I am Legend my version

On those cloudy days, Robert Neville was never sure when sunset came, and sometimes they were in the streets before he could make it back. That is why he chose to stay near the house  on those days, besides there was always something to do around the house. The vampires constantly made a mess of things. They tore at the walls, shattered the mirrors that he hung up, and there was always a corpse or two to clean up. Once they got hungry enough and tired of waiting for him to come out they would inevitably feed on each other leaving him to clean up the pieces in the morning.

He always took the bodies to the burning hole even though he knew they would not come back to life come night fall. It was just a habit from back when he did not understand and when there were people to enforce the rules. As far as he knew he was the only one left in the city maybe even the world but he still held out with his irrational hope that someone would come save him.  That a tank would come rolling down his street and an army man would knock on his door and say “Mr. Neville, it is over now we have come to take you to a safe place free of infection.”

Whenever he envisioned the end of this pandemic he could not help but remember the beginning. Kathy and Virginia sitting down at the table while he pled heaping spoonful’s of mashed potatoes to their plates. God, what he wouldn’t give to see them again. They had been laughing about something Kathy had said and they could hear the phone ringing in the other room but no one had been eager to answer it. That should have been a sign. He had excused himself from the table noticing the disapproving stares from Virginia but it could be work calling. He had to answer it.

It wasn’t work, it was his father and he was ecstatic, after years and years of failures he had finally created bacteria that would regrow flesh over large wounds. It was going to save burn victims from so much pain and lengthy recoveries. It only took one night to regenerate the flesh! His father’s biggest and greatest achievement was what doomed the human race, and it had been created to help.

What if he could find something to irradiate the bacteria? Would he be able to cure the vampirism that had taken hold of the world? He had his father’s notes. His mother had given them to him after his father had succumbed to the sickness, before anyone knew where it came from or what it was. He owed humanity, he had to make up for the sins of his father. But it would never work. He was not a scientist and besides they all failed, what could he do that they couldn’t? He will just wait for the military to come save him. He still had plenty left to do to the house to make it safer for him at night. He would just wait.

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The first sign of life in so long! So long in fact he couldn’t remember the last time he had seen a creature that was not a vampire. A timid little dog was sitting across the street pawing at the dirt looking for food. He was worried about it he could see the sun setting but if the dog had managed to last this long it must know when it is safe to be outside. He looked away for a moment when he heard the masses of vampires and when he looked back the dog was gone.  Hopefully he was safe. He did not want to give up on this new life he had found. It would be so nice to talk to something again. It had been so long.

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                He had been giving the dog food for a few days and finally it was starting to trust him. He was even able to pet it briefly while he gave it some food but it never came in the house. He would have to find a way to get it inside. That would be the safest place for it.

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He was glad he looked out the window when he did. The dog was injured; how did he not notice it when he fed it that morning?  The vampires were literally crawling out of the woodwork of the houses in the neighborhood and the dog was not able to get away. He didn’t even hesitate, he ran outside and fought off the vampires trying to get to the dog.  He got the dog in the house but he could not be sure it wasn’t infected. He would just have to watch it closely for the next day or so. It was not like he had to fear infection for himself.

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The dog was infected. He should have gotten him inside sooner.  He was going to try to do everything he could to cure that dog. He needed a companion. He was getting so lonely. He began pulling vampires off the street, he had gotten quite good at setting up traps for them with him as the bate. Everything he tried though just killed the vampire. He read through his father’s notes. He spent all the daylight hours he could at the library researching everything he could on bacteria. He even looked into vampire books like Dracula  and folk lore on that subject. The  only thing he could determine was that what he was doing was not working. He stole microscopes from abandoned high schools and soon his house was looking more like a chemistry lab than a house but still no cure. He was now going through four or five vampires a week. And disappointed, he would bring their bodies to the ever smoldering burning pit. The poor dog locked up starving for blood.

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He had a breakthrough. He killed the bacteria and mixed it with the chemical compounds of garlic and injected the vampires with it like a vaccine. It worked for a few days. They started looking human again but before the week was through their bodies rejected the cure and they turned to puddles of coagulated blood on his experimentation tables.

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More signs of life today, unless his mind was playing tricks on him. He saw a woman. A tan woman walking through the fields by the burning pit but before he could reach her she was gone.

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He saw her again today, this time he tried coaxing her to him like he did the dog. It was working but dusk was falling and he had to go back home where it was safe.

