Vampires (23 page)

 

 

There is some controversy as to the historical inspiration for the central character of Stoker's Count Dracula. Some point to the infamous fifteenth century Prince of Wallachia, Vlad III, who was known as Vlad Tepes (meaning ‘Vlad the Impaler'). This ruler had a reputation as one of the most bloodthirsty men that ever lived, and was said to have killed hundreds of thousands of people by impaling them on sharp poles. His cruelty was legendary throughout Europe, but many Romanians saw him as a hero, since he had defended them from Turkish Muslims who wanted to invade the country.

The formidable Vlad III also had another name, commonly used by his people – Dracula. Vlad's father had been a member of a secret order of knights called the Order of the Dragon. This was founded by King Sigismund of Hungary, who later became the Holy Roman Emperor, its purpose being to fight the enemies of Christianity. Vlad II took up this cause with a vengeance, so much so that he became known to his subjects as ‘dracul' – the dragon. His son Vlad III then became known as ‘dracula' – son of ‘dracul'.

According to various sources, including Stoker's notes, the first draft of the novel featured a man named Count Wampyr as the main character. This was later changed to Dracula when Stoker came across the name during his research. However, it is not clear whether Stoker actually knew very much about the original Vlad the Impaler when he chose this name for his vampire; it may be that he simply liked the sound of it. Whatever the case, in his novel, Stoker made no reference to the fact that the Count had impaled thousands of hapless victims, nor that he had been involved in an ongoing battle with the Turks for control of his country (which, in Stoker's account, is Transylvania, not Romania).

 

 

Other scholars point to Countess Elizabeth Bàthory, the sixteenth-century Hungarian aristocrat famous for torturing and murdering hundreds of young women in her castle, as a possible model for Count Dracula. In particular, there were rumours – some believe entirely unfounded – that the Countess liked to bathe in her victims' blood, in the hope that this would help her to retain her youth. A similar theme emerges in Stoker's book, when the Count is said to look younger after a feed of blood. However, this connection appears to be somewhat tenuous, since in many other accounts, vampires are said to be rejuvenated by the blood of their victims.

To this day, it is not clear exactly where Stoker derived the inspiration for his Count Dracula, but it seems likely that he was influenced by a combination of ideas, derived from his extensive research into European folklore and history.

 

 

While some regard Stoker's
Dracula
as a rather crude, sensationalist novel, there is no doubt that it touches on some profound themes. First and foremost, Stoker explores the struggle between the modernizing forces of science and technology and the dark, primitive currents of pagan belief that were still alive in rural parts of Europe during the Victorian period. His character Van Helsing seems to give credence to both these approaches, on the one hand using modern medical techniques such as blood transfusions to cure his patient, and on the other employing age-old remedies such as hanging a necklace of garlic flowers around her neck, to ward off vampires. At a time when investigations into psychology were only just beginning to be taken seriously, Stoker presents innovative ideas about the healing power of the mind, and the ways that medical science can harness this power (for example, through hypnotism).

Secondly, the book is concerned with another issue of great importance to Victorian society, that is to say, the changing role of women. In particular, the issue of female sexuality is addressed, though in a less than progressive way. In the story, we witness the gradual corruption of Lucy from a lively, popular, and attractive young virgin into a shameless hussy. Lucy is depicted as having many suitors, and as enjoying the attention paid to her by all of them, until she finally chooses a husband. There is an inference that her interest in men, combined with her beauty, leads her to her eventual ruin, in the shape of becoming a sexually aggressive, lustful vampire. By contrast, Mina, the other woman in the story, is presented as feminine and maternal, devoted to her husband, Harker; the implication is that, as a consequence, she is saved the wanton Lucy's terrible fate.

