Vampires: A Symbol of Evil
Originally posted on evilunravelled on May 13, 2018 as a collaborative effort between Athena Macmillan and me (Renée Whitehouse).
A still from 1922 German Expressionist Horror film, ‘Nosferatu’. Source: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/story/halloween-2024-max-schreck-nosferatu.
The figure of the vampire has been reflected widely around the world in literature and popular culture, since its origins in the folklore, religion, and even science of the 17th and 18th century, in Eastern Europe. Vampires have been presented in a myriad of different ways, though some themes are similar throughout each of these different representations. In particular, we see recurring themes of the vampire being a reanimated corpse and needing to consume blood.
In it’s 17th century origins, in a time strongly influenced by Christian ideology, the popular consensus was that vampires were inherently evil; caused by pacts with the Devil, possession and loss of the soul. This is reflected in it’s uptake in Gothic literature also (i.e. Bram Stoker’s Dracula, or Le Fanu’s Carmilla), which established the power of Christian symbols (i.e. holy water, crucifixes) over the ‘evil’, murderous, and sexualised, vampire.
It was not until Christianity began to lose its grip on western culture with secularisation taking its place that people began to be able to explain certain manifestations of vampirism with science, such as sleep paralysis and composition rates of dead bodies (Oldridge 2006). Vampirism is also linked to various medical diseases, such as Anaemia, Porphyria, and even Tuberculosis. For example during an outbreak of the latter in 18th and 19th century New England, it was thought that ‘fresh’ blood from a newly deceased person’s heart when burnt to ashes and offered to a person sick with tuberculosis could reverse the effects of this disease and even the disease itself (Bell 2006).
Many authors have shown that the concept of vampires reflects a deep seated cultural anxiety related to dying, ways of dealing with dead bodies and what lies beyond death. In particular we see examples of vampirism occurring when the respectful and correct ways of dealing with a dead body have been somehow transgressed, reinforcing communal and familial obligations in caring for both the living and the deceased (Epstein & Robinson 2012).
Whether relating to the actions of a person while still alive or how their body is treated after their death, a common theme arising in relation to vampirism is transgression. We can see this theme recurring through various aspects of the vampire itself; being only able to come out during the night, consuming blood and being physically dead yet still able to roam amongst the living. These all convey a sense of otherness, transgressing against the (moral and cultural) laws of the living.
Figure 2. Graphics from ‘New Moon’ (2006), the second movie in the film adaptations of Stephanie Meyer’s ‘Twilight’ book series. Source: http://twilightguide.com/tg/twilight-graphics/new-moon-graphics/cullens-4/
Yet the figure of the vampire is also strangely relatable. Unlike other monsters portrayed by popular culture, we see the vampire struggling with internal notions of guilt and remorse, and wrestling against their natural urges. We see contemporary reflections of this in literature such as Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series, a set of young adult books centred on the vampire family, the Cullens. In this series the distinction is made between ‘good and bad’ vampires in which the ‘bad’ vampires follow their natural urges of consuming human blood, while the ‘good’ vampires resist this urge choosing to feed solely from animals (whilst also resisting pre-marital sex!). This relates back to the author’s background in Mormonism in which members are urged to resist the ‘natural man’ in their pursuit of ultimately attaining perfection and a God-like state in the afterlife (Grant 2010).
Beyond the scope of film and literature, we also see a rising subculture of ‘real’ vampires, people who claim to suffer from very real adverse health effects if they do not consume blood (sanguinarians) or psychic energy (psychic vampires). While these real vampires used to live in isolated pockets, social media has enabled them to form large communities for support and networking. Although they are quick to dispel any misconceptions that they believe they are the immortal vampires from film and literature, within this subculture we still see some enduring common themes such as otherness, a relation to disease and death, a defiance or transgression against normative behaviours (Browning 2015) and of course, blood.
Blood is a dominant symbol not only in vampirism, but throughout many wider cultures. It is often seen as a symbol of the life force (among many other complex meanings): understandable since blood is a visible symbol of life draining away – when a body is drained of blood, the body will die; yet in contemporary medicine, a blood transfusion can save a life. Arguably for a vampire, consumption of blood is a kind of life saving transfusion to stave off and transcend the finality of death. It is only because it is depicted as being outside of normative boundaries that this blood becomes polluting and, by association, evil.
In a similar way, the vampire – though often identifiably ‘human’ in moral quandaries – crosses boundaries of behaviour to become a symbol of evil that has infused nightmares for centuries.
Written by: Athena Macmillan & Rey Whitehouse
Update:
Figure 3. Promotional Poster for Nosferatu 2024.
As a remake…
the main character’s madness and the sexuality that goes with it.
the rats
the plague
the poster even states “Succumb to the Darkness” as its tagline.
In many of the other articles on the course’s blog, we discuss the banality of evil, and how normalized it has become. While it’s not recent, just about 23 years old at this point the Hash Slinging Slasher episode of Spongebob Squarepants featured Nosferatu in a “guest” appearance at the end as being the one flickering the lights.
Obviously, in a family TV show, he is not SUPPOSED to come across as evil at all. But how interesting that we can make these jokes without fear of repercussions from the unknown, from creatures in the night that we have no power over. Something that would not have been or be socially acceptable in cultures where the supernatural and deadly creatures are closer to reality than they are for a majority of us.
References
Bell, M. E. (2006) ‘Vampires and Death in New England, 1784-1892’, Anthropology and Humanism. AAA, 31, pp. 124–140.
Browning, J. E. (2015) ‘The real vampires of New Orleans and Buffalo: a research note towards comparative ethnography’, Palgrave Communications. Palgrave (open access), 1, pp. 1–8. Available at: https://www.nature.com/articles/palcomms20156.
Epstein, S. and Robinson, S. L. (2012) ‘The Soul, Evil Spirits, and the Undead: Vampires, Death, and Burial in Jewish Folklore and Law’, Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural. Penn State University Press, 1, pp. 232–251.
Grant, A. J. (2010) ‘Focus on the Family: Good and Evil Vampires in the Twilight Saga’, in Heit, J. (ed.) Vader, Voldemort and other villains: Essays on evil in popular culture. Jefferson, N. C.: McFarland & Co., pp. 64–77.
Oldridge, D. (2006) ‘“Dead Man Walking”: The Historical Context of Vampire Beliefs’, in Day, P. (ed.) Vampires: myths and metaphors of enduring evil , pp. 81–91.