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She showed up at his house. She had followed him home. He did not know what to do when he saw her standing on his step just before the vampires got to the house. He had to let her. She told him that she had survived with her husband but he was dead now and she was totally alone. She wanted to know everything he knew about the vampires so he told her what he had found out. He was proud of his achievements and it was nice to have someone to talk to. They had been living together for weeks and he was becoming more and more hopeful that there were more people out there if they both could survive. But one morning he woke up and she was gone and in her place on their bed was a letter

Robert,

Now you know. Know that I was spying on you, know that almost everything that I have told you was a lie.

I’m writing this note though, because I want to save you if I can.

When I was first given the job of spying on you, I had no feeling s about your life, because I did have a husband, Robert. You killed him. But I now know that you were forced into your situation as much as we were into ours. That is why I am warning you to leave. We are coming after you. We have created a society. We have developed a pill that will feed the bacteria but also keep it from spreading. I left you one because I knew you wouldn’t believe it was true , but it is!

You are a danger to this new society we have created. Please leave and maybe they won’t come after you.

Please forgive me for everything. It nearly killed me to leave but I had to. Please believe this: When we were together in the darkness close to each other, I was not spying on you. I loved you.

Ruth

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He watched them come destroy the “dead” vampires. He let them take him. They injected him with something and he passed out. When he woke, he saw Ruth staining over him.

“Why didn’t you run?”

“There was nothing left for me, I thought about it but there was nothing to run towards”

“Take these then” she said as she handed him some small white pills “they will make your death less painful”

She kissed him and left him. He swallowed the pills and laughed to himself. Full circle he thought. A new terror born in death, a new superstition entering the unassailable fortress of forever. I am Legend.

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He opened his eyes. What was this? Where was he?

“Welcome to the new society Robert” Ruth said

Robert Neville as a classical hero: Final Project analysis

Robert Neville as a classical hero

Alix Wright

Final project analysis

A hero, according to classical mythology, is a man of “royal birth or even, like the Titan Prometheus, half mortal, half god.  He must perform extraordinary feats. His is a noble character which is close to perfectly ideal but for a fatal flaw. The suffering of the character is physical. Death must occur in an unusual way. The hero fights for his own honor; his deeds belong to the community only after his death.” (Vera Norman from: Four Conceptions of the Heroic http://www.fellowshipofreason.com/archives/4heroes.htm) Robert Neville is actually an antihero. An antihero is a character who “lacks the attributes that make a heroic figure, as nobility of mind and spirit, a life or attitude marked by action or purpose.” (www.dictionary.com) His purpose may be to survive but he is not doing anything for the greater good.

For my final project I wrote a short story modeling Neville after the classical hero. I made him the son of a scientist who first discovered the vampire virus because there would be no gods in modern western society. I did this because the person who discovered or created the bacteria created the fate of the humans much like a god would. His extraordinary feats were attempting to save the dog and the child that he thought was not infected. His fatal flaw is science. In looking for a cure or a cause for the bacteria he brought about his death when he attracted the attention of the conscious vampires (versus the dead ones who were only reanimated flesh.) In keeping true to the original story I kept his death the same the fact that he is the anomaly and the thing to be feared is enough of an unusual death. In my story he is fighting for his honor and not just for survival because he wants to make up for the pandemic his father unleashed onto the world.

My purpose in writing this short story was to play around with the idea of the hero and to see how the profoundness of realizing that you are the “other” would play out if you were a person who believed you were fighting for the good of all. The form of my story is after the hero’s journey by Joseph Campbell. Who argued along with Jung that the hero is always the same. In every culture the hero’s story follows the same pattern as shown here from The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell.

 

The outline of the journey is as follows:

I.                  Departure
- The Call to Adventure
- Refusal of the Call
- Supernatural Aid
- The Crossing of the First Threshold
- The Belly of the Whale

II. Initiation
- The Road of Trials
- The Meeting with the Goddess
- Woman as the Temptress
- Atonement with the Father
- Apotheosis
- The Ultimate Boon

III. Return
- Refusal of the Return
- The Magic Flight
- Rescue from Without
- The Crossing of the Return Threshold
- Master of the Two Worlds
- Freedom to Live

The departure is the beginning of the hero’s journey. It starts out with a call to adventure. For Neville the call to adventure came previous to my story when the pandemic started. Campbell calls it “the awakening of the self” (p.51 The Hero with a Thousand faces from now on will be referred to as HWTF.) For my Neville this awakening was the realization that his father was the cause of the pandemic and his decision to make it right again by finding the cure. My story starts with the refusal of the call where Neville just wants to survive. He goes about his business vampire proofing the house and collecting supplies to last him through until someone else comes to rescue him.

