Symons' "The Vampire" Poem (1896)

Image Copyright Sandra Ormandy 2012

When designing my July 6, 2014 presentation on the Victorian representation of the vampire figure in their literature for the 2014 Gearcon in Portland, Oregon, I re-found this rather wonderful poem by Symons. Written in 1896, his lyric idea of  “The Vampire” portrays women as a meteorically traditional vampire. Even his presentation of  death here could easily be that of sexual orgasm. 

"The Vampire"

"Intolerable woman, where’s the name

For your insane complexity of shame?

Vampire! White bloodless creature of the night,

Whose lust of blood has blanched her chill veins white.

Veins fed with moonlight over dead men’s tombs;

Whose eyes remember many martyrdoms.

So that their depths, whose depths cannot be found,

Are shadowed pools in which a soul lies drowned.

Who would fain have pity, but she may not rest

Till she have sucked his life-blood from his breast.

And drained his lifeblood from him, vein by vein,

And seen his eyes grow brighter for the pain,

And his lips sigh her name with his last breath

As the man swoons ecstatically on death.

Making the Grade: Writing an A Paper!

An A paper:

Students often think the A grade should be given just because they have turned in the paper, on time and met the basic assignment parameters. It is, somehow, due them. Most college instructors have very specific expectations of an A paper. They expect it to be narrow and clearly focused.

Arguably, the major moral of 30 Days of Night, directed by David Slade, is that mankind is helpless against the supernatural vampire in a world where God has been removed from the equation. It is set in a secular world, where supernatural good (God, and his many manifestations) has been removed, but supernatural evil (vampires) still are allowed.  In the movie itself, we are told that the only reason daylight kills vampires is that it contains ultra-violet light; thus unlinking the tie of day and sunlight, to Christ, God's son. Unlike most vampire films, there are no churches to run to, no crosses, no holy water, no priests, and perhaps most importantly, no slayers.  The humans merely attempt to survive the night; they never attempt to take it back. It is only at the last moment when all survivors have to choose between being eaten or burned alive that the secular power, the sheriff, steps up to save the few still human survivors. The message is thus reinforced: without some supernatural power to even the equation, evil -- supernatural or otherwise -- with its willingness to do whatever it wishes to further its ends, always wins. 

Can you see the difference between this A-level paragraph and the B-level one?

• It is narrowly focused, states its topic up front: there is a moral in the film
• It then clearly states the moral: Mankind is helpless against vampires without God’s power
• It provides support from the film for its premise.

It does do a few things wrong. A short quote from the film, such as when a lead vampire tells one of the victims, “no God,” would have strengthened it and provided a relevant taste of the film. And it sets up a comparison between a human hero and a God-powered savior which is clearly not the moral under discussion. While the writer does manage to pull the human-hero back into the correct direction, in a longer paper, it would beg for development.

 So, in summary:

An “A” reply does the reading and discovers a topic or theme within the story which the story supports – and only the summary supporting those points are told. A “B” response discovers the topic or theme, discusses it, just supports it less well or with a few more grammar errors. A “C” paper – average 121 level, would summarize it with some errors. All within the word count. 

 (All Rights Reserved. copyright Leslie Ormandy 2012)

July 4: OR, Just Another Day (Part 3)

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He loaded her in and crawled in beside her to get a good look at what he’d hooked.

Sarah now had a choice to make; eat now and save herself the pawing, or let him take her back to his hole and drain him slowly. “Hell with that,” she told herself, “I’m hungry.”

But as Wilton turned away to close the back of the van and she prepared to surprise him, she heard the tell-tale crackle of a cop radio and a voice asking Wilton is everything was alright.

“It’s fine, officer,” Wilton said climbing out, “just making sure the picnic food isn’t going to spill on the way home.”

Sarah swore softly as the door closed her in and she felt the van start to move.

She was ravenous when the van finally pulled to a stop. She heard Wilton open a gate, felt the van move though it, then heard him as he closed the gate and resumed driving for a short while. 

When he opened the back of the van and slid inside to lift her flaccid body out, she reached out and pulled him into her embrace. His shock held him motionless for a moment, but then Wilton started struggling. She pulled his head to one side and used her fingernails to pierce his jugular vein. She was a quart into him when she came up for air. She knew she needed to drink a bit slower or she’d be burping blood all night. And Wilton had quit struggling after the first pint or two. He wasn’t going anywhere; out cold and in shock from blood-loss and pain.

