Week Two: Vampire: Love and Pain

Week Two: Vampire: Love and Pain

I really enjoyed this week's class discussion as we found that despite vampire presenting characteristics like darkness, evil and blood, they still have the ability to attract both readers and characters. Vampires are really well known among the horror literature reading community by their constant pale skin, their need for blood, their pointy fangs and their need to feed the life of people in some way or the other. Yet, Ann Rice created a vampire very different from the first generation of vampires that ever appeared on reading.

She indeed wanted the audience to discover a different way of perceiving vampires. She introduced the idea of vampires having a pursue of love and happiness instead of only wanting blood and death. Ann created a type of vampire that despite having the characteristics of the vampire,they are still able to have human emotions. It is interesting how the author introduced a new way of seeing horror literature, as she reminds us that although vampires have an evil nature, they also desire things like lust and romance.

Anne Rice takes the folklore of the vampire and transforms it for the modern audience. Previous versions of vampires, always saw the vampire as a creatures who only seek for blood and no one really cared what was their past. Thanks to Interview with a Vampire, Ann Rice allowed us to change our mindset, thinking of vampires as no longer creatures, but as characters who represents someone. What is more, he way she portrays sexuality, is not through very gore imagery, but instead with something more sensual and intimate, imitating how humans would perceive sensual experiences. 

Something very important to point out is also the introduction of the heroic vampire, since now the vampire have become the victim. the ones that needs to survive in this condition surrounded by people that don't understand them. It's very interesting how the audience positively reacts to this type of vampire, and I think it is mostly because in modern era, the readers are more welcoming to the different and unusual types, than readers from the past.