Supernatural aid, according to Joseph Campbell is when a “protective figure (often a little old crone or old man) provides the adventurer with amulets against the dragon forces he is about to pass”(HWTFp.69). The dragon forces are the struggles. Since Neville is the only human left the supernatural aid comes in the form of his conscience and his memories of what his father was trying to accomplish.

Crossing the first threshold is when the hero moves from the known to the unknown. For my Neville this comes about when he starts researching the disease and when he starts experimenting with his cures on the vampires.

In part II of the hero’s journey the hero is coming closer to his goal. For Neville that comes about with the cure that works for a little while but  it also sowed the seeds for his destruction because he was taking so many vampires off the street he became noticed. Ruth was sent (woman as the temptress) to learn about his doings and he was judged to be a danger to her new society.

In the end Neville is killed because he is a danger and an “other”  which fulfills the criteria for an unusual death. At the end of my story as compared to the novel, Neville is reborn as a vampire to keep with the archetypal hero’s journey and also with classical mythology. Heroes are rewarded for their deeds by the gods getting sent to the Elysian Fields (nirvana, heaven…) so his rebirth as a vampire is allowing him to be a part of this new society.

I think I captured Neville’s voice well but I had to change it slightly because I could not have my classical hero being so pessimistic. It was interesting trying to change some aspects of his character with out completely changing him so that he would be unrecognizable. The only aspect that I am not fond of with my short story is the fact that my Neville closely resembles the Neville from the movie starring Will Smith. It was hard to move away from that version of Neville because in the movie he is more heroic than in the novel. He does not have such dark moods and he is trying to turn the vampires he catches human again instead of just killing them.

When I was writing this story I did a lot of research first. I reread the novel and then I looked into the classical hero and the hero’s journey but once I write it I don’t revise that much. I really only check for grammar and spelling because I find that if I revise I lose the voice of the piece and it no longer flows or sounds authentic.

What I liked most about my story was my character Neville. I really did not like Neville from the novel. I thought he was vile and boring so I got rid of the characteristics that I did not like (lucky for me the characteristics I did not like made him an antihero.) So I am particularly proud of him as a character.

Let the Right One in

According to Freud the uncanny is something that evokes a sense of horror and dread because it is something that is opposite of what is common or known. He argues that it is scary because it is unknown. He goes on to say that what is unknown is not always scary but what is known is never scary. He gives us this example of the idea of the Sand Man which was very frightening for children at the time he was writing. He gave an example of a child who saw his father die and became obsessed with the idea of the sand man to the point that he was deemed a mad man. He explains this uncanny fear

"We know from psycho-analytic experience, however, that the fear of damaging or losing one’s eyes is a terrible one in children. Many adults retain their apprehensiveness in this respect, and no physical injury is so much dreaded by them as an injury to the eye. We are accustomed to say, too, that we will treasure a thing as the apple of our eye. A study of dreams, phantasies and myths has taught us that anxiety about one’s eyes, the fear of going blind, is often enough a substitute for the dread of being castrated. The self-blinding of the mythical criminal, Oedipus, was simply a mitigated form of the punishment of castration — the only punishment that was adequate for him by the lex talionis. We may try on rationalistic grounds to deny that fears about the eye are derived from the fear of castration, and may argue that it is very natural that so precious an organ as the eye should be guarded by a proportionate dread. Indeed, we might go further and say that the fear of castration itself contains no other significance and no deeper secret than a justifiable dread of this rational kind."

This idea of the uncanny relates to this novel because the uncanny element in this story is the fact that a child which people think of as innocent is actually a killer. That is totally an unknown quality. The fact that a child is never suspected of committing murder which is what people thought was happening. Parents had no way of even protecting their children from this threat because they were never even thinking of Eli as a threat. This would most definitely lead to the felling of inadequacy as a parent because protecting their children is seen as a parental duty.

Final Project Proposal

For my final project I would like to explore the character of Robert Neville if he had been a classical hero and then I would annalyze in an essay the differences along with the origins of the classical hero. I found the discusion about whether or not Robert was a hero very interesting and I want to explore how the story would change if he had the characteristics of a real hero.

