The Transformation Of The Literary Vampire

12 Pages 3083 Words

to stop them an authoritative figure? Throughout the years, many authors created stories, which dramatically altered the appearances and abilities of these ancient vampires.
According to Anthony Masters, in his book The Natural History of the Vampire, the first vampire stories came about in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. A story like “The Life of Apollonius of Tyana”, by the Greek writer Philostratus, told the tale of Menippus whose fiancée was a vampire. It was not until 1796, when Burger’s Lenore was translated from German to English that English writers started composing their vampire stories. It was then that vampires started losing their “reality” and became fictitious beasts of the night, unlike in the sixteenth century, when vampires were thought to be real creatures that terrorized the living. Approximately one hundred years later, in 1897, Dracula, by Abraham “Bram” Stoker, was born, and what a beast he was. Right from the beginning of the novel, the reader should be prepared for a tale whose accounts on the subject of Dracula will not only be biased, but undoubtedly askew. Since the majority of the book was written from the perspectives of Jonathan Harker, Mina, and Dr. Seward the reader cannot establish a real connection to Count Dracula himself. Considering the period of the book, one could assume that relating to a creature of darkness was regarded as evil and, probably, censurable material had the book conveyed any such point. Therefore, the initial readers of Dracula were never able to see from the Count’s perspective. They were never able to enter into his world and see if he were truly a monster. A depiction of the vampires of this time was probably more than enough information to make them more monstrous than they are now. They were ugly, pale creatures, with long front teeth used for penetrating the skin of their prey so that they might take their life. The facial features, of a vamp...