Essay on Vampires: Dracula and Other Characters

Historically, the idea of vampires dates, back as early as the 1400s. Vlad the Impaler was a human that was the first affiliated with the creation of Vampires. Bram Stoker’s Dracula was then evolved and as everyone knew of the vampires that hate garlic and fear objects and blessed wafers, as well as crucifixes, came to life. Later in history, the vampires that were known as the friendly vampires were evolved from the movie Hotel Transylvania. Evil vampires such as Dracula in Bram Stoker’s version of a vampire were after the innocent versus the vampires in Hotel Transylvania who falls in love with humans.

According to the psychologist, Carl Jung, archetypes are “the recurring patterns of situations, characters, or symbols existing universally and instinctively in the collective unconscious of man”. Jung believed that archetypes were tendencies we were born with that helped with the shaping of our behaviors. ‘All the most powerful ideas in history go back to archetypes,’ Jung explained in his book The Structure of the Psyche. A common example of an archetype in literature could be the mother figure from the evil stepmother in Disney’s Cinderella.

There are so many archetypes related to vampires. When it comes to talking about vampires the archetypes can range from being evil to the supernatural. An example of an archetype of vampires is when vampires are exposed to the light, they then can be turned into dust. Secondly, vampires feed on their victims by biting and sucking on them. Another archetype of a vampire is that vampires cannot see their reflections.

Motifs are repeated themes or symbolic structures. Some motifs from Dracula are blood and superstition. To elaborate more on each, vampires are portrayed to be after the blood of the innocent and pure. Religiously speaking blood is generally used as a symbolic meaning to represent life in reference to the life of Christ from the bible. Superstition in reference to vampires is that vampires are believed to have double the amount of hearts or souls that they may have. This is due to that fact that since one soul or one heart may never die.

Vampires have so many types of adaptations that make them vampires. Adaptation means to be able to reconstruct and change to fit the environment. Vampire bats have unique adaptations that help them when feeding on other animals.

The real truth about vampires is that they are indeed not real. The thought of vampires came from a man by the name of Vlad the Impaler. Vlad the Impaler was known for being the eldest son to Vlad Dracul. In 1436, Vlad became ruler of Wallachia. Wallachia is located in Romania. He was known to have cruel treatment to prisoners. He blinded, castrated, dismembered, skinned and boiled his victims alive. Then, he would feed them to savage animals to watch them be torn apart. Vlad the Impaler’s story later was created into the main character in Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula. The novel was written in the year of eighteen ninety-seven.

Centuries later as the damned vampire that drank blood; Dracula was created. The novel Dracula by Bram Stoker focused on Count Dracula who captures and locks a man by the name of Jonathan Harker who seems to be on a business trip. Jonathan is given multiple warnings to never go near the Count’s castle. Jonathan is catfished by the count. The story also takes a spin when innocent Lucy an independent woman begins sleepwalking and is eventually bitten by Dracula.

Lucy is eventually turned into a woman vampire of the night, who was after the blood of children. Being that Lucy was innocent because of her sleepwalking the children became her target and her goal was to take away the purity that they possess. This story goes to show that when vampires take away the blood of someone that person that the blood was taken away from does the exact same thing to someone else.

From Bram Stoker’s Dracula vampires were being looked at as evil and mysterious creatures. We all need food to survive however, vampires have their own unique way that they obtain the food that they need. Vampires go out and prey on victims who are less aware of what is going on around them. It is said that vampire bats who do not consume blood for at least two days will die. It’s the nature of vampires that they get what they want whether is intentional by them being eager to get what they want, not caring who is hurt in the end like Dracula or unintentional by them not being able to help themselves, for example, Lucy.

Anne Rice who is a gothic fiction book author gave a review of Dracula based on Bram Stoker’s version. According to The Mary Sue website Princess Weekes explained that Anne Rice’s “The Vampire Chronicles are a staple of any vampire lover’s library, and her first installment in that series, Interview with a Vampire, is truly a piece of gothic vampire excellence that introduced us to Lestat de Lioncourt and his lover Louis de Pointe du Lac. Rice version of a vampire-focused also focuses on Interview with a Vampire is a first-person novel where the character of Louis tells his life story to a reporter, hence the title”(Princess Weekes).

He explains how he was a beautiful young man once, who after the death of his brother feels suicidal, but afraid to take his own life. One day he catches the eye of Lestat, and as a song once said: “never trust a big butt and a smile.” Lestat is a vampire who “seduces the tenderness” in Louis after falling in love with the dark-haired, green-eyed brooding young man (relatable) and turns Louis into a vampire. Lestat, having gone through his own trauma, is not a good mentor, lover or partner and emotional manipulates Louis throughout their seventy-year-old relationship”(Princess Weekes).

According to fandom “The origin of the vampire race remains a mystery. Contrary to popular belief, in the Twilight universe, vampires deviate from those of traditional myth; a fact often alluded to in the series, usually for humor. For example, all vampires have refined and perfected physical features (including their scent and voice), allowing them to lure in prey”.

Vampires have special abilities and powers that they use depending on their physical characteristics. From the movie, Hotel Transylvania Dracula can transform into a bat and has superhuman speed. Dracula also has the power to use hypnosis to erase the mind of people and control their minds. Dracula displays many supernatural powers. Dracula has superhuman strength which, according to Van Helsing, “is equivalent to that of 20 strong men”. He is immune to conventional means of attack; a sailor tries to stab him in the back with a knife once before, but the blade went through his body as though it is air.

In Stoker’s version of Dracula the Count Dracula can not enter into the homes of victims unless invited in. In the novel Lucy Westenra is a easy target for Dracula. Lucy who is a sleepwalker at night tends to wander off from home. Once she is asleep Dracula can influence her to walk outside her house so he can take advantage of her by sucking her blood. Dracula took away Lucy’s innocence so when she is turned into a vampire she then preys on the innocent. The text states that Lucy is given the name of the “Bloofer Lady” because the place of her burial is where so children were abducted from and it was believed to be of her doings.

“During the past two or three days several cases have occurred of young children straying from home or neglecting to return from their playing on the Heath. In all these cases the children were too young to give any properly intelligible account of themselves, but the consensus of their excuses is that they had been with a ‘bloofer lady.’ It has always been late in the evening when they have been missed, and on two occasions the children have not been found until early in the following morning.

It is generally supposed in the neighborhood that, as the first child missed gave as his reason for being away that a ‘bloofer lady’ had asked him to come for a walk, the others had picked up the phrase and used it as occasion served…” (Stoker 13). Vampires can act as predators because they can hunt their prey and be able to satisfy their cravings for human blood.

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