Interview post 1

I thought that reading the book from the point of view of the vampire gave me a lot of sympathies with him. Usually in vampire novels the vampire is the subject of the story but not the narrator. we never really get to see the their inner workings. In Louis's case, he was upset by what he had to do to survive and he was sure he was damned because he had to kill and because he enjoyed it. Vampires are usually portrayed as monsters maybe because we cant see their motivations and thoughts. I also thought that the relationship between Lestat, Louis and Claudia was strange in the fact that no one saw them as strange. I would think that in that time a male couple with a child would cause some uproar. I know that the relationship was not sexual but that would be how it would appear to outsiders. The fa

Zombie U (extra credit)

I have to say that I know nothing about video games and this presentation used a lot of technical jargon that I could not for the life of me follow. I think (hope) I got the general idea.
The speaker, Brian Greenspan, had some of his students create a Zombie themed video game because he was trying to figure out why college aged youth are for lack of a better word obsessed with zombies/ zombie culture. I thought the video game sounded interesting, it was a game that instead of being played with a controller in someone's house it is played by walking around campus interacting with the environment. They used Google maps to create areas with stories set up in them so when the players walked around campus they would get stories to go along with what they were seeing. (I have to say that I might play video games if they were interactive like that)
The idea of the game is that the student population was infected by an email (?) that went out from the corporation that "owns" the school. That idea fits with his conclusion of what the zombie represents. He sees the zombie as consumerism. Or society embracing consumerism. He said society because a group of zombies has one goal brains (or whatever it is in the creative work they are used in) but they also have individual desires and they are made up of many different people. He also said that the need for brains can represent how corporations and universities need student for their cognitive capital. Ideas are fed to students through their professors and then they spread them out into the world when they graduate. So his theory as I understood it was that Universities are becoming more and more consumerist with all of the advertisements that come at students from all sides telling them to buy this, drink this, wear that, see this, and that along with the teachings of their professor creates ideas within the student that combine consumerism with whatever ideals the university holds (one that he focused on was innovation.)
Now he says that Zombies video games are popular with students because they are you (gamer and character of the game) against society so the individual against conformity.
He also said that zombies signified (in our technological era) our lack of control over nonhuman networks (the internet and more specifically search engines) I did not really understand this since I am technologically illiterate but I thought it was an interesting idea that would be good to learn about but I would need it spelled out to me like they were talking to a five year old.
He gave us some history on the Zombie. He said they had an interesting start. They did not come about in a book and then move to movies and then games. They started in movies went to video games and then finally books. This is a different progression then things usually take. It just shows that the zombie was born out of a technological and digital era.
They came about in the sixties and represented conformity and the projected fears such as nuclear weapons, race, aids and class. They are the tension between alienation, inclusion within a society.


I did not really see a connection to literature except the brief reference to how the zombie came about but I did see a parallel to the vampire. The vampire can be seen as representing race like we can see from the article for this week but usually the vampire signifies the "other" where the zombie represents society.
Overall I thought the presentation was interesting but I had some trouble following it because of the technical jargon and because it seemed like he was reading off of a journal article so the language in general was not very casual. I think it would be interesting to play this video game and also to look into these ideas in greater detail.

I am Legend Post #2

I really liked Matheson's Dress of White Silk. I liked the way he played with the grammar and sentence structure so that I could imagine a young child speaking. It did however, trip me up a few times like on page 225 where it says "No she said she was so mad and red it has a hole in it." At first I could not figure out the subject the sentence. It took me a little bit to realize that it was a combination of two thoughts. Even though I now know there are two ideas represented in this sentence, I still as not quite sure which thought "red" is part of. Because the story changes a lot depending on what "red" is making a reference to. Red could refer to the fact that the narrator pinched Mary Jane which was why she was angry but it also could refer to the dress as in
" 'It is too, white' I said, 'all white, and clean, and silky'
'No,' she said, she was so mad 'and red, it has a hole in it'"
The first time I read it I thought it referred to the dress so my reading on the whole story was a little different than it had been the second time I read it. The first time I read it through, I thought that the mother had been murdered or with going with the theme from I am Legend, that she was killed by vampires or became a vampire. The whole in the dress with red or blood, I saw, as either being caused by a gun or knife if she had been murdered, or a stake if she had been a vampire. I thought the daughter might have been a vampire because of the last couple of lines "She wont let me out. Well Im not scared. Who cares if she locks me in a million billion years? She doesn't have to even give me supper. Im not hungry anyway. Im full." That combined with the ambiguousness of what happened to Mary Jane makes me think that the narrator killed her. "There was something else because I think I heard some one call don't let her say that! I couldn't hold to the dress. And I had it on me I cant remember. Because I was grown up and strong. But I was a little girl still I think. I mean on the outside."
The narrator also thinks that the room smells good but Mary Jane is disgusted by the smell so that makes me think that a vampire would think that blood/death smells good.
The second time I read it I decided that "red" most likely went with the pinch the narrator gave Mary Jane so that takes the blood aspect out of the dress but I still read that the narrator was a vampire, it just made me see the mother's death a little differently.
I definitely thought this story was a vampire story so that is the connection I draw to I am Legend and I am not sure this story is a horror story because it does not add an element of horror until the very end when the narrator gets mad at Mary Jane and gets locked up. I thought it started out innocently enough with a little bit of sadness over the mother's death but I really did not get a scary sense from it until the end.
In all of the other stories I saw a connection with the elements of the macabre that can be seen in all of the stories or at least a supernatural quality. Most dealt with death but the carnival one only hints at more sinister idea with the missing knives but no one dies in it.

