Vampires: Chapter 3

“In those works that continue to haunt us, however, the figure of the cannibal, the vampire, the succubus, the spook announces itself again and again where someone grows in strength by weakening someone else.

That’s what this figure really comes down to, whether in Elizabethan, Victorian, or more modern incarnations; exploitations in its many forms. Using other people to get what we want. Denying someone else’s right to live in fact of our overwhelming demands. Placing our desires, particularly our uglier ones, above needs of another. That’s pretty much what the vampire does, after all.”

In Chapter 3, Nice to Eat You: Acts of Vampires, Thomas Foster talks about how the appearances of a vampires, cannibals, and succubus have occurred again and again through the decades of writing. They are a tool for the writer to use making them able to write of taboo subjects and issues not allowed to be openly talked about during that time era. These “creepy” beings make for an open door for these subjects to be written without the restrains of the time era.

Vampires have frequently been used as symbol of “lust, seduction, temptation, danger among other ills.” Thomas describes the cycle of a vampire being one of an older man, the vampire, looking to corrupt a young woman, taking away her energy and virtue, using everything that is fresh in her then moving onto a new victim. These creatures stand for selfishness, destroying women for their own virtue. They are putting their needs above all others people needs, using what they need to survive. The reader can easily recognize them as a symbol for “of our more common reality” and associating them while reading, making them a useful tool in writing.

These dark creatures have become well known figures throughout. Dracula is the ultimate vampire, famous to all generations. Dracula stood as a symbol of sex, lust, evil and selfishness as he tried gain the soul, spirit, and companionship of NAME in the afterlife. Marley, the ghost from A Christmas Carol, a very well-known ghost, is recognizable in the many different creations of A Christmas Carol. Marley serves as a “walking, clanking, moaning lesson in ethics” for the main character Scrooge. Marley is used throughout the story to teach a lesson, standing as a symbol of good morals and positive character more than a symbol of the “unspeakable.”