论文A Brief Analysis on The Current Popularity of Vampire Culture

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT S

My deepest gratitude goes first and foremost to Professor Su, my supervisor, the Dean of English department, for her constant encouragement and guidance. She has walked me through all the stages of the writing of this thesis. Without her consistent and illuminating instruction, this thesis could not have reached its present form.

Second, I am also greatly indebted to the professors and teachers at the Department of English, who have instructed and helped me a lot in the past two years.

Last my thanks would go to my beloved family for their loving considerations and great confidence in me all through these years. I also owe my sincere gratitude to my friends and my fellow classmates who gave me their help and time in listening to me and helping me work out my problems during the difficult course of the thesis

CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Introduction (3)

Chapter 2 Thesis Format (4)

2.1 Folklores of the origins of vampires (4)

2.2 Old folklore (5)

2.3 Modern beliefs (7)

3 Reason ......................................................................................................................... 8 3.1 Similar feelings .. (8)

3.2 Sprit pursuit (10)

3.3 New means of spreading (11)

Chapter 4 Conclusion (12)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Silver & Ursini, pp. 22-23.

Cohen, Encyclopedia of Monsters, pp. 271-274.

McNally, Raymond T.; Florescu, Radu. (1994).

In Search of Dracula. Houghton Mifflin. pp. 117.

Marigny , V ampires, pp. 24-25.

Marigny , V ampires, pp. 14.

Summers, "The Vampire in Greece and Rome of Old", in The Vampire in Europe.

Hurwitz, Lilith.

Bronznick, Norman; Mark Jay Mirsky , David Stern & Allan Humm.

Marigny , V ampires, pp. 17-19.

Patai, Raphael (1990) [1978]. The Hebrew Goddess (3rd enl. ed.). Detroit: Wayne

State University Press. pp. 222.

Hurwitz, Lilith, pp. 40-41.

A Brief Analysis on The Current Popularity of Vampire Culture

Zhao Jia

Abstract: This content is talking about vampire culture, the folks of the vampire origins and different beliefs of vampires in different times. Also it gives some reasons for the popularity of vampire culture in recent times. Contrast demonstrates, verification and literature data collection are the used methods. They can help the readers take the topic easily and get a clear clue to understand the theme. The study of this subject is to aim at learning to take the right attitude towards new trend, especially new culture. We shall think deeply about what we can get from other nations’ culture . Meanwhile as a Chinese, we must take great efforts to develop our own special culture. We shall never forget our old folks and traditions in this diversity culture world.

Keywords: V ampire, V ampire culture, Culture

摘要：本文讨论的是部分吸血鬼文化，民间传说中的吸血鬼起源以及不同时代人们对于吸血鬼概念的不同理解。本文论述了部分当代吸血鬼文化流行的原因。论述手法有对比论证，举例论证和文献采集。这些论述手法很容吸引读者，让他们对主题的理解有清晰的脉络。本文旨在面对新趋势，特别是新文化时，我们应该采取理性的态度。我们理应深入思考我们可以从别人的文化中吸取什么。同时，作为一个中国人，我们应该尽可能的去发展我们自己的特色文化。在文化多元化的当今时代，我们决不能忘记自己的传统。

关键词：吸血鬼，吸血鬼文化，文化

Chapter 1 Introduction

The vampire, to believe or not, to go against religion or not, is one real kind of culture. Culture is like universe, mysterious and expansive. It attracts us all. The more we want to explore, the more addicted we will be. Y ou are like a lost sailor, sailing alone under the beautiful dark night sky, to find your own lighthouse. As soon as we can understand better about one culture, less mistakes will be made. And it’s easier to choose the right way when roads diverged in a wood.①“V ampires are

mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence (generally in the form of blood) of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person”. ②To afraid of vampires, to scold them, then some start to see good things inside them, it’s a slowly proceed for vampire culture to grow up.Things happened in reasons. So there must be hidden reasons why vampire culture is becoming more and more popular currently. Now we just take a deep look at vampires, to know better about vampire culture, and to improve our ability to make use of one kind of culture.

