Vampire Social Fear II - Essay Example

? s Vampire Social Fear II Introduction In ical literature, vampires are portrayed as mythical creatures. Sometimes referred to as the undead, these creatures are purported to suck blood from living things in order to sustain themselves. Most vampire lore has their roots in eastern European regions and has grown to become a common ground for superstition. While different culture attribute the rise of the vampire generation to various roots, the most commonly alluded to origin is from the matriarchal descendant of the demon called Lilith (Williams 15). In earlier times, vampires have been portrayed in mostly negative light mostly showing demonic themes, but currently, vampire and their fear has gradually disintegrated to the extent that they have become part of the modern society and rather than being viewed as monsters, they now even now inspire trends. Everything from fashion to the entertainment industry portrays vampires as sexy, mysterious entities, who feature in movies like Twilight as abnormally romantic beings. Science has also adopted the myth of the vampire to describe living things that exhibit similar characteristics to those famed to be of vampires. As an illustration, ‘Vampire’ is derived from the biological term, vampirism, which refers to living things that feed on the life matter (that is: blood) of other living beings, for example, the Vampire Bat. According to vampire legends people who are considered to be evil in their life will turn to vampires in their after-life. These people include, but may not be limited to: outcasts, people who died as a result of suicide, criminals, and any other type of person that is considered to immensely evil in his acts. This paper will discuss how the society has ingrained the fear of vampires in its activities and how such fears are associated with the supernatural and superstition. Also considered is the effect of these fears on perception about ‘liminal states of existence’ (living on the margins). Since vampires are considered undead (because they are logically already dead yet still live), this paper will illustrate how vampires might be exposed to both advantage and disadvantages of the modern society due to advanced technology (Williams 15). Vampires in Today’s Society The legend of the vampire has gone through transformations that have changed the dark former image of evil, crime and demonism to one that is simply a source of mystery and fascination. Today’s society has dismissed the phenomena of ‘undead’ beings that awake in the night to look for blood and in the process, turn the bitten humans into vampires. All the former reasons used to justify the existence of vampires have been shown to be untrue. Myths have been argued out by juxtaposing them with real life facts, thus emphasizing their fallacy. The vampire persona has been described by scientific medicine enabling us to understand why ‘weird’ people act as they do. Vampires have acquired a new dimension in today’s society: they fulfill our fantasies through literary fiction like works like Stephen King's Night Shift collection of short stories. In his book, King gives a chilling encounter of how people come face to face with normal people turned into vampires in the short story: One for the Road. King shows how a normal out-of-the-way town became a horror spot. The story ends with the implied warning that anyone should not make a stopover at a town where it is rumored vampires reside, because you will be turned into one yourself (King 416). Vampires have also been used by psychoanalysts to describe the nature of man’s psyche. Analysts use the paradigm of a vampire to illustrate how people react when they are faced with challenges that go beyond the levels of manageable reality. A vampire is used to symbolize the ultimate fear that one can face in his life. Vampires have enabled psychoanalysts to determine the psyche behind people who commit hideous acts like homicide that is accompanied by excessively cruel torture of the victim. Disturbed people who commit sexual crimes of a serious degree have been observed to be inspired by [among others] the perceived vampire authority over other beings when they abuse humans in order to satisfy their carnal needs. According to Williams in his book Vampires Anonymous and Critical Race Practice, people who have defecient social skills, turn to the vampire legend in-order to justify their shortcomings whenever the commit crime or fall short in a relationship. For example, the troubled person would easily associate with the notion of being an extremely powerful entity because they feel weaker than others. A person who has an unfulfilling sexual life would admire the quintessential vampire, because of his unnutural sexual drive. A person that is suffering from a terminal illness would want to be like a vampire and live for eternity. These types of people are generally believed to be the driving force of the vampire myth, because it gives their lives a sense of purpose and empowers them where they fall short socially or medically. Vampires have also inspired the modern gothic movement. This grouping of people draws their inspiration from the purported ways of life of a vampire by aping their dress sense, life outlook, and societal interactions. The Goths dress in dark shades (mostly black), fashion their teeth after the vampire fangs and wear pale make up. Goths have used the template that is derived from a vampires fashion sense and ways of living to enable them stand out from the general populace trends. There is a vampire that lives like the rest of the population and has no significance physiological qualities that would immediately distinguish her from the general populace (Williams 96). This type of person is often referred to as having vampire-like qualities because of their outstanding ability to manipulate and direct energies around them. These kinds of people are said to be able to control the ‘life force’. Vampire-like people are crucial in testing situations like times of great calamity and canvassing confusion because they are able to withstand the negative environments without bulking under the psychological and physical strain. There is a section of people that are referred to as ‘vampires’ because they function well in the night time, their bodies have been conditioned to produce the optimum output in the dark. These kinds of people carry out their activities when others have receded into their homes. In the movie Vampires (Woods, Baldwin and Lee), the character of Jack Crow (played by James Woods) is a successful vampire hunter because he possesses