<p>The creatures known as vampires have inspired authors for several hundred years. These beings are stereotypically described as belonging to a “nocturnal species” who live “in shadows” and drink “our lives in secrecy” (Auerbach 1). However, they have by now appeared so often in literary works, and in so many different shapes and sizes, that they are much too nuanced to be called ‘stereotypes.’</p><p>This essay will make a historical comparison between two fictional vampires, one hundred years apart, in order to show that a change has taken place when it comes to how vampires as fictional characters have been portrayed in terms of their appearance, their psychology, and their roles in society. The first novel chosen is, for obvious reasons, Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It was written at the turn of the nineteenth century by a male author and is probably the first novel that comes into mind when the word vampire is mentioned. The second novel, The Vampire Lestat, was written almost a century later, in 1986, by a female author, who, to readers of vampire fiction, is a worthy successor of Stoker. Her name is Anne Rice, best known for her debut novel Interview with the Vampire (1976).</p><p>The two novels are naturally chosen because of their similarities, but perhaps even more so because of their differences. Dracula is a typically Victorian Gothic novel, which is set in the remote mountains of Transylvania, and in the modern capital London, contemporary to when the novel was published. It is written in epistolary form but never allows for the main character, Count Dracula, to defend or explain himself and his actions in a first-person narrative.</p><p>The Vampire Lestat, on the other hand, is a Neo-Gothic novel that focus less on conventional Gothic elements, for example gloomy settings, and more on the psychological aspects of what it is like to actually be a vampire. Unlike Dracula, it is the main character’s fictional autobiography in which he recalls his life in France, his transformation into a vampire, and his current career in the United States as a famous rock star. Nina Auerbach calls it “a series of temporal regressions in which Lestat . . . embarks on a backward quest out of the knowable world” (172).</p><p>Both novels used in this analysis are thus part of the Gothic genre, one being a Victorian Gothic and the other Neo-Gothic, but there are significant differences between the two. I will investigate how these differences reveal themselves when it comes to setting and plot. However, the novels are similar in that they present two male vampires who belong to the nobility and have lived on through the centuries. The vampires both want to be where the power is, which means, in the case of Stoker’s Dracula, that he tries to conquer nineteenth-century London and seduce a young intelligent woman named Mina. Lestat, on the other hand, wants to become a famous twentieth-century rock star in the United States and simply have a good time while being a vampire (Auerbach 6).</p><p>The aim of this essay is to investigate what is typical of the genres that the two novels belong to and determine what has changed in the vampires’ physical appearance, their manners and their ability to adapt to modern society. In the first section of the essay I will give a description of the typical elements of the Gothic and the Neo-Gothic genres and then compare them in order to make a generic description of the two novels, Dracula and The Vampire Lestat. Vampire fiction will be treated as a sub-genre to the Gothic genre. In the succeeding two sections I will make comparative analyses of the two novels, particularly of the main characters, in order to describe the similarities and differences between the two and study how the vampire character has changed during the last century. Much of the discussion, especially regarding Dracula, will be based on Cesare Lombroso’s concept of the ‘criminal man,’ and various modern scholars’ opinion that the vampire is seen as an outcast and a threat to society.</p>

The creatures known as vampires have inspired authors for several hundred years. These beings are stereotypically described as belonging to a “nocturnal species” who live “in shadows” and drink “our lives in secrecy” (Auerbach 1). However, they have by now appeared so often in literary works, and in so many different shapes and sizes, that they are much too nuanced to be called ‘stereotypes.’ This essay will make a historical comparison between two fictional vampires, one hundred years apart, in order to show that a change has taken place when it comes to how vampires as fictional characters have been portrayed in terms of their appearance, their psychology, and their roles in society. The first novel chosen is, for obvious reasons, Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It was written at the turn of the nineteenth century by a male author and is probably the first novel that comes into mind when the word vampire is mentioned. The second novel, The Vampire Lestat, was written almost a century later, in 1986, by a female author, who, to readers of vampire fiction, is a worthy successor of Stoker. Her name is Anne Rice, best known for her debut novel Interview with the Vampire (1976). The two novels are naturally chosen because of their similarities, but perhaps even more so because of their differences. Dracula is a typically Victorian Gothic novel, which is set in the remote mountains of Transylvania, and in the modern capital London, contemporary to when the novel was published. It is written in epistolary form but never allows for the main character, Count Dracula, to defend or explain himself and his actions in a first-person narrative. The Vampire Lestat, on the other hand, is a Neo-Gothic novel that focus less on conventional Gothic elements, for example gloomy settings, and more on the psychological aspects of what it is like to actually be a vampire. Unlike Dracula, it is the main character’s fictional autobiography in which he recalls his life in France, his transformation into a vampire, and his current career in the United States as a famous rock star. Nina Auerbach calls it “a series of temporal regressions in which Lestat . . . embarks on a backward quest out of the knowable world” (172). Both novels used in this analysis are thus part of the Gothic genre, one being a Victorian Gothic and the other Neo-Gothic, but there are significant differences between the two. I will investigate how these differences reveal themselves when it comes to setting and plot. However, the novels are similar in that they present two male vampires who belong to the nobility and have lived on through the centuries. The vampires both want to be where the power is, which means, in the case of Stoker’s Dracula, that he tries to conquer nineteenth-century London and seduce a young intelligent woman named Mina. Lestat, on the other hand, wants to become a famous twentieth-century rock star in the United States and simply have a good time while being a vampire (Auerbach 6). The aim of this essay is to investigate what is typical of the genres that the two novels belong to and determine what has changed in the vampires’ physical appearance, their manners and their ability to adapt to modern society. In the first section of the essay I will give a description of the typical elements of the Gothic and the Neo-Gothic genres and then compare them in order to make a generic description of the two novels, Dracula and The Vampire Lestat. Vampire fiction will be treated as a sub-genre to the Gothic genre. In the succeeding two sections I will make comparative analyses of the two novels, particularly of the main characters, in order to describe the similarities and differences between the two and study how the vampire character has changed during the last century. Much of the discussion, especially regarding Dracula, will be based on Cesare Lombroso’s concept of the ‘criminal man,’ and various modern scholars’ opinion that the vampire is seen as an outcast and a threat to society.

