Final Project Proposal

During this semester, we have explored many different forms of the Vampire.  However, through many of the novels that we have read, there contains a sexual connotation from drinking the blood of another. The exchange of fluids, if you will.  We see this in great amounts in Dracula and in Interview With The Vampire, so these will be the two novels that I will be focusing on.  This also goes along with popular culture and why we, as a society, find vampires so alluring and sensual.  For my final project, I'm going to write a critical paper exploring these things.

Interview with the Vampire.

In the Théâtre de Vampires, we as the reader (and also the audience) are placed in a voyeuristic position throughout the entire performance.  We are shown an actual death, though the audience besides Louis and Claudia think it is acting.  In general, we think death to be a private thing, ideally in a warm bed surrounded by everyone that we love.  However, in this theater they make it a public event.  We set our eyes on this act and know what is happening and that her fears and pleas for her life are real.  This knowledge of ours makes the act more personal, and much more horrifying than for the humans seated in the audience. 

Another way to look at this as not just death, but sexual defloweration.  In my posts about Dracula I mentioned how the Count taking the blood of Lucy and Mina could be seen as a sexual encounter; an exchange of fluids.  She is implied to be a virgin “The soil on her mean blouse and skirt was not stage paint, and nothing had touched her perfect face, which gazed into the light now, as beautiful and finely chiseled as the face of a marble Virgin, that hair her haloed veil.” (Page 217).  Even the first bit on her neck was written in a very sensual way.  “And now, turning her slowly to the side so that they could all see her serene face, he was lifting her, her back arching as her naked breasts touched his buttons, her pale arms enfolded his neck.  She stiffened, cried out as he sank his teeth, and her face was still as the dark theater reverberated with shared passion.  His white hand shone on her florid buttocks, her hair dusting it, stroking it.  He lifted her off the boards as he drank, he throat gleaming against his white cheek” (Page 222).

It’s interesting how we see her progress through several stages of dying throughout this short performance.  She starts with disbelief, stating “ ‘No,’ she protested in disbelief. ‘I have so many years, so many. . . .’ “ (Page 219).  Then she starts to bargain for her life.  Saying that she does not care that she will grow old and gray.  “ ‘Let me live, please,’ she begged, her face turning away from him. ‘I don’t care . . . I don’t care!’ “ (Page 220).  She then slides into an acceptance of her fate (even though the vampire dazed her). 

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Women in I Am Legend

                In the beginning of this novel, women were viewed only as objects.  They were used to appeal to Robert’s lust, and to make him leave his house.  They did this by striking lewd poses when they knew he was looking out at them.  This worked to awaken his lust, but he did not go out to them.  This can be traced back to the racial themes of the book, in the fact that he did not want his blood to come into contact with the vampire’s blood because he felt that he would become contaminated by them.  The fact that he viewed the women as objects, and not people anymore made it easier for him to kill them, because he did not view them to be the same as he was.  This also can be traced to the racial themes of this book.

                Later in the novel, he performs experiments on the vampires.  However, all the vampires that he experiments on happen to be women.  They seem to be more like lab mice than anything.  Only good if they serve his purpose, otherwise he has no problems in killing them.  They’re just experiments, not people, or even living things to him.  He rationalizes killing them by telling himself that they would have killed him, given the chance.  

                Robert, however, does have a strong desire for a companion.  This is where Ruth comes in.  He is drawn to her because he believes her to be another human like him, and  chases her down.  The fact that he goes through such lengths to get to her shows us how desperate he is for someone, anyone else to talk to and to be with.  Though the idea of being with her frightens her and he tells himself it would be easier if she was one of them.  “But what if she were free of bacillus? In a way, that was a more nerve-racking possibility.  The other way he would merely go on as before, breaking neither schedule now standards.  But if she stayed, if they had to establish a relationship, perhaps become husband and wife, have children . . . Yes, that was more terrifying.” (Page 139)  

Later he thinks, “Shall I kill her now? Shall I not even investigate, but kill her and burn her?” (Page 140).  It’s interesting to be that he seems that he would rather keep viewing the women as he had been, as objects.  They are easy to dispose of because they don’t have any meaning to him.  He is scared of having responsibility again, and by making Ruth into one of them in his mind (and thus making her into and object that is okay to kill), he tries to rid himself of any responsibility that he might have if it turns out that she is not infected.