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deafasadoornail · 06-08-2007, 07:04 AM

I think you are right Kraven, in the sense that Dracula is the first vampire (or one of the earliest versions) and Louis and Lestat are more modern versions.

Dracula is actually very limited. He doesn't grow as a character, he is a static force throughout the novel. And he has many limitations on him physically, like having to sleep in a coffin with a certain kind of dirt and not being able to move about in daylight at all, etc. He represents the older, Victorian concept of good and evil where evil is consistent and people grow or change in response to it. The humans in Dracula's story change in response to him. We can think of this one-sided evil as a Christian concept because in the Christian world, the devil can not create or change. The Romantic period in literature represented by books like Dracula, Frankenstein, Poe's stuff, etc. is really the first attempt to start to humanize evil and recognize dualism in characters -- both good and bad.

You can't write a book like Dracula now because readers won't accept a character that facile. We demand more depth in our villains. If you're going to scare us, give us someone like Lestat who can be charming yet is a predator. Both Lestat and Louis have combinations of good and bad qualities that make them believable as characters ("more human" if you want). This goes along with our current understanding of humanity's dual natures. The Gothic literature now demands that we recognize the gothic within people.

If you're going to continue this avenue of exploration in terms of vampirism, I might suggest that you read Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series. Anita starts out as a vampire hunter, a staunch Catholic, and someone who is very sure who the bad guys are. As the series goes on, she becomes more conflicted and more capable of horrifying deeds and we realize that there are bad guys and good guys even among the "monsters." Anita's boyfriend, Jean Claude, is a vampire who obviously has emotions and cares deeply for her but can be inhumanly cruel as well. This is the modern Gothic thinking, that the vampires are us.

I hope that made sense....

06-08-2007, 07:04 AM	#6
deafasadoornail Join Date: May 2007 Location: So Cal Posts: 124	I think you are right Kraven, in the sense that Dracula is the first vampire (or one of the earliest versions) and Louis and Lestat are more modern versions. Dracula is actually very limited. He doesn't grow as a character, he is a static force throughout the novel. And he has many limitations on him physically, like having to sleep in a coffin with a certain kind of dirt and not being able to move about in daylight at all, etc. He represents the older, Victorian concept of good and evil where evil is consistent and people grow or change in response to it. The humans in Dracula's story change in response to him. We can think of this one-sided evil as a Christian concept because in the Christian world, the devil can not create or change. The Romantic period in literature represented by books like Dracula, Frankenstein, Poe's stuff, etc. is really the first attempt to start to humanize evil and recognize dualism in characters -- both good and bad. You can't write a book like Dracula now because readers won't accept a character that facile. We demand more depth in our villains. If you're going to scare us, give us someone like Lestat who can be charming yet is a predator. Both Lestat and Louis have combinations of good and bad qualities that make them believable as characters ("more human" if you want). This goes along with our current understanding of humanity's dual natures. The Gothic literature now demands that we recognize the gothic within people. If you're going to continue this avenue of exploration in terms of vampirism, I might suggest that you read Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series. Anita starts out as a vampire hunter, a staunch Catholic, and someone who is very sure who the bad guys are. As the series goes on, she becomes more conflicted and more capable of horrifying deeds and we realize that there are bad guys and good guys even among the "monsters." Anita's boyfriend, Jean Claude, is a vampire who obviously has emotions and cares deeply for her but can be inhumanly cruel as well. This is the modern Gothic thinking, that the vampires are us. I hope that made sense....