Pushing his body away from her own, Sarah poked around the inside of the van, taking stock. A few, now bloody, sleeping bags on the floor. An open tool kit in which plastic zip strips in several sizes and duct tape in a variety of colors filled the top opening. Then she spotted the plether briefcase tucked partially under the passenger seat. Opening it, she found a cornucopia: vials of Rohypnol and Klonopin, along with a baggie of white powder she figured was cocaine and a selection of needles packaged with a vial of Heroin. Nasty stuff, and expensive stuff for a standard old-guy rapist to be carrying around. Sarah looked from the open briefcase to him, considering her options. She could finish him quickly – which was her norm – or hit him with some of his own product to keep him out while she explored the location he’d brought her to. It would mean drinking tainted blood unless she waited until it cleared his system, but really, all it would do was to make his blood taste rancid. The drugs in it wouldn’t make her sick or have any “high” effect on her.

Shaking her head at herself as she gave in to her biggest vice, curiosity, Sarah prepared him a fix and injected him. She’d watched enough of her friends do it back when she’d been alive to be capable of it. Then she covered his body with one of the bloodstained sleeping bags before cracking the door a few inches.

Peering carefully out and seeing no one and hearing no movement, she slipped out of the van allowing the door to close gently behind her.

It was the low moans coming from the obviously abandoned building on her left that gave her direction, and she moved quietly in that direction. Sidling up to a broken window she peered in; there was a young naked woman chained to a cot. The moans were coming from her, “Oh God, oh God, oh God” in a constant stream as the woman rocked back and forth rubbing her shoulders. Sarah knew a good human would rush in and “save her,” releasing her from the chains and sweeping her off to hospital and help. But Sarah wasn’t human. Not anymore.

She smiled and went to the van where she stepped over Wilton to reach the drug kit. Pulling a second syringe out and filling it with enough H to keep the captive placid for a few more hours, she walked over to the broken window and tossed it though a broken space. She heard the scramble as the captive crawled eagerly over to the syringe. No need to watch.

She would finish up Wilton and hole up for the day, and if no “saviors,” or if Wilton’s partners, didn’t show up by the time the chained woman woke up, Sarah would have her next day’s meal.  She’d leave the outcome to chance: good or bad.

It was the game that made eternity interesting.

Story copyright Leslie Ormandy 2012 ALL rights reserved! 

Making the Grade: Writing Papers that Earn an "A" (the B paper)

The B paper:

Many students feel, upon getting a B grade, that they are somehow just not good enough. They are above average, just not extraordinary. Note the focus in those two sentences? The focus is on the author instead of on the writing. Instructors are not grading the person. We are grading the artifact turned in – a paper. We are looking to see if the paper has not only the material we are asking for, and how the material is presented. We are looking to see if the writer is actually interacting, intellectually, with the material we have assigned them.

See if you can see how much this differs from the “D” and “C” paper.

30 Days of Night, directed by David Slade, shows what happens when bad vampires intersect with helpless humans. That the vampires are intelligent is shown by them waiting until there would be no daylight for the humans to use to escape, destroying all the telephones as well as the cell tower, and destroying all the cars and killing the sled dogs. Once the humans are cut off from civilization and help, the vampires attack them a few at a time, in their homes and in the store, taking care to kill the people after they’ve drank their fill. They kill the humans because in this world being bitten by a vampire is all it takes to become one, and the head vampire doesn’t want too many vampires since an increase in the vampire population would call human attention to their existence, and vampires are to be thought to not exist. The sheriff is the hero as he injects himself with vampire blood to fight the lead vampire and save the few survivors. He then has enough humanity left to commit suicide in his wife’s arms as the sun comes up. I think it was a good movie.

Clearly this paragraph is better than the C level paragraph in several ways. And the one “I” statement is a common throw-off I see in student papers. They aren’t willing to just leave the paper to stand on its own merits, but feel it necessary to add the one “me” statement.

• It discovers a topic or theme and attempts to find internal support from the source for it.
• The summary which is given all clearly supports the ideas under discussion.
• It gives a clear statement of what is being discussed – which the reader needs and the assignment called for.
• The grammar and sentence structures have all been proof-read and fixed.

So what went wrong? Why is it not an “A” response?

Because it tries to do too much. There are too many strands of thought running through it – like a brainstorm with every possible topic introduced. This is a very small assignment, but even a larger essay wouldn’t want this many ideas. Let’s take a look:

• Vampires are evil
• Humans are helpless
• Vampires are intelligent: Internal proof – they destroy cars, phones, attack at night
• Vampires don’t like daylight
• Vampires should remain a story character, unreal
• A new vampire would be strong enough to kill an older vampire
• The sheriff is a hero: becomes a vampire to protect, loves his wife enough to not kill her, commit suicide rather than kill humans.

As you can see when they are broken out; there are a lot of topics here. Any one of them would have been ample for a two-hundred word paragraph. This is clearly much better than a C paper, but it tries to do too much.

(All Rights Reserved. Copyright Leslie Ormandy 2012)