I am Legend Post 1

I don’t believe that Neville is a hero, he has none of the standard hero qualities and he is not likeable. He thinks about raping vampire women, he drinks too much and has a really bad attitude. (I know he believes that he is the only living person, but he is kind of an ass) The definition of a hero as defined by Wikipedia is “A hero (heroine for females) (Ancient Greek: ἥρως, hḗrōs), in Greek mythology and folklore, was originally a demigod, their cult being one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion.^[1] Later, hero (male) and heroine (female) came to refer to characters who, in the face of danger and adversity or from a position of weakness, display courage and the will for self-sacrifice—that is, heroism—for some greater good of all humanity. This definition originally referred to martial [warrior] courage or excellence but extended to more general moral excellence.” Neville is in a position of danger(ish because he is immune to the disease, it is arguable whether or not they pose a threat to him) but his only concern is for himself. He definitely does not show any self-sacrifice, he drinks in excess and he is not moral as we can see when he thinks about raping the vampires.

I really enjoyed the fact that the vampire was related to science in this novel. It brought on a more realistic characteristic to the vampire. Germs are easy to understand, and when you look at a disease like syphilis which changes people’s personalities when it reaches the brain it makes vampirism seem more likely. More likely than say, the vampire being someone cursed by the gods/ God. In the novel  science can’t prevent the epidemic or find a cure. I think that shows that modern technology isn’t perfect and should not be relied on exclusively especially when we see that preventative measures from folklore were helpful in warding off and killing the vampire.

Tainted Blood

Tainted Blood: Female Sexuality and Dracula
Alix Wright
         The short film “Tainted Blood” by Marcos Xavier Herrera is a video intended to be a music video to the song “Asilos Magdalena” by the band Mars Volta, which was started in 2001. The name of the song literally means Magdalene Asylum. The Magdalene Asylums were institutions for women who were seen as sexual deviants. “The first asylum in Ireland opened on Leeson Street in Dublin in 1767, founded by Lady Arabella Denny.” (Wikipedia) The point of the asylums was to rehabilitate these “fallen women” and then send them back into society but they eventually turned prisons where the women had no hope for parole. The women were often forced to do hard labor; in Ireland they became known as “Magdalene Laundries” because they had turned into commercial Laundromats. The crimes women could commit that would put them in these places were many and were often minor they included: “[having] a child out of wedlock, a petty crime, a revealing outfit, [and] a come-hither look” (David Edelstein) The last one closed in Ireland as late as 1996.

The translated lyrics to the song are (roughly I am not fluent in Spanish):

Sick I come
And to put on myself the walk of the vagrant
Do not give me your obedience
I teach you with my body of earth
Where the skin is weak
With a hunger that I can not sing of
In my life The dark one supports me
when I saw you
in the rain you promise me your blood
I do not remain
in my life the dark one supports me
when I saw you
in the rain you promise me your blood
I do not remain
And since you fell out of this world I load
a razor my god for you
All the times you bit me
and all the times I went away
And I am already not in love
with your lies
the hell I fall asleep for that the hell is the only truth
In my life the dark one supports me
when I saw you in the rain you promised me your blood
I do not remain
in my life the dark one me sustains
when I saw you in the rain
you promised me your blood
I do not remain
Star of the morning Samael I chase you and
if I remain without wings also I die for you
song by  Mars Volta

(sorry about the poor translation)

        The song portrays a vampiric love. We are not shown whether the narrarator is a male or female but with the title, we are able to infer that the narrator is female. She has a hunger for this person she sees on the street and they exchange a look where this lover promises her their blood. The video is a black and white story depicting a man walking through central park. He meets up with a woman and she seduces him and brings him home with her. She brings him to bed and then bites him. She leaves and he wakes disoriented and groggy. He is visibly sick and so runs to the bathroom and vomits up what looks like blood. He looks in the mirror and is horrified to see that he has fangs.
        In the context of the song, (lyrics and title) we can see that this video is a social commentary on how women's sexuality is perceived.  The vampire character is a female and she seduces the innocent man. She then drinks his blood which is portrayed as a sexual act. Then, because of the act he becomes a vampire. Here vamparism can be seen as a STD in so much as it is a disease that is transferred in a sexual act.

