An Interview with a Vampire


     This blog was created for the 2018 spring class for Lit of Horror/Sci-Fi/Fantasy course at Ringling College of Art and Design. In this blog I will talk about the books we read and what they mean to me personally. If you have come across this blog and have not read the book I am talking about this week, I will warn you now that I will spoil it.
     This week we read Interview With a Vampire. This book is an account of the life of a man turned vampire told in the form of an interview. The story is rather brutal in comparison to Hollywood's rendition of vampires in the past, making it a perfect example of what the ideal vampire story is supposed to be. The story starts with the death of Louise's (The Vampire's) brother, resulting in Louise blaming himself and wishing for death upon himself. He imagines getting killed by robbers, falling off a cliff, anything happening to him because he does not have the courage to do it himself. What comes instead is a vampire by the name of Lestat. 
     There are several themes about vampires that can be taken from this story, but the first and most prevelent is the suffering. Suffering in a vampire story is essential, it displays the idea of a tortured soul, one that can never return to his normal mindset. Vampires are seen as demons, people who are damned to a fate worse than hell due to the immortality that attracted them to it. Which brings me to the second most important theme in a vampire story: Lust. Not necessarily a sexual lust, but the lust for power, a lust for sustenance. It is common however for this lust for sustenance to be described in a sexual yet horrifying way. In Interview with a vampire Louise is taught the ecstacy of taking the blood of another, and the way it is described is quite sensual. Two hearts beating together, one giving to the other as they beat further and further out of rhythm with each other. It is described as a joy not available to mere man, a forbidden fruit so to speak.
     A true vampire story requires the horrors of suffering, and a lust for the forbidden. And I don't mean "oh no which boy should I choose" suffering. I mean "Oh no, my brother threw himself down the stairs and killed himself and it's all my fault" suffering. The point I'm trying to make is thus: every story is a better vampire story than Twilight. 

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