Chapter 2 Thesis Format

2.1 Folklores of the origins of vampires

No official statements about the creating of vampires is written, the causes of vampiric generation were many and varied in original folklore. In Slavic and Chinese traditions, any corpse that was jumped over by an animal, particularly a dog or a cat, was feared to become one of the undead. A body with a wound that had not been treated with boiling water was also at risk. In Russian folklore, vampires were said to have once been witches or people who had rebelled against the Russian Orthodox Church while they were alive.

Cultural practices may have influenced later vampire folklores, they often arose that were intended to prevent a recently deceased loved one from turning into an undead revenant. Burying a corpse upside-down was widespread, as was placing earthly objects, such as scythes or sickles near the grave to satisfy any demons entering the body or to appease the dead so that it would not wish to arise from its coffin. This method resembles the Ancient Greek practice of placing an obolus in the corpse's mouth to pay the toll to cross the River Styx in the underworld; it has been argued that instead, the coin was intended to ward off any evil spirits from entering the body. This tradition persisted in modern Greek folklore about the vrykolakas, in which a wax cross and piece of pottery with the inscription "Jesus Christ conquers"

were placed on the corpse to prevent the body from becoming a vampire. Other methods commonly practiced in Europe included severing the tendons at the knees or placing poppy seeds, millet, or sand on the ground at the grave site of a presumed vampire; this was intended to keep the vampire occupied all night by counting the fallen grains, indicating an association of vampires with arithmomania. Similar Chinese narratives state that if a vampire-like being came across a sack of rice, it would have to count every grain; this is a theme encountered in myths from the Indian subcontinent, as well as in South American tales of witches and other sorts of evil or mischievous spirits or beings. In Albanian folklore, the dhampir is the son of the karkanxholl or the lugat. If the karkanxholl sleeps with his wife, and she is impregnated with a child, the offspring is called dhampir and has the unique ability to discern the karkanxholl; from this derives the expression the dhampir knows the lugat. The lugat cannot be seen, he can only be killed by the dhampir, who himself is usually the son of a lugat. In different regions, animals can be revenants as lugats; also, living people during their sleep. Dhampiraj is also an Albanian surname.

2.2 Old folklore

A lot of myths surrounding vampires were created during the medieval period. The 12th century English historians and chroniclers Walter Map and William of Newburgh recorded accounts of revenants, though records in English legends of vampiric beings after this date are scant. The Old Norse draugr is another medieval example of an undead creature with similarities to vampires.

V ampires proper originate in folklore widely reported from Eastern Europe in the late 17th and 18th centuries. These tales formed the basis of the vampire lege nd that later entered Germany and England, where they were subsequently embellished and popularised. One of the earliest recordings of vampire activity came from the region of Istria in modern Croatia, in 1672. Local reports cited the local vampire Giure Grando of the village Khring near Tinjan as the cause of panic among the villagers. A former peasant, Guire died in 1656, however, local villagers claimed he returned from the dead and began drinking blood from the people and sexually

harassing his widow. The village leader ordered a stake to be driven through his heart, but when the method failed to kill him, he was subsequently beheaded with better results.

During the 18th century, there was a frenzy of vampire sightings in Eastern Europe, with frequent stakings and grave diggings to identify and kill the potential revenants; even government officials engaged in the hunting and staking of vampires. Despite being called the Age of Enlightenment, during which most folkloric legends were quelled, the belief in vampires increased dramatically, resulting in a mass hysteria throughout most of Europe. The panic began with an outbreak of alleged vampire attacks in East Prussia in 1721 and in the Habsburg Monarchy from 1725 to 1734, which spread to other localities. Two famous vampire cases, the first to be officially recorded, involved the corpses of Peter Plogojowitz and Arnold Paole from Serbia. Plogojowitz was reported to have died at the age of 62, but allegedly returned after his death asking his son for food. When the son refused, he was found dead the following day. Plogojowitz supposedly returned and attacked some neighbours who died from loss of blood. In the second case, Paole, an ex-soldier turned farmer who allegedly was attacked by a vampire years before, died while haying. After his death, people began to die in the surrounding area and it was widely believed that Paole had returned to prey on the neighbours. Another famous Serbian legend involving vampires concentrates around a certain Sava Savanovi? living in a watermill and killing and drinking blood from millers. The character was later used in a story written by Serbian writer Milovan Gli?i? and in the Serbian 1973horror film Leptirica inspired by the story.