This clip can be related to the novel "Dracula" because in the Victorian era female sexuality was a touchey topic. Women were not sopposed to be sexal beings. They were sopposed to be innocent and pure. A sexual woman was seen as a threat to the moral standing of society so places such as Magdalene Asylum were allowed to be created because of the highly phobic society.

Carmilla from Carmilla's point of view

There she was, laying with the pillows and bed covers sprawled around her. She looked so sweet and innocent. Her hair fell around her shoulders and about her pillow slightly covering her pale and glorious neck. My eyes were instantly drawn towards her trembling pulse. Desire poured over me. My mouth became dry and my lips trembled. She is such a tiny girl, I should be feeling disgusted with myself but all I can think about is my lips on her throat and chest. I floated gracefully over to her on the bedside, leaned over her, my hair brushing over her face ever so slightly. When I got close to her I could smell her. The scent made my hunger even stronger. I climbed into bed with her and held her close. I could feel her stir against me but she sank into my arms soon enough. When I could stand it no more, I let my teeth penetrate her skin. She woke with a terrible scream and I jumped out of her bed. I could hear people in the house coming to comfort her so I disappeared before I could be discovered.

            This one is special, I loved her already. She was mine.

A few years later:

         I had just finished a girl and was ready for a new one when I remembered the girl had told me she was going to go visit her father’s friend and a young girl lived there. I convinced my companion that that was where we should go next. We were riding in our carriage when we staged the accident. I lay by the side of the road listening to the commotion around me. I caught a glimpse of the child from big bed.

          I let her people bring me up to a room but I was longing to see that girl again. Luckily for me she was a curious soul. She asked to see me right away. When she entered the room I saw that she was visibly shaken at the sight of me. She remembered me. That thought brought complications but it also brought me joy that his exquisite creature would remember me. I made up some story about having a nightmare about her as well. It seemed to put her at ease a little.

         The little Imps name is Laura. We were becoming friends rapidly. She was just as attached to me as I was to her. She saw a painting of me in my first life and she wanted to keep it for herself. I have been drinking of her as infrequently as possible but my hunger is getting stronger. I love her, I don’t want her to die like all of the others have. She is becoming pale and tired. She is looking closer and closer to death. I think her father is suspecting something because he is looking at me strangely, and I have been caught twice in compromising circumstances.  I fear I will have to move on soon.

Carmilla

       

        I greatly enjoyed "Carmilla." It was easier to read than "The Vampyre" and "Wuthering Heights" and it contained more suspense than either. I had to read the whole thing in one sitting because I wanted to know what happened. Obviously I knew that the narrator suvived because she was telling this story by looking back so we were not directly in the action but, I did find myself thinking that maybe she would die (or become a vampire herself.) Like with good horror movies, I was yelling at Laura and her father "don't go in there!", "No, she is not innocent and lovely, she is going to kill you!." Le Fanu did a good job of creating characters who were sympathetic, unlike the characters in "Wuthering Heights", who I could not stand.

        I thought the fact that the vampire in this story was a woman was interesting. Usually you see women as the victims and not the predators. I thought that was very advanced. I also liked this story because the vampire seemed more familiar than any other vampire we have read about. That she was characterized as being “absolutely beautiful”, “the prettiest creature [Madam] ever saw”(p.256.) Laura was “drawn towards her but there was also some repulsion” in her feelings towards Carmilla. These characteristics can be seen in more modern vampire tales like all of those teen vampire novels popular now and in vampire movies. The only characteristic that seems to be still missing in the stories we have read so far is the inability for the vampire to go into sunlight. I wonder when exactly that characteristic surfaced in vampire literature. I know it came about because of “The Vampyre” when Lord Ruthven had to be placed in the moonlight after he was “killed.”

Analysis of A Piece of Literary Criticism

Analysis of A Piece of Literary Criticism

Alix Wright

9/22/10

The Essay “’Why am I so changed?’: Vampiric Selves and Gothic Doubleness in Wuthering Heights” by Lakshmi Krishnan discusses the theme of doubleness and opposition in Gothic literature. She states that “the co-existence of opposites characterizes the Gothic” (Krishnan p.2) and that the Gothic brings both sides, good and evil. She also argues that the Gothic brings to light the extremes in human nature, it “heightens affection to passion, introspection to monomaniacal obsession, and discontent to criminal action.”(p.2)            She argues that the Gothic uses monsters to experience, or showcase the “marginalized life.(p.3)” It deals with the cultural anxieties of the time, “sexuality, gender, and the menace of alien races or the criminal class (p. 3)”

            She uses Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights as an example of the anxiety of an alien race. He is constantly portrayed as an outsider and because of that he is portrayed as demonic. There are constant references in the novel to him being dark and therefore “a fiendish creature [who is] demonic because of his obscure origins and devilish in his inclinations.(p.3)” From there she goes into the vampiric aspect to Gothic literature.

