This is the flyer for my Victorian Vampires in Literature presentation later this month. I plan on summarizing the various stories, then discussing the characteristics of the vampire in each story. Since I have only allowed an hour and a half for the presentation, it would be hard to do much more. Of course, I can't decide if I really want many people or not. This is my home audience, and I will have to see them again even if I blow the presentation.
I am lucky to work for a college that will allow time for non-canonical, popular culture classes and presentations.
Does anyone besides me wonder at the terminology of "vegetarian vampire" when referring to vampires who don't drink human blood? It isn't as though they are suddenly going on a regimen of broccoli and carrots with a fruit salad chaser. They are still drinking blood, just not the blood of humans. They are now drinking the blood of animals they kill in order to obtain the requisite blood (and I don't quite see the Cullens doing the whole Little Vampire cosying up to the cow thing).
So it is okay to kill animals instead of humans if one is a vampire, and doing so is a sign of the retention of humanity? But it is not okay to kill and eat animals if one is a still-living human (which presumes that vampires are not still-living humans)? And if one is a vampire the term vegetarian means animal eater, while for a human it means not-an-animal eater? Are you catching the problem here? Why the lexical drift? Why is it viewed as necessary? Does the necessity have to do with the drift of vampire from the horror genre to the romance genre? We don't have sex with our food, so we want vampires who no longer "see" us as food which thereby enables us to have sex with them?
I have no answers. I just know that the terminology irritates me. Vampires are not in a symbiotic relationship with the still-living blood donors. They are parasitic. They live off our blood. They return nothing, supply nothing, of value to the life of their blood donor. And isn't vegetarianism the attempt of humans to break the food chain parasitic relationship with the animals they share the planet with?
I have been working with Mary Elizabeth Braddon's "The Good Lady Ducayne" (1896) which features the first scientific vampire, Lady Ducayne. She victimizes (vampirizes) several young girls, having their blood -- and their energy -- transfused into herself by her creepy Dr. She has been doing it thirty years by the time we join the story, and she is exposed. In my conference paper I note that she is never accused of lesbianism the way Le Fenu's "Carmilla" is, but she is ancient, so all we say is ... yyyyyuuuuccck ... at that very idea. I assume the difference is the blood is drawn through a test tube instead of by lips on a neck or breast. But the same reason we react so quickly to say yuck to the idea of sexual exchange between the two should, I believe, be the same reason we begin talking about pedophilia. That is if we assume that the Pedophile gets off as much on the power as on the sexual release, as modern psychologists tell us they do.
Let's bring it home. Edward Cullen is OLD. Bella is a virginal sixteen. From what I hear/read, none of the Twilight fans raise the specter of pedophilia when Edward is attracted to her youth and vigor. Yes, he looks young, but his reality, his identity, is that of an old man -- in fact a very very old man. So, since his outside appearance seems to match her outward appearance, the reaction to the sexual tension is "WoW!" The same with True Bood's vampires, Eric and Bill (and I would imagine Pam) each have a wide following of admirers, none of whom are particularly concerned by the age difference, except possibly to wonder if a long life = more sexual experience = better sex. As though the vampires even think of their human blood donors in terms of sex instead of in terms of food source.
A few months back I wrote an ezine article about May/December relationships between humans and vampires; I'm not sure now that I took it far enough. At what point in the age span difference does it matter if the human side of the equation "wants" to be in the relationship? Is it possible for an eight year old to really want to be in a relationship with a much much much much much older person? Has there been some sort of manipulation on the part of the older person, either economic or social that has unduly impacted the younger party? Taking the discussion back to a safe place, does Carmilla manipulate her young female acquaintance into a quasi-sexual relationship (I don't believe it ever crosses that line), so that she can "be" with her, or so that she can more readily obtain her blood? Ask yourself if Carmilla is a pedophile because she is really really old sharing a bed with a very young virgin? Again, is Edward?
No, I am not certain of the answers which I believe each of us will come to individually. But it makes food for thought.