The two incidents were well-documented: government officials examined the bodies, wrote case reports, and published books throughout Europe. The hysteria, commonly referred to as the "18th-Century V ampire Controversy", raged for a generation. The problem was exacerbated by rural epidemics of so-claimed vampire attacks, undoubtedly caused by the higher amount of superstition that was present in village communities, with locals digging up bodies and in some cases, staking them. Although many scholars reported during this period that vampires did not exist, and

attributed reports to premature burial or rabies, superstitious belief increased. Dom Augustine Calmet, a well-respected French theologian and scholar, put together a comprehensive treatise in 1746, which was ambiguous concerning the existence of vampires. Calmet amassed reports of vampire incidents; numerous readers, including both a critical V oltaire and supportive demonologists, interpreted the treatise as claiming that vampires existed.[79] In his Philosophical Dictionary, V oltaire wrote: These vampires were corpses, who went out of their graves at night to suck the blood of the living, either at their throats or stomachs, after which they returned to their cemeteries. The persons so sucked waned, grew pale, and fell into consumption; while the sucking corpses grew fat, got rosy, and enjoyed an excellent appetite. It was in Poland, Hungary, Silesia, Moravia, Austria, and Lorraine, that the dead made this good cheer.

The controversy only ceased when Empress Maria Theresa of Austria sent her personal physician, Gerard van Swieten, to investigate the claims of vampiric entities. He concluded that vampires did not exist and the Empress passed laws prohibiting the opening of graves and desecration of bodies, sounding the end of the vampire epidemics. Despite this condemnation, the vampire lived on in artistic works and in local superstition.

2.3 Modern beliefs

In modern fiction, the vampire tends to be depicted as a suave, charismatic villain. Despite the general disbelief in vampiric entities, occasional sightings of vampires are reported. Indeed, vampire hunting societies still exist, although they are largely formed for social reasons. Allegations of vampire attacks swept through the African country of Malawi during late 2002 and early 2003, with mobs stoning one individual to death and attacking at least four others, including Governor Eric Chiwaya, based on the belief that the government was colluding with vampires.

In early 1970 local press spread rumors that a vampire haunted Highgate Cemetery in London. Amateur vampire hunters flocked in large numbers to the cemetery. Several books have been written about the case, notably by Sean

Manchester, a local man who was among the first to suggest the existence of the "Highgate V ampire" and who later claimed to have exorcised and destroyed a whole nest of vampires in the area.[101] In January 2005, rumors circulated that an attacker had bitten a number of people in Birmingham, England, fuelling concerns about a vampire roaming the streets. However, local police stated that no such crime had been reported and that the case appears to be an urban legend. In 2006, a phys?ics pro?f?es?sor at the University of Central Florida wrote a paper arguing that it is mathematically impossible for vampires to exist, based on geometric progression. According to the paper, if the first vampire had appeared on January 1, 1600, and it fed once a month (which is less often than what is depicted in movies and folklore), and every victim turned into a vampire, then within two and a half years the entire human population of the time would have become vampires. The paper made no attempt to address the credibility of the assumption that every vampire victim would turn into a vampire.

In one of the more notable cases of vampiric entities in the modern age, the chupacabra ("goat-sucker") of Puerto Rico and Mexico is said to be a creature that feeds upon the flesh or drinks the blood of domesticated animals, leading some to consider it a kind of vampire. The "chupacabra hysteria" was frequently associated with deep economic and political crises, particularly during the mid-1990s. In Europe, where much of the vampire folklore originates, the vampire is considered a fictitious being, although many communities have embraced the revenant for economic purposes. In some cases, especially in small localities, vampire superstition is still rampant and sightings or claims of vampire attacks occur frequently. In Romania during February 2004, several relatives of Toma Petre feared that he had become a vampire. They dug up his corpse, tore out his heart, burned it, and mixed the ashes with water in order to drink it.