Devenu célèbre sous les traits de Dracula, le vampire est un monstre révélateur et résilient qui s'est fait archétype incontournable de la culture populaire et dont l'existence diégétique précède le roman de Bram Stoker. Du folklore à la fiction et de l'ombre à la lumière, son évolution est représentative des sociétés et des époques dans lequel il revient à la vie. A la fois transgressifs et normatifs, ses avatars jouent un rôle cathartique en incarnant le refus des lois humaines naturelles et divines, mais aussi la réitération de ces règles et la création de canons littéraires. Cette étude diachronique centrée sur "Carmilla" (1872), "Dracula" (1897) et les vampires d'Anne Rice démontre que leurs aventures invitent à réfléchir autant aux conséquances des fautes qu'à la validité des normes, à l'essence de la nature et des failles humaine et à la fonction libératrice des personnages de fiction et particulièrement des monstres. / Known to most as Dracula, the vampire is revealing and resilient monster whose diegetic existence predates Stoker's novel, and that has become a key figure of popular culture. From folklore to fiction and from shadow to ligjhte, its evolution is indicative of the times and societies in wich it return to life. Equally transgressive and normative, its avatars play a cathartic role aas they epitomize rejection of human, natural and divine laws, but also the reiteration of the rules and the creation of literary canons. This diachronic study focused on "Carmilla" (1872), "Dracula" (1897) and Anne Rice's vampires shows that their adventures induce reflection on both the consequences of wrongdoing and the validity of norms, on the essence of human nature and hubris, and the liberating fucntion of fictional characters, particulary monsters.

This paper analyses the characters Mina and Lucy in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, showing how they are juxtaposed in terms of femininity. By using feminist criticism and the concepts of the angel in the house, monstrous femininity, and the virgin/whore dichotomy, this paper explores how Mina represents the self-sacrificing, supportive, and wifely angel in the house, while Lucy represents the sexual, disobedient, and powerful monstrous female. This is analyzed through Mina’s interactions with the men, as well as through her view on femininity, and through Lucy’s interactions with the men and with Mina. This paper then explores how these differing gender roles lead to different outcomes for the two women. Mina is excluded but is able to be purified from vampirism while still alive. In contrast, Lucy, being a threat to British Victorian femininity, has to be killed and mutilated before her memory can be purified. How well the women fit into the male community’s view of the Victorian female ideal, with Mina fitting it the best, is found to be the reason for why Lucy suffers a worse fate than Mina.

Using psychoanalytic theory, one can see that the Gothic genre addresses fears to reveal the ever-tense dynamics between subject and object- the subject as the individual with agency and the object as that which the subject desires and which thus lacks agency. This tension between the subject and object exposes the subject's fears about the object specifically pertaining to female sexuality, desire, familial dynamics, and reproduction, and it is these fears that shape the subject's psyche. These fears are addressed in psychoanalysis on two levels: terror and horror. Terror is the fear of what one does not know, whereas horror coincides with the fear of that which one does know. This distinction itself addresses the two parts of the psyche: the unconscious and the conscious. Through the lens of psychoanalysis, we can see that the switch or overlap between these layers of the psyche, is experienced as the uncanny, where the repressed again becomes familiar. In Gothic texts, the return of the repressed occurs for the subject as it relates to the object of desire, and the trauma surrounding this relationship. Through the analysis of three different Gothic texts from three different time periods- Matthew Lewis's The Monk (1796), Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897), and David Lindelofs contemporary television series Lost (2004 )- I argue that these texts demonstrate the ways in which their cultures understood (and understand) subjectivity as constituted through fear of and desire for the object. From the eighteenth century to the twenty-first century, we can see a transition from a reaction to trauma to a need/or trauma in the texts.

