mutate, showing their lack of humanity and perhaps suggesting the changes in
the body after death[3].
Yet, in Edward Cullen and his ilk, we find
vampires who avoid the light not because they are creatures of the dark, but
because they sparkle; sunlight reflects off skin which bears more than a visual
resemblance to alabaster. They are,
quite literally, brilliant in the sun.
This completely changes the import of the vampire’s avoidance of the
sun. No longer is it a retreat to the umbra of the grave; now it is a way of
hiding just how beautifully their skin reacts to the sun.
Other vampires have been “day walkers”;
Stoker’s Dracula showed little aversion to the sun; Blade used medical aids to
be able to endure the sun; the ability to rise during the hours of daylight is
a sign of increasing power in Hamilton’s universe (L. Hamilton).
However, what is new with the Cullens is not the ability to be in the
sun, but their reason for avoiding it; they are not reanimated corpses. The
paradigm has changed.
With Edward and his family, the vampire
literature finally breaks through what Kuhn characterized as a paradigm
boundary (Kuhn); the underlying structure of “that which
is a vampire” has stretched so far that it is our contention it has
broken. Although the name is the same
(just as we can speak of the same cosmos as the pre-Copernican astronomers), we
are in fact talking about something which is conceptually a new thing. Vampires
have been undergoing a nearly systematic “humanization”, from monster to
misunderstood superior being, for forty years (Carter);
with Edward Cullen, the last barrier to being human – death – is
removed.
With the new explanation for vampires’
sun-avoidance, Meyers has severed the last link with the grave; it may be
significant that Edward did not actually die; his conversion to a new type of
life happened to prevent that very eventuality, and clearly this is not unusual
(CF Bella begs to be made a vampire in the early books, but is still depicted
as fearing death. When Bella does
eventually become a vampire in Breaking
Dawn (Meyer et al.), it is not through the usual means of
either some predisposition (as per folklore) or attack by another vampire;
rather, she is injected with vampire “venom” by Edward in a quasi-medical
procedure to save her life. Here, the
paradigm has completely broken – no longer is the state of being a vampire the
state of death, now it has become a means of prolonging (indefinitely) life.iii
This in turn is an interesting departure
from the Anne Rice novels, in which the one defining aspect of the narrative
concerns the process of ‘siring’, or the process through which one vampire
transforms a mortal being into an immortal being. Although it may be said that part of the definition
of a vampire is an inability to
experience death (Holte), this is generally understood in relation
to death not being, for vampires, the final act it is for other humans; the
immortality they might be said to experience (Miller "The
Question of Immortality: Vampires, Count Dracula, and Vlad the
Impaler") arises from experiencing death and
continuing in physical existence, rather than in avoiding it altogether. The vampire of even most current lore and
media, as well as historical belief, was one who “achieved eternal life without
the attainment of spiritual perfection or salvation,” they have, significantly, “conquered death” (Bunson, 263), they have not avoided it.
A paradigm shifts when previous
explanations – or understandings – can no longer be stretched to include new
information. As long as new information
can be accommodated within the old explanations, the paradigm holds, although
it may be increasingly tenuous, and more and more tweaking of the model is
required to accommodate new knowledge. Eventually, however, the model is no
longer fit for purpose; it no longer functions as a realistic explanation of
the data to which it relates. In terms
of the vampire, this change, this shift in the paradigm may be timely. Bunson holds that the fascination of the
vampire is rooted in our fear of death, among other things, but it has become
the “reflection of the contemporary society’s morbid preoccupation with aging
and death” (Bunson, 263). The works of Ramsland (2002), Guiley
(1991), Russo (2005), Dresser (1989), Konstantinos (1996) and Keyworth (2002)
demonstrate the importance of the old paradigm to the lives of vampire
enthusiast across the world. For these vampire enthusiasts, the old paradigm
speaks to the darker side of existence, to the grandeur and splendour of times
past, and of the elegance of desire. The
modern paradigm, however, speaks of a more naive audience, perhaps described as
“wannabes”, who do not yet fully appreciate the intricacies of life and the
complex nature of existence. Meyer’s
vampires are truly undead in that many of them do not experience death – they
are not reanimated corpses, because they have never known the grave. The distance between the old paradigm,
favoured by the subculture, and the new paradigm, favoured by modern culture,
could result in a greater degree of commitment being shown by those affiliated
with the old paradigm. The potential is
for an implicit religiosity to be formed with greater strength in light of the
new paradigms.
What Meyer has created is a vampire who is
no longer a monster, but instead has the characteristics of a superhero (Greer), particularly a 21st century
superhero who has a dark side (Batman), weaknesses (Hancock) or is frankly not
super at all (Ironman). Edward Cullen
and his family demonstrate all the typical characteristics of the superhero:
more than human strength, speed, endurance, life span, as well as a concern and
care for the innocent (Heer and Worcester).
What Meyer has left is a vampire who earns
the title simply by a need to ingest blood – mammalian blood, perhaps, but
still, this is the only characteristic that allows these creatures to be called
vampires. While others have suggested that this is the defining mark of the
vampire, this was only in relation to their description in one place and time (G. D. Keyworth).
The Cullens do not need to rest during the day (if at all), they do not
fear the sun other than for the risk of exposure it presents, they are unable
to shift shapes, and they cannot even be accurately described as “the living
dead,” as many of them have never experienced death.
We are not arguing that a new term is
needed for these creatures; they are clearly still vampires. Rather, we argue that the paradigm that has
bounded the edges of what it means to be “vampire” has changed enough that it
needs to be re-formed. Now, the defining
marks of being a vampire are simply a need to ingest blood, and a certain
propensity to live forever. This is a
change from the previous understandings of “what it is to be vampire.”
Works Cited
_________________________________
iEven in an
age where vampires seem to be everywhere in our media, we may take some comfort
in the definition of “monster” offered by Greer: “a strange and frightening
being whose existence is doubted by most or all of the currently accepted
scientific authorities” John Michael Greer, Monsters: An
Investigator's Guide to Magical Beings (Body, Mind & Spirit, 2001). (pg. 8)
iiFor all that
the romance between Edward and Bella may have overtones – at least – of the
abstinence/chastity agenda, the only reason this works is because the tension
between them is sexual in nature – there would have been no need to urge most
young girls to abstinence in relation to Schreck’s monster.
iiiThis theme is
also part of the idea behind the Church
of Eternal Life
[1] One assumes that his leap
into an active volcano – his own version of the Reichenback Falls
[2] “Buffyverse” is a term used
for the mythical but generally consistent world inhabited by the characters in
the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series A.
Bradney, "The Politics and Ethics of Researching the Buffyverse," Slayage: The Online International Journal of
Buffy Studies 19 (2006), L. Call, "’Sounds Like Kinky Business to Me’:
Subtextual and Textual Representations of Erotic Power in the Buffyverse," Slayage: The Online International Journal
of Buffy Studies 6 (2007).
[3] The alignment of the vampire
mythos with the changes to the body after death has been investigated above all
by Barber Paul Barber,
Vampires, Burial, and Death (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1988).
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