Evolving Perception of Vampires

Evolving perception of vampires

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Evolving perception of vampires

The perception of vampirism in literature and filming has been there since the 18th century, and its evolution has continued up to date. Vampires are perceived to be undead beings in the form of a human, and they survive by sucking the blood of living people, and they usually do their business during the night. In a majority of the societies, the idea of there being vampires is held as fictitious and a superstition. Today, some of the characteristics of a vampire have become fixed, and they do not change in either literature or the film industry. For example, a vampire in all scenarios must survive by sucking blood; a vampire must have been an individual who had initially^[a][b] died and had come back to life. A vampire is only active during the night and inactive during the day, and fears holy places and objects such as crosses and probably blessed waters (Polidori, 2015).

The perception of vampires is continuously changing as the years pass. Some of the common perceptions that have changed include the idea that vampires are blood drinkers. In early literature especially in Eastern Europe, vampires were not blood drinkers. In fact, they killed people out of malice but did not depend on blood for survival. Also, the vampires did not bite but killed human beings by suffocating an individual through pressing of the chest. There was also the notion that whenever a person came into contact with the vampires when one died he or she became a vampire immediately.  The evolution of the perception about vampires has otherwise changed today. Today as stated earlier, vampires solely survive by drinking of human blood^[c][d] (Polidori, 2008). They also kill people by biting around the neck region and for on to become a vampire; there must be an exchange of blood between an individual and a vampire. Today when one is bitten by a vampire, you turn out to become a vampire almost immediately which was not the case in early days. In the 18th century, one became a vampire after death, and in fact, a vampire died before an individual, the possibility of becoming a vampire was almost zero.^[e][f][g]

Some of the literature work and films that have been done and have totally changed the perception of vampirism include a poem in the 18th century known as ‘ The Vampire'  portrays a vampire as brilliant and cold hearted. This literature work enlightened people about the possibility of there being an existence of vampires. It is from this piece of writing that enabled people to do the other main works on vampires. In the 19th century, there was also a break- through in the literature field by the novel ‘^{[h][i][j][k][l][m][n][o][p][q][r][s][t]}Carmilla.' This book also used a female as a vampire, but in this piece of literature, the female vampire is perceived to be good as the author uses her to resist several aspects in the society such as sexuality^{[u][v][w][x][y][z]} (Le Fanu, 2014).

In the film industry, one of the best-known pieces of work in the past that has also reviewed today is the ‘Dracula.'  It is rumored that the vampire lived around the 18th century, and a key factor about this vampire was that it could go on with its activities even during the day as it had other supernatural powers. In the film industry today, the vampires have the ability to have human characteristics such as being beautiful and having human physical features. A good example is among the female vampires. They have the capacity to seduce human being through their red eyes. In the past, vampires had the ability to turn into ^{[aa][ab][ac][ad][ae][af][ag][ah]}creatures such as bats which ^[ai]are not the case today. ^[aj]

As the evolution of vampires continues as years pass by, it is worth noting that the development always comes with the vampires adopting a more human life than in the past^{[ak][al][am][an][ao][ap]} (Skal, 2006). It, therefore, means that it will be difficult to differentiate a vampire and a^[aq]n average person through the evolution. It will be perceived that the vampires will adopt characteristics of human beings such as eating and they may probably start appearing during the day as each development comes with new traits of the vampires.^{[ar][as][at][au][av][aw][ax][ay][az][ba][bb][bc][bd][be][bf][bg]}

Some of the new things that can be done in vampire literature are the mass production of written materials based on vampires either regarding novels, poems or plays. There are very few written materials that are available in bookstores or libraries based on the vampires, and t^[bh]hus a majority of the people is in the dark about the evolution of vampires. The books based on past evolution of the vampires are rare to find, and a lot of emphases has been put on the film industry where movies such as vampire diaries do not fully explain some concepts about vampires (Skal, 2006). On the part of the film industries, it is the high time that movie production stops basing the production on entertainment. The majority of the films produced are based on pure entertainment, either by instilling fear among the viewers or through portraying some vampires a good hearted. The film industry should change and bring in the actual perception of the character that vampires are perceived to be without exaggeration.