Consider vampires...

[charliesmum]

We got our lovely fast computer back, and it only cost $80 for a new hard drive. So yay and stuff.

Charlie had a great 2nd day with the new minder - she took him to the pool, where he got to play with his best friend. I'm so pleased Charlie is finally having a real summer holiday.

The boyfriend played with Charlie in the pool, and is a lovely young man. Gonna be a teacher.

Anyway, I had a vampire dream last night, probably because I just read a Lauren K. Hamilton book about vampires, but it also occured to me that I dream of vampires when I'm feeling particularly overwhelmed. I think vampires symbolise to me the act of letting go, of having someone else be in control, in charge, and then I don't have to make any decisions. I was wondering if that was part of why they have such a lasting appeal to writers and movie makers and people who like to wear black alot.

It's really odd. Zombies aren't sexy at all. Werewolves, well, Lupin maybe, but over all they are either savage monsters or tragic figures. Ghosts are either scary or vengeful, or both, but never particularly sexy, but Vampires get all the girls. (or boys if you're Anne Rice)I think it does all come back to control, or losing control, which frankly is what sex is about in some ways.

What do you think?

Comments

[sixth-light.livejournal.com]

Vampires...well, there's the whole sex/death connection, which goes way back, plus the youthful immortality, plus the exchange of bodily fluids, if you want to get technical, plus...well, most people seem to think that Dracula's attack on Mina Harker in Bram Stoker's book was meant to be a repressed Victorian metaphor for rape.

I think it's because vampires are superhuman, but so strictly bounded; werewolves are very hard to defeat without overwhelming force, but there are a million ways to put off a vampire. They can't come into your home unless you invite them, is the major thing. So, yeah, huge power/control/death metaphors, and the exchange/giving of life thing. It ties in very neatly to sex. But then, it also depends on the writer; most tend to make their vampires sexy, but I've read a few whose vampires are mostly scary-eww monsters. The best example I can think of are the vampires in Robin mcKinley's "Sunshine". While there is some limited sexual attraction (though that's mainly part of working out a friendship) for the most part they are very "other" and almost asexual. As well as scary monsters.

[charliesmum.livejournal.com]

Mina Harker in Bram Stoker's book was meant to be a repressed Victorian metaphor for rape.

Rape or seduction, I always thought. I mention it in my own vampire story that I wrote, even. :)