vampire-like qualities. He manages to carry out his duties in his optimum capacity during the time of the day that vampires function in. People who have vampire-like qualities have body rhythms that are inverted when compared to the normal people. For example, they experience their menstrual periods during periods which women are normally not expected to possess hormones to carry out the menstrual cycle. Vampires are prone to sunburns after only short exposures to sunlight, thus they prefer to work in the night time as opposed to daytime. However, people with vampire like qualities are also prone to moodiness and sharp fluctuations in their outlook. They are observed to be at the peak of their energy levels in one day, but then fluctuate to their lowest in the next. Vampires have bodies that are not easily affected by substances that introduced into their bodies. Due to their extraordinary body capacities, they are seldom affected body substances that are deemed dangerous to the human body, for example strong medication and drugs. Vampires can thus be employed in professions that require the stressing of the body functions. Unfortunately, successful crime lords have been observed to possess vampire-like qualities, thus they manage to manage their empires under environments where the consumption of huge amounts of alcohol and drugs is commonplace. Vampire-like people have deeper emotional and psychological capacities compared to what a normal person would possess. Due to their higher threshold for pain and abuse, vampires become successful military operatives and intelligence spies, who can survive in enemy territory for long periods of time, either under capture or in disguise. Vampires succeed in politics because they can manage to manipulate the opinions of people towards a particular desired outcome. Another kind of vampire is frequently prone to an unstable emotional state because they can easily relate to the environment around them, but in so doing they absorb the negative energies which renders them irritable and moody. Despite the desired qualities that a vampire-like person would possess, they have the tendency of turning around their attributes when they are faced with an extreme in their physical capacity. They can suddenly reverse from being in good moods to sadness and withdrawal. As a means of dealing with the sudden fluctuations in their behaviors, vampires tend to avoid the company of masses, and will be observed going about their business as loners. Vampires and Societal Fears Vampires straddle a social situation that is referred to as liminal states of existence (living on the margins). This type of living was made illustrated by Victor Turner begins who explains that people who are liminal are: “neither here nor there; they are betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention, and ceremony”. Vampires have been feared since time immemorial they have been closely related to demonic acts. So, it goes without saying that various religions, for example Christianity has used this paradigm to illustrate how the practices of a vampire embody the very essence of evil. In the bible (Leviticus 18: 10-11) it states: "If any man whosoever of the house of Israel... eat blood, I will set my face against his soul, and will cut him off from among his people. Because the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you, that you may make atonement with it upon the altar of your souls. Only beware of this, that thou eat not the blood: for the blood is for the soul. And therefore thou must not eat the soul with the flesh: But thou shalt pour it on the earth as water." Blood has been recognized as the life force of the human body, therefore any ritual whose purpose is to rob another human being of his blood is considered as the ultimate form of evil that can be meted on man. The ultimate power of life is what made blood be the sacrifice of choice for gods. Vampires are said to feed on blood so as to acquire the energy of their victims, which in essence means that they partake of what is only fit for a god. The society has a result feared vampires because they could subject them to the most degrading form of dehumanization possible. The society fears vampires because of the easy with which they propagate their kind. The vampire can be likened to a communicable disease that can be transmitted through blood. Communicable disease form one the most feared conditions that mankind is threatened with, and when this concept is fused with that of vampires, the outcome is bound to be a scary prospect. Vampires can easily pass unnoticed when they are in a group of people; therefore anyone is faced with a real danger of being turned into a ‘living dead’ being. Vampires were made famous by fiction writers, who described him as a being that could not be hampered by the conventional adverse environmental conditions for man. As a result, the society was crippled by the notion that a vampire cannot be subjected to any hardship condition if one wanted to annihilate him. It can be found in One for the Road (King 405) that the people who were turned into vampires could live in a bitter winter and not be affected physically. Conclusion The fears of society have often found their way in the lore of the society. Such lore find themselves in myths that try to explain away the fears especially about the limits of existence. Myths about vampires enable society to express itself, by first fulfilling its fantasies, so that ideas can be acceptable in a progressively critical environment which would otherwise reject such a hypothesis. In the long run, an inquisitive society would be left unsatisfied about the root of phenomena that it has failed to conclusively explain. This paper has discussed how the myth of the vampire has served earlier generations and has morphed to serve the present generation, in a manner that has satisfied the societal needs of both. The vampire transformed from a scary entity in the early times into an entity that describes various tastes of the society which vary from mystery to sexuality. The vampire legend has therefore transcended ages, and by serving society from different historical ages has illustrated that the vampire is truly (whether in fantasy or real life) an eternal entity. Works Cited King, Stephen. "One for the Road." King, Stephen. Night Shift. New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc. , 1978. 397-417. Vampires. Dir. John Carpenter. Perf. James Woods, Daniel Baldwin and Sheryl Lee. 1998. Williams, Robert A. "Vampires Anonymous and Critical Race Practice." Michigan Law Review 95.4 ( 1997): 741-765. Read More