Comparative literature enables to create the most different modes of reading from a perception of the world quite keen. In a certain way, it can connect a particular literary text to another by means of their similarities and differences, which depends on the capacity of each comparative man, since the individual guides its reading through a socio historical context, in which it is inserted. Therefore, in this work we undertake a possible closeness between Dracula, of the book homonym (1897), by Bram Stoker and Inácio, which travels over the trilogy of Lúcio Cardoso, Inácio (1944), O enfeitiçado (1954) and Baltazar (unfinished). The Cardoso s character brings the vamp essence and malevolent of Stoker, but it is not a vampire in the restrictive sense of the word. Inácio has its particularities, which are essential to understand Dracula better. So, because it is a comparative study, it resorts as the theoretical basis the Literatura comparada (2010), by Sandra Nitrini and A intertextualidade (2008), by Tiphaine Samoyault. In relation to the concept of monstrosity, História dos vampiros: autópsia de um mito (2005), by Claude Lecouteux, Monstros e monstruosidades na literatura (2007), organized by Julio Jeha, "A cultura dos monstros: sete teses" (2000), by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, and Da natureza dos monstros (1998), Luiz Nazario, among other texts, which have contributed significantly to the development of this research. / A literatura comparada possibilita criar os mais diferentes modos de leitura a partir de uma percepção de mundo bastante aguçada. De certa forma, pode-se ligar um determinado texto literário a outro por meio de suas semelhanças e diferenças, o que depende da capacidade de cada comparatista, já que o indivíduo norteia sua leitura através de um contexto sócio histórico, no qual está inserido. Assim, neste trabalho se empreende uma possível aproximação entre Drácula, do livro homônimo (1897), de Bram Stoker e Inácio, o qual transita pela trilogia de Lúcio Cardoso, Inácio (1944), O enfeitiçado (1954) e Baltazar (inacabada). O personagem cardosiano traz a essência vampiresca e maléfica do de Stoker, mas não é um vampiro no sentido restrito da palavra. Inácio possui suas particularidades, as quais são imprescindíveis para que entendamos melhor Drácula. Para tanto, por ser um estudo comparativo, recorreu-se como embasamento teórico a Literatura comparada (2010), de Sandra Nitrini e A intertextualidade (2008), de Tiphaine Samoyault. Em relação ao conceito de monstruosidade, História dos vampiros: autópsia de um mito (2005), de Claude Lecouteux, Monstros e monstruosidades na literatura (2007), organizado por Julio Jeha, "A cultura dos monstros: sete teses" (2000), de Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, e Da natureza dos monstros (1998), de Luiz Nazário, entre outros textos, que contribuíram significativamente para o desenvolvimento desta pesquisa.

The word "necrophilia" brings a particular definition readily to mind – that of an act of sexual intercourse with a corpse, probably a female corpse at that. But the definition of the word did not always have this connotation; quite literally the word means "love of the dead," or "a morbid attraction to death." An examination of nineteenth-century literature reveals a gradual change in relationships between the living and the dead, culminating in the sexualized representation of corpses at the close of the century. The works examined for necrophilic content are: Mary Wollstonecraft’s Mary, A Fiction, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula and The Jewel of Seven Stars.

No description available.

I first became enamoured with vampire Gothic after reading Bram Stoker's Dracula in high school, but gradually became dissatisfied with the Australian adaptations of the sub-genre. In looking for examples of Australian vampire Gothic, a survey of more than 50 short stories, 23 novels and five movies made by Australians reveals fewer than half were set in an identifiably Australian setting. Even fewer make use of three key, landscape-related tropes of vampire Gothic - darkness, earth and ruins. Why are so few Australian vampire stories set in Australia? In what ways can the metaphorical elements of vampire Gothic be applied to the Sunburnt Country? This paper seeks to answer these questions by examining examples of Australian vampire narratives, including film. Particular attention is given to Mudrooroo's Master of the Ghost Dreaming series which, more than any other Australian novel, succeeds in manipulating and subverting the tropes of vampire Gothic. The process of adaptation of vampire Gothic to the Australian environment, both natural and man-made, is also a core concern of my own novel, Vampires' Bane, which uses earth, darkness and a modern permutation of ruins to explore its metaphorical intentions. Through examining previous works and through my own creative process, Vampires' Bane, I argue that Australia's growing urbanisation can be juxtaposed against the vampire-hostile natural environment to enhance the tropes of vampire Gothic, and make Australia a suitable home for narratives that explore the ongoing evolution of Count Dracula and his many-faceted descendants.