3 Reason.

3.1 Similar feelings

V ampires, that really scared people in the old days, step onto the stage of

times. V ampires are cursed since the moment they turn into night monsters. It is such an extravagant hope to watch the sun rising, to feel the light warm your heart, and to walk at ease under the sun. Night, full of darkness, is the eternal setting for sad stories. V ampires walk alone in the moonlight shadow, like the cold winter wind, desperately and deadly. They have the immortal life, but their teeth need to bite deeply into human’s skin. V a mpires smell the blood. Pulsation of the heart us the only beautiful music, as the drop falls into the dying flower in the golden desert. V ampires fight each other, like furious animals, for the preys, for the territory. They meet, they fight, to kill each other, to kill the nature? They hate themselves more then that of the same kind. They see others, they see themselves, the cruel bloody monsters alone. V ampires behave as the damned demons, to drink the blood, to kill. It’s easier to be bad then to be the good. Because they will has less time to think and to feel. Once they stop, they feel they ware buried only with loneliness. They are eager so much to meet someone special, vampire or human, who can read their souls, which are hidden in the dead heart. They need to talk, to share. They need friends to company them to hold their hands to walk across the bridge when they feel lonely or blue. It’s the most difficult when one owns the soul, but he pretends he doesn’t have. So most of time, they pray, if God permits, they ware just animals, no thinking, no feeling and not that souls, just to kill and to be killed. V ampires are not afraid of the hell, since they themselves seem already in hell. Why they are made to enjoy the immortal life alone, is that a joke by God?

We, humans, start to our own lives when we are in the name of adult. Our bodies work and work regularly, like programmed machines. Sometimes we wonder that why we are created, why we are here. We just live for life because we are told to cherish ever y minute. It’s a little pessimistic, but in fact, how many people are sure about the value of their existences, how many people are doubting the value of their existences. We are list in our own question world. We are so confused, so scared that we are starting to question ourselves again and again. Finally we are in the circle made by ourselves. We sit in the corner of a café, against a busy street, numb and vague, counting the faces coming and going untill our coffee turns cold. These

innocent faces are feeling lonely like me? We are still in our doubt mood. Then we can fully understand the lonely feelings of vampires. However, we need to end this doubt, like vampires in films and books will get their true love at last. Though it takes time, you may find your answer maybe after you save a little bird or you take home the homeless little girl. We must say to ourselves that we are here in this world because we are needed to be here.

3.2 Spirit pursuit

Modern life not only brings the fulfillment of material life, but also the endless challenges. With the fast development of society, spirit needs can’t keep up with the content of materialism. And some only addicted to the joy of material life.

V ampires are much stronger than humans. We don’t really mean to be a vampire, we just want to be more powerful, more different. V ampirism and the V ampire lifestyle also represent a relevant part of modern day's occultist movements. The mythos of the vampire, his magickal qualities, allure, and predatory archetype express a strong symbolism that can be used in ritual, energy work, and magic, and can even be adopted as a spiritual system. Some envy the vampire speed, some envy the vampire power, while most want the immortality. And we even have the plan what can be done when we are immortal. This is can’t be realized, at least not now. People just have spirit pursuits which are far more important then material life.

For me, it is not a concrete idea to get a spirit pursuit. It’s about dreams. A dream is something that you think about and hope for. We all have no doubt about the unbelievable strength of dreams. However, we just stop to dream in realistic society. Why vampire culture is becoming so popular currently? It is not because it gives us new spirit pursuit, it is because it makes us dream again.

We were asked what we wanted to be when we were kids, we would probably answer like musician, painter or president. We still held dreams that time. We hoped we could be what we wanted to be and we were some kind sure. Now when are asked what we want to be, less answers will be got because we are busy in thinking practically. We left dreams in the corner. Some may say we can’t live in

dreams only all our life. That’s pretty sure. When we grow older and older, we become more and more realistic. It is the primary condition for us to become one member of society. Innocence is lost little by little with ages. For those fighting for dreams, like artists and musicians, most live a poor life. So people are more sure that there is a deep invisible river to cross between dreams and life. When the sun rises again, we give up the courage to realize our dreams at once. Thus, so many beautiful dreams fade away quietly. We are losing the ability to dream. Blank in virtue is so terrible. The cruel real world has driven us crazy. One is still rich even he lost everything but dreams. What we have then?