 

 

Bram Stoker, it is generally believed, had high hopes that his patron Henry Irving would play the role of Count Dracula in a stage adaptation of the novel. Irving, however, who regarded himself as a champion of the theatre as a highbrow art form, was dismissive of the idea, much to Stoker's disappointment. Stoker's dream was never realized before Irving died in 1905. In 1912, Stoker himself died, after a series of strokes, which some biographers have attributed to syphilis. Despite his many literary efforts, he had made relatively little money in his life, and most of his work was soon forgotten.

It was left to Stoker's widow Florence to publish a posthumous short story collection,
Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Stories
, two years after his death. In 1922, Stoker's novel
Dracula
was adapted for the screen, prompting Mrs Stoker to sue the director Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, through the British Society of Authors. She claimed that she had never given permission for the story to be filmed, and had not been paid a single penny in royalties for it. In July 1925, having battled determinedly with the film makers, the courts finally decided in favour of Mrs Stoker.

Despite the fact that during the legal battle, Mrs Stoker demanded the destruction of all prints of the film, some copies survived. Murnau's
Dracula
has since become a milestone in the history of horror cinema, also attracting attention to the classic novel on which it was based.

Throughout the twentieth century, the vampire myth continued to endure, largely because of the many horror films about the subject that were released from the 1920s on. These proved immensely popular with the public, relying as they did on the exciting visual elements of gothic horror, including various new technologies in the cinema, such as dramatic special effects. However, despite these innovations, the literary vampire was not forgotten. Science fiction, horror, and romance novels featuring vampires continued to sell, sometimes inspiring screen versions, at other times inspired by the film themselves; and today, the genre has become more popular than ever, with the tremendous success of Stephenie Meyer’s teenage horror/romance vampire series,
Twilight
.

One of the most influential science fiction novels of the 1950s was
I Am Legend
by Richard Matheson. This imaginative novel told the story of the sole survivor of a terrible plague that had killed off most of humankind. The plague, as the protagonist finds out, was caused by a little-known type of bacteria that fed off live bodies as well as dead ones, and caused affected people to show symptoms of vampirism. What we find out as the book progresses is that only the dead corpses reanimated by the bacteria are true vampires; the others are ordinary human beings afflicted by a terrible disease that, like rabies, changes their personalities and behaviour.

In the story, the hero, Robert Neville, recovers from a serious illness to find that all other human beings in the vicinity have vanished. Instead, a vampire horde, some of whom are former friends, besiege his house each night, terrifying him with their aggressive behaviour. He does his best to repel them, and manages to kill several of the vampires. In his efforts to keep them at bay, he boards up his windows and hangs up garlic. During the daylight hours, he spends much of his time disposing of dead vampire bodies. Not surprisingly, given the fact that his life has become a living hell, he begins to suffer from depression. He also starts to drink heavily. However, little by little, through patient research using books from the local library, he learns the truth about the disease and realizes he has escaped a terrible fate. The twist in the tale of the novel is that, since he is the only person on earth who has survived uncontaminated, ultimately it is he, not the mass of humanity, who has become the ‘odd one out’, and who will have to pay the price, becoming a ‘legend’ from the past, like the vampire itself.

Neville meets a woman, Ruth, who appears to have escaped the plague, but he soon begins to suspect that she, too, has been infected. He tries to give her a blood test, but they struggle, and she knocks him out. He awakes to find a note from Ruth explaining that the now-infected members of the human race are struggling to rebuild their civilization. Neville has failed to distinguish between the dead who have been reactivated by the disease (the true ‘vampires’) and infected humans, and has killed some members of their community; thus, he has become hated and feared by the infected humans, who now form the majority of the human race. The infected humans are struggling to adapt to their condition, and are beginning to find ways of keeping the true vampires at bay. Ruth warns him in the note that he must leave his home, as the infected horde will come to capture him there.