            She sees the vampire as the quintessential Gothic monster because it represents opposition which is an integral aspect of Gothic literature. Vampires “were once human; they are neither inextricably connected to nor fully separate from us (p. 3),” because of this quality they are the creatures that are most like the Gothic novel itself. “They are filled with ambiguities and are contradictory, double figure[s].”(p.3) Krishnan explains that the draw for Bronte when creating a vampiric character was the aspect that with a vampire there is “the potential merging of selves… [which] is both necessary and liberating.” (p.5)

                                                       

            There were some terms that came up in the essay “’Why am I so changed?’: Vampiric Selves and Gothic Doubleness in Wuthering Heights” that may be unfamiliar.  In the first paragraph where she discusses the Monk in Matthew “Monk” Lewis’s The Monk  the word “inviolable” comes up. She uses it to discuss the corruption of the monk in the story which caused in its readers a feeling of discontent because monks and monasteries were supposed to be free of that type of corruption. “Inviolable” means that something is secure of desecration. 

            Another term would be “’oppositional’ fiction.” Krishnan used the term to describe gothic literature. It means that gothic stories deal with opposing forces like the “ghostly and corporeal and the self and other.” (p. 2) “Monomaniacal” is another word that she uses in this paragraph.  She is saying that every emotion and literary theme is taken to the extreme. Her example was that “introspection [turns in] to monomaniacal obsession” (p. 2.) Here she is saying that instead of exploring their inner thoughts the characters in gothic fiction often have a psychological disorder where they cannot move away from one thought. An idea connected to the monomaniacal obsession of the characters in gothic literature is the idea of self-fragmentation which is also a mental illness.

            I agree with Lakshmi’s reading of Wuthering Heights. I think that Wuthering Heights emphasizes the opposing characteristics in human nature.  Heathcliff is portrayed as a demonic and villainous creature because of his otherness. Right away when Nelly is beginning her story about Heathcliff and Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange she describes Heathcliff and his status there as the story of a “cuckoo's” [she knows everything about his story] except  where he was born, and who were his parents, and how he got his money at first.” A Cuckoo is a bird that lays its eggs in the nest of another bird has it raise its young. Once the baby cuckoo hatches it kicks the other eggs out of the nest killing the other birds so that it will get all of the food and care.  Nelly’s comparison shows society’ s disdain for and fear of those who are alien to their country. He is routinely referred to as a villain by Ellen the narrator like when he is arguing with Catherine and she says that she will have Linton lock him out. Nelly described his response as “’God forbid that he should try!’ answered the black villain”(Ch.11).

            Lakshmi’ s point, that Gothic novels were preoccupied with duality and opposition, is proven by Catherine’ s monologue to Nelly. Catherine, while explaining why she is going to marry Linton says to Nelly that “It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him: and that, not because he's handsome, Nelly, but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”(Ch 9) Catherine and Heathcliff are two sides of the same being. Heathcliff represents the animal side of humans with his anger and need for revenge; Catherine represents the proper side of humans with her preoccupation with how society would perceive her and her actions.

            Some questions for further examination: What does Lakshmi mean when she says that “Wuthering Heights is only incendentailly Gothic [in comparison to] Bram Stoker’s Dracula?

Catherine’s fake illness is an example of a theme in Gothic literature, what does it add to the story in terms of its Gothic quality and would Catherine as a character be perceived as a completely different being without it? Could she and Heathcliff still be seen as two sides of the same coin?

What about Wuthering Heights do you think was so unsettling to readers at the time it was published?   

Polidori and Auerbach

On "The Vampyre"

The introduction to this story was so hard for me to get through. The sentences were so long with tons of asides and it really did not draw me into the story at all, even though that is what introductions/ first paragraphs are for. It really did not grab my interest until the second page when Lord Ruthven's actions were described. I really liked how Polidori made Lord Ruthven peculiar but not evil seeming.

"Aubrey was surprised at the apparent eagerness with which his companion sought for the centres of all fashionable vice; there he entered into all the spirit of the faro table: he betted and always gambled with success, except where the known sharper was his antagonist, and then he lost even more than he gained; but it was always with the same unchanging face, with which he generally watched the society around: it was not, however, so when he encountered the rash youthful novice, or the luckless father of a numerous family; then his very wish seemed fortune's law  this apparent abstractedness of mind was laid aside, and his eyes sparkled with more fire than that of the cat whilst dallying with the half dead mouse. In every town, he left the formerly affluent youth, torn from the circle he adorned, cursing, in the solitude of a dungeon, the fate that had drawn him within the reach of this fiend; whilst many a father sat frantic, amidst the speaking looks of mute hungry children, without a single farthing of his late immense wealth, wherewith to buy even sufficient to satisfy their present craving."

