vampires as monsters analysis

vampires as monsters analysis

In this essay, I will analyze vampires as monsters. In addition to that, I will use three of Jeffrey Jerome Cohen theses on monster culture to establish and elaborate if vampires fit the description of a monster. Vampires are the subject of thousands of blogs, movies, and novels in today’s world. Television shows like the CW’s originals and vampire diaries bring to life the myth of vampires in the most believable way possible. In these shows, vampires fall in love, procreate, die, and terrorize in the only way the world knows: by drinking blood. These shows all portray the same things about vampires, and that is thanks to Bram Stoker. Bram Stoker first introduced vampires into literature in his 1897 gothic horror novel, Dracula (Stoker,1997).  Stoker created Dracula from the behaviors of Vlad Tepes, a Romanian prince who is described as not only a blood-drinking sadist but a national champion who protected his country from the Ottoman Turks (1997).In his book, though, Dracula travels from Transylvania to England to spread the vampire genes, and he meets hunters who finally kill him by stabbing him with a wooden stake to the heart (1997). After this novel, the myth of vampires began to be famous, and ever since, no year passes by without the production of a vampire show.

The first theses under analysis is thesis number four: the monster dwells at the gates of difference (Cohen,1996). According to Jeffrey Cohen, monsters are the incorporation of the outside, the world that is beyond the ordinary human being world. Cohen furthers his distinction as a difference in physical structure, culture, race, sexual orientation, political affiliation, and even economic perception of things. Cohen gives the example of how different the inhabitants in canna were in that when the Israelites defeated them in war. It was as if they fought the battle with no-humans (1996). The Canaanites were gigantic, hence monsters in the context of vampires,

Bram Stoker (1997) describes count Dracula as pale, emaciated, and very strange. In many of the vampire shows and novels, vampires are always expressed as very pale creatures. This is a sign that they are dead creatures who resurrected, and they do not have blood in their veins. Thus, the discoloration of their skin. Politically monsters defer from humans, that’s according to Cohen as well as mentioned before, there exist some propounders that suggest that Bram Stoker created count Dracula from Vlad Tepes, famously known as Vlad the impaler. Vlad was born in the fifteenth century in Transylvania. He is said to impale his enemies on stakes to combine his political power in his territory. Furthermore, some accounts say that Vlad would dip bread in the blood of his staked enemies and eat the bread (Rouse,2002). Simply because these people differed in political ideology with Vlad, he would murder them, and that is an account of perceived monster behavior.

The second thesis under study is the sixth thesis “fear of the monster is a kind of desire.”  Jeffrey Cohen writes in his analysis, “The monster is continually linked to forbidden practices in order to normalize and enforce them. The monster also attracts. The same creatures who terrify and interdict can evoke potent escapist fantasies: the linking of monstrosity with the forbidden makes the monster all the more appealing….” (Cohen,1996). In the originals television show, we encounter the three vampire Michaelson siblings, the vampire originals of all time. Klaus is the epitome of male masculinity and attractiveness, so is his brother, Elijah. Rebecca, their sister, is seriously the epitome of feminine beauty. Therefore, these vampire shows, as well as vampire literature, has created a very attractive picture of vampires. Vampires are depicted as very sexual beings who are not afraid to go rough because, after all, they are not human but animals. Hence, the average human gets a taste of the different world which begets unworldly desires, especially sexual ones that one cannot get from a simple human.

In addition to these theses, the last argument in consideration is the seventh thesis “the monster stands at the threshold…of becoming.” (Cohen,1996). According to Cohen, monsters are like children. They stay with you for almost half of their lives, but when you push them away, they can go as far as possible with no communication whatsoever (1996). However, when they come back, they have garnered self-knowledge and more knowledge of the human world. They are well aware of everything that happens in the human world, and consequently, they question the human reasoning on matters of sexuality, politics, gender, and race. With reference to the originals, the show is not only about vampires. At some point, werewolves come into the show, and there seems to be a conflict between these two creatures. However, in as much as they first at first and try it even end each other’s lives, they finally come together and compromise into living with one another. To put this into context, monsters are very violent creatures, but somehow they work their issues. Therefore, they question how humans treat each other. Humans have the smallest of differences like race, yet they treat themselves like monsters. On the other hand, monsters have vast differences but weirdly work things out.

In conclusion, Cohen’s theses about monsters perfectly fit vampires if the question about their monstrosity arose. They are feared, yet people are attracted to them. They know the human world very well, yet they act almost better than them, and there are distinctly different from humans in every aspect.

Reference

Cohen, J. J. (1996). Monster Theses:(Seven Theses). Monster Theory: Reading Culture, 3-20.

Rouse, J. (2002). Vampires: social constructivism, realism, and other philosophical undead.

Stoker, B. (1997). Dracula. Broadview Press.