3.3 New means of spreading

the term vampire was not popularized until the early 18th century, after an influx of vampire superstition into Western Europe from areas where vampire legends were frequent, such as the Balkans and Eastern Europe, although local variants were also known by different names, such as vrykolakas in Greece and strigoi in Romania. This increased level of vampire superstition in Europe led to mass hysteria and in some cases resulted in corpses actually being staked and people being accused of vampirism. It was the success of John Polidori's 1819 novella The V ampyre that established the archetype of charismatic and sophisticated vampire; it is arguably the most influential vampire work of the early 19th century, inspiring such works as V arney the V ampire and eventually Dracula. However, it is Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula that is remembered as the quintessential vampire novel and which provided the basis of modern vampire fiction. Dracula drew on earlier mythologies of werewolves and similar legendary demons and "was to voice the anxieties of an age", and the "fears of late Victorian patriarchy".

We can see that message is hardly to be spread in the past, let alone culture. Distance is always the physical reason, coming in the way. People have created land paths, also sea approaches. Rich people use horses and boats to go to the distant, while the poor can only walk to their destination, near or far. They can never capture the sky, but just envy the birds flying. So it may take years to tell the east what is

happening in the west. A young girl can be an old lady when she received the letter from her young love. Book is the best represent of culture. They were expensive and heavy in the past. Common people have little chance to read a book. Most famous cultures are always staring with folks. They were handed down by folks generation by generation. Some have changed a lot during this spr eading. Now it’s the 21stcentury, many new means, compared to the past, have been widely used in daily life, such as films, video games, and television shows. Owing to the development of internet, distance is no longer the obstacle. Internet provides the services of information, communication, data transfer, access, social impacts and so on. It is easier to find the light when you are lost in the darkness with the help of net. New fashion will always be more popular in net. It is like giving it the wings to fly more high. Vampire movies and books occupied a great market firstly in the Europe, the original place. But they appeared suddenly in east countries, for example, China, Korea and Japan. The internet has contributed a lot.

4 Conclusion

From the folk origin of vampires to different views of different times towards them, I get some reasons for its popularity. Despite of the visible reason of the development of high technology, which gives a perfect access for vampire culture to grow faster, the invisible reasons outweigh. Culture comes from life but overtops it. When one kind of culture meets the need of the new society, it will become stronger and stronger, even in the leading role. Human is the origin model set in novels or films. We can understand the vampire culture for sometimes we see ourselves in them. Some same feelings between we and vampires, the leading role in the culture, help us understand it better. When we confront a new thing, especially a new culture, we may try our best to make use of it instead of agreeing blindly or disagreeing totally. The German philosopher Hegel said: that is reasonable. We shall never doubt the existence of ourselves even if we are having the worst times. We shall never give up the right to dream. We may change the way our live when we are feeling lonely all the time. We may grasp every chance to realize our dreams. In a word, these are part of reasons for

the popularity of the vampire culture in today’s society.

NOTES

①Set-off quotations: Robert Frost (1874–1963). Mountain Interval. 1920 1The Road Not Taken

②Direct quotations: he V ampire, by Philip Burne-Jones, 1897

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Silver & Ursini, pp. 22-23.

Cohen, Encyclopedia of Monsters, pp. 271-274.

McNally, Raymond T.; Florescu, Radu. (1994).

In Search of Dracula. Houghton Mifflin. pp. 117.

Marigny, V ampires, pp. 24-25.

Marigny, V ampires, pp. 14.

Summers, "The Vampire in Greece and Rome of Old", in The Vampire in Europe. Hurwitz, Lilith.

Bronznick, Norman; Mark Jay Mirsky, David Stern & Allan Humm.

Marigny, V ampires, pp. 17-19.

Patai, Raphael (1990) [1978]. The Hebrew Goddess (3rd enl. ed.). Detroit: Wayne State University Press. pp. 222.

Hurwitz, Lilith, pp. 40-41