Weary and defeated, Neville decides to stay put, and gives himself up to his captors. In prison, while awaiting execution, he is visited by Ruth, who slips him some suicide pills. He goes to the window and sees the crowd outside, waiting for him with fear and horror in their eyes. At this moment, he realizes that he has become a monster to them, just as they were to him; the infected are now the mainstream of society, and it is he, not them, who is deviant. He decides to swallow the pills, in the knowledge that for them, he has now become a throwback, a frightening creature from the past, who has no place in this new world. As he dies, he laughs bitterly, realizing that he will now become a legend, a horror story, a biological freak, that will terrify this new human race.

I Am Legend
expressed, as did much science fiction of the period, aspects of social anxiety caused by the repressive mores of the Cold War years: in particular the treatment of those seen as outside the social norm, and the fear of unorthodoxy as a kind of ‘disease’ that might infiltrate the mainstream. Horror writer Stephen King has spoken of the influence that the book had on him. But the book’s most lasting legacy has been in the world of film: in 1964, it was adapted under the title,
The Last Man on Earth
; in 1971 it appeared on screen as
The Omega Man
; and in 2007, it was remade under its original name,
I Am Legend
.

Although there were various vampire novels throughout the sixties, such as the Marilyn Ross series featuring Barnabas Collins, these were mostly spin-offs from films or TV series. However, in 1976, Anne Rice established the vampire horror novel as a new genre with her landmark debut,
Interview with the Vampire
.

Rice was born Howard Allen O’Brien and grew up in New Orleans in an Irish-American Catholic family. She was named after her father, but re-named herself Anne on her first day at school. She attended university in Texas and then moved to San Francisco, where she worked as an insurance claims investigator before marrying her childhood sweetheart, Stan Rice. The couple had two children, Michelle and Christopher. Michelle died of leukaemia at the age of four. An avid writer, Rice completed her first novel,
Interview with the Vampire
in 1973. Three years later it was published, becoming the first in a long and extremely successful series known as
The Vampire Chronicles
, continuing until 2003.

The central character in the novel is a 200-year-old vampire, Louis, who relates the story in the first person, giving it a unique perspective. Louis tells how, in 1791, a vampire called Lestat de Lioncourt turned him into a vampire, and the pair became friends for eternity. Louis, for moral reasons, cannot feed off humans, and only drinks the blood of animals; little by little he becomes more critical of his friend Lestat’s vampire ways, and considers going it alone, only to find that Lestat has procured a vampire ‘daughter’ for them, a child he calls Claudia.

Because of her status as a vampire, Claudia must remain a child for the rest of her life. Louis grows to hate Lestat, and kills him, leaving him for dead, but Lestat returns to attack him. Louis and Claudia manage to escape, travelling to Europe, where Louis turns a Parisian dollmaker, Madeleine, into a vampire mother for Claudia. Eventually, Lestat catches up with them, and Madeleine and Claudia die, burned to death by daylight. Louis manages to travel on, but ends his days as a lonely man.

In telling the story, Rice introduced several variations on the classic vampire myth, which were elaborated on further in
Chronicles
. Her vampires were not destroyed or deterred by crucifixes, garlic, wooden stakes, and so on. They were sensitive, gifted individuals with magical powers, such as the ability to read thoughts and move objects by mind control. The most powerful of them were a thousand years old, and had supernatural features such as the ability to influence a person’s will, and superhuman sight, hearing, and strength. In some cases, the vampires could fly. They could also set an object or person on fire, or cause a person to have a fatal heart attack. Most significantly, all had the potential of eternal life, and were subject only to death by fire, sunlight, or a more powerful vampire’s attack. If they were wounded, they healed rapidly, and could regenerate themselves. The oldest vampires were extremely powerful, and as they aged, their skin whitened to a marble-like appearance.

However, Rice makes it clear that, for her vampires, this gift of immortality is in some ways a curse. After a 100 or 200 years, vampires become tired and unhappy, and may exhibit signs of mental instability. They may try to take their own lives, or go into hibernation to avoid the sheer tedium of living. Rice emphasizes that eternal life is a kind of torture for most of them, provoking a kind of existential despair that cannot even be extinguished by death.