Looking in the mirror : vampires, subjectivity and immortality.

Abstract

What are vampires? What is their literary and cultural significance? Why should we be concerned with their identity and function? These are central concerns of this essay. With these concerns as impetus, this essay aims to reveal how vampires are created and why they exist as modes of signification for writers (as well as readers) to appropriate in their attempt to apprehend the unknown. This essay will then highlight various representations of vampires: their habitats, various significant defining elements of their vampiric forms, as well as their feeding habits in Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla (1872), Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), and Angela Carter’s “The Lady of the House of Love” (1973). This essay will focus on looking particularly at how authors write the character of female vampires, their prey, and how they signify notions of transgression within religion and sexuality. By illustrating these representations, I claim that these images are merely created for writers to project and live out their desires and anxiety. Since meaning is largely a social product, the way we can get a hold of “meaning” is through language, social issues are inevitably written into the narratives as well. Connections between individuals (writers) as well as the society can then be made through unearthing these social issues.