Chels

The mythology of the vampire figure has existed forever – before we even used the term vampire. In fact, the oldest known vampire figure is Sekhmet, the Ancient Egyptian goddess, a figure so old that we don’t have a certain year of origin, though it’s estimated to be 2686-2181 BC. Sekhmet was a goddess of both death and healing, and she gained her power through drinking human blood. As far as historians are concerned, this makes her an early vampire figure – though she lacks many of the traits we’ve come to associate with vampires. It wasn’t until Bram Stoker’s Dracula in 1897 that vampires truly became the beings we know them as today.

Pretty much every ancient civilization or culture developed some kind of vampire-like being. These beings always drank blood, for various purposes, and were typically malevolent creatures, associated with death or destruction. As time went on, vampires specifically became associated with the undead, though the creation of a vampire varied from culture to culture. In modern times, the most widely accepted reason a vampire comes to existence is through being bitten by another vampire. I consider myself very lucky to have briefly studied vampires way back in undergrad; it was really fascinating to look deeper into why certain iconography has stuck. The bite to turn another into a vampire has such interesting connotations. First, it’s an act of violence, obviously, but it’s also erotic. It can represent sexual violence, or desire, or utter trust in another person, depending on how it’s executed. It’s why we find vampires terrifying, and why we find them sexy. Vampire romance definitely wouldn’t have thrived as a genre without the inherent sensuality of turning a vampire. This juxtaposition of violence and sexuality can obviously be quite controversial, but I like to think that that’s the point – that juxtaposition is the crux of horror; it’s why the really horrific stories also include children and animals in the violence and bloodshed. We don’t want to think about it, but we do, and the discomfort is alarming. 

Vampires haven’t always been associated with sexuality, though. That association came in the late Victorian period, with Dracula, and Carmilla, published 25 years earlier. Carmilla is not only an early work of vampire fiction, but also an early lesbian novella. Of course, at the time, homosexuality was taboo, even criminalised, and Carmilla’s actions reflect the fears at the time of ‘predatory’ lesbian women. In a similar vein, Stoker was in part inspired by Oscar Wilde’s gross indecency trial when it came to writing Dracula. They had been friends, and Stoker was shocked by Wilde’s ‘double life’, and as such, Dracula became an allegory for the consequences of a double life. Dracula’s vampirism, his monstrosity, reflects Victorian fears of homosexuality, and the idea that gay men would ‘corrupt’ innocent, upstanding citizens. 

Of course, now that we’re (mostly) rid of the Victorian sensibilities, we’re excited by queer supernatural romances featuring vampires, though I think it is important to reflect on the origins of the stories – what’s now a fun twist on forbidden romance was once a condemnation.

In both Carmilla and Dracula, vampire characters are sensual and overtly sexual, and combined with the danger of vampirism, appear threatening and dangerous. Dracula in particular intertwines danger and sexual desire in Count Dracula’s castle, when Jonathan Harker is confronted by three female vampires. He fears he is unable to resist them, and instantly feels guilt for his own love, but at the same time, he fears their power. The erotic vampire is a manifestation of Victorian repression of sexuality.

Dracula didn’t only popularise the erotic vampire – a large amount of our current vampire iconography originated with Bram Stoker. The most common being the Count title. So many vampires in popular culture take the title – Count Chocula, Count Duckula, and Count Von Count to name a few. Of course, the former two are parodies of Count Dracula, but still – there’s no real reason we should associate vampires with the title Count, it just so happened that Dracula was a Count. His title was also the reason he lived in a castle. These days, so many depictions of vampires place them in sprawling Gothic manors or Romanesque castles, when really, vampires of folklore weren’t confined to nobility. In fact, those thought to be vampires were often outcast from society – they certainly wouldn’t be living in castles. 

While religious imagery has long since been associated with vampires – the European vampire mythology often included crucifixes being used to repel vampires – it was Dracula that created the association with garlic. In fact, this is something that got a little bit lost in translation; the novel uses garlic flowers to deter Dracula, but now, we typically think of garlic bulbs. It’s fascinating to me that not only could one single novel drastically shift vampire iconography, but one small misunderstanding has resulted in one of the strongest associations with vampires.

Finally – vampires do not have to sleep in coffins. Dracula just chose to. The association makes a lot of sense – vampires are undead after all, it’s fitting to pair them with imagery of death, but there’s actually no logical basis for it. (Of course, there’s technically no logical basis for any of it; vampires are mythical figures, but there’s a clear cause and effect to demonic figures being repelled by religious imagery).

Interestingly, Bram Stoker’s Dracula didn’t have fangs, though Dracula is described a few times as having ‘sharp teeth’. It was actually film adaptations of Dracula that highlighted this feature, and began the association first with Dracula and fangs, and then with vampires as a whole and fangs.

Whenever I delve into novels that popularised or even invented certain tropes, genres, or characters, I like to imagine what our culture would be like had the book not existed, or not gained the popularity it did. Vampires have always been a part of our folklore, but if Dracula hadn’t been so popular, and hadn’t inspired countless film adaptations that further increased its popularity, would we be as interested in vampires today as we are? Would vampires have remained the object of revulsion? Would the myth have fallen into obscurity like so many others from our past? 

Or, would we have simply been unable to resist the allure of the vampire?