This particular section I found very interesting. I like that he is described as bored with life and that he does things opposite to the way that normal people do them. His boredom with life hints that he could possibly be immortal but I like that it is never stated out right by the narrator that he is a vampire but that Aubry suspects him of being one and up until his "death" there is no real evidence that he is one. 

I liked all of the descriptive details in this story, they made the characters and the settings seem real and vivid in my mind so that by the time I got done with the story I hardly noticed anymore the passive voice (which irritates me even though I know I use it a lot) and the incredibly long and arduous sentences. When Polidori described Ianthe I could picture a sunlit hill facing the ruins of classical Greek society with a girl dancing around chasing butterflies and I could almost feel the light and life go out of the story once she was killed.

I also liked that Aubrey was Lord Ruthven’s actual intended victim. That fact makes it stand out from other vampire stories that I have read. Usually, the real target is killed but the torture that Aubrey faces is purely psychological with his torment over Ianthe’s death and the knowledge that Lord Ruthven is a monster but that he can’t do anything about it because he swore an oath to Lord Ruthven that he would not tell anyone about his death.

Ok, so a Byronic hero's traits are: he/she is a rebel, is usually isolated from society and has many dark qualities, and is moody by nature. I was not sure which character would be the Byronic character, Aubrey or Lord Ruthven. They were both moody and fairly rebellious (although Lord Ruthven was more so than Aubrey) and they were both isolated from society for Aubrey it was at the end. So maybe in the beginning Lord Ruthven was the Byronic hero but at the end Aubrey became one too.  Not sure though, could someone please clarify for me?

Overall I guess I enjoyed both readings for this week. I have to admit that when I read Auerbach's description of the modern vampire being recognized as having "fruity accents". I also thought her essay was very interesting. I never knew that Byron was the model for the original human like vampire but it makes sense because his writing definitely give off a feeling of a superiority complex.

My favorite Vampire movie/ Character

This is a clip from my favorite Vampire movie Dracula 2000. 

 Here is a link to the IMDB site for the movie:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0219653/

Youtube Video I Like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a3olVI92dQ

I like a lot of his stuff, most of them are really funny. I like the humor in this video and the play on words. This channel is the first one I subscribed to on youtube.

Hose? Hoes? Hoe?!

 After my cousin graduates from high school she is going to take a month long trip to Greece and I am going with her as her chaperon. I am very excited!

These are websites I go to a lot because I love movies and I am always looking for another great movie to watch.

www.imdb.com
http://www.flixster.com/

About Me (Week 1 Blog Assignment)

3 Interesting Facts About Me: I have been to Alaska, I am designing a tattoo and will hopefully get it done sometime this month, and I Write short stories.

Why I Signed Up For This Class: I was bored with the usual English Lit classes and the usual choice of reading materials.

My Favorite Novel: My favorite novel is always changing but currently my favorite one is The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. It is my favorite right now because it is so well written and the idea is so unique. Until this book I had never come across this idea before. It is also really easy to get lost in it and that is one of the things I look for in a book.

What Types of Books I am Drawn To: I love all types of books except romance(they annoy me) but lately I have been drawn to more literary types of fiction. Whatever I read has to be well written or I get really frustrated. Some of the things I look for are character oriented story lines, a mysterious quality in the plot (like something that needs to be solved or where the reader is required to draw thier own conclusions.) I also like to have at least some suspense. I also need a book that is long because I read fast and I want the story to last.

What Sort of English Classes I Have Taken: I have taken tons of different English classes: World Lit, classes based on the work of one author, Archetypal Lit, and basic English classes.

What I Already Know About Vampire Books and Vampires: The Vampire books I have read are Dracula and the Anne Rice Novels. I have also seen a few vampire movies ( basically the different Dracula movies and Interview with a Vampire and The Queen of the Damned. My favorite was one of the Dracula movies where they say the origin of Vampires/ Dracula was that he was Judas it was very interesting. ( I think the movie was Dracula 2000) 

Other Online Activity: I hardly do stuff online. I have a facebook and back in Middle school I had a myspace. I do use youtube but I don't make my own videos.  In my experience online communication is just fine. I do prefer communication face to face because I am very visual and I like to see people's facial expressions when they talk because a lot of communication is non-verbal.