KUNGSHOLMENS GYMNASIUM, EN2A, ENGLISH

I HAVE LOST MY FANGS

AN ESSAY
ON THE

NATURE

OF

THE

TWILIGHT VAMPIRE

SIGNE HAMMAR 25 OF MAY 2009

T H

INTRODUCTION Twilight by American author Stephenie Meyer has swept across the Western world like a whirlwind. It has achieved immense popularity particularly among teen-age girls and middle-aged mothers. In Twilight the human protagonist, Bella Swan, falls in love with the 100-year old vampire Edward Cullen. It is an old story about an impossible and forbidden romance between two people from different worlds. However, it is not the ever so clich love story this essay will treat. THESIS STATEMENT Instead, this essay will treat the nature of the Twilight vampire. Edward Cullen talks about wanting to drink Bellas blood. However, the reader always knows he will not. Furthermore, Edwards entire family including Edward of course refrains from drinking any human blood. There really is not much in their way of living that connects them to the traditional vampire they do not even have fangs. Meyer has in a way stripped the Cullens of almost everything that makes them vampires and as a result changed the symbolism of the vampire to the reader. METHODOLOGY To investigate the nature of the Twilight vampire, this essay will first try to define what a traditional vampire is, then compare this to the vampires in Meyers books. The essay will then continue to discuss the impact these differences or similarities have on the symbolic meaning of this newfound vampire. To investigate the characteristics of both traditional and pop cultural vampires, this essay will use both primary sources and secondary sources. Naturally, the primary sources are dominated by Meyers books though other vampire literature is featured. The secondary sources foremost consist of ethnographical literature concentrating on vampires and vampire legends.

I HAVE LOST MY FANGS Everybody knows what a vampire is. At least many think they know what a vampire is. Most people when hearing the word vampire imagine an oldfashionably dressed, pale faced person who turns into a bat every once in a while - more or less the version given to us by Bram Stoker at the turn of the last century. Others imagine the ruthless yet sophisticated Lestat out of Anne Rices Vampire Chronicles from the 1980s - a vampire who, although he cannot morph into an animal, bares many similarities with Stokers Count Dracula. A pop-culture example can be found in the TVSeries Buffy the Vampire Slayer from the late 1990s. In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the vampires are dead human bodies possessed by an evil demon. Few people today envision the demonic monsters that often occur in old legends. For example, vampire legends from Eastern Europe show a vampire as a bloodthirsty revenant, more or less a corpse that rose at midnight to drink your blood which is quite far from the stylish, rock star Lestat Rice created in the 1980s. However, the old legends do have relevance to defining what a vampire is. Since the need for the vampire, and the reason it exists, is partially the same. In addition, the newer literal and pop cultural vampires have their origin in the older legends. On the other hand, since there are so many very diverse legends about vampires from many parts of the world, not solely Eastern Europe as common conception sometimes have it, this essay will not deal with all of them. Firstly, it would take to much time to do an in depth study on a dozen ancient legends and it would not benefit the discussion at hand. Therefore, old legends will be mentioned when necessary but not detailed. Many definitions of vampires have been written over the years. Some are very detailed in their description and definition, other are much broader. Jan L. Perkowski gives the probably broadest definition of all when he says that a vampire is a being which derives sustenance from a victim, who is weakened by the experience. The sustenance may be physical or emotional in nature.1 In Perkowskis definition no claim as to whether the being is of human nature or not is left open, as is the sustenance it survives off. A less broad, though still not very narrow definition is given by Milton. He claims the vampire to be a reanimated corpse that rises from the grave to suck the blood of living people and retain a semblance of life.2 Later, Milton states that the vampire is a peculiar kind of revenant, a dead person who had returned to life and continued a form of existence through drinking the blood of the living.3 According to Milton, the vampire is therefore a dead human risen from the grave who stays reanimated and existing by drinking fresh human blood.
1 2

Perkowski (1973:136) Milton (1994:xxii) 3 Milton (1994:629)

The two highest-selling vampire novels are Bram Stokers Dracula and Anne Rices Interview with the Vampire, which will therefore be the main basis for the modern pop cultural vampire conception. To quote Rosemary Ellen Guiley, Dracula is the most famous fictional vampire of all. Count Draculas name has become synonymous with vampires.4 In addition, the films of Count Dracula, especially those starring Bela Lugosi (first film in 1931) have helped bring forth a stereotype known to large parts of the Western population. Though many do not know of Lugosi himself, Lugosis Hungarian accent and measured English [] became incorporated into portrayals of the count. Draculas to come had to speak slowly and in a heavy foreign accent.5 Another film that had great impact on the modern vampire is Nosferatu (1922), the earliest preserved vampire film. In Nosferatu the vampire Graf Orlock becomes the first vampire to die by sunlight, thereby creating another institution in popular lore.6 According to Stoker and Rice, as well as many legends, vampires are dead humans, animated corpses, who survive on human blood though it should be mentioned that they can sustain on animal blood, though this is far from common practice. They are immortal probably the most prominent feature of the vampire, aside from its choice of sustenance. To drain the victim of its blood they have sharp fangs in their mouth with which they puncture an artery to get to the blood. In addition to the fangs, they have superhuman powers and look, if not very beautiful, extremely alluring. They sleep in coffins, although Stoker has more specific rules about this than Rice. Moreover, they can be killed by decapitation, fire and direct sunlight (though Rice has some exceptions to this rule). For clarifications sake, they are not human. Furthermore, for future reference, this vampire shall be called the traditional vampire or the defined vampire. In 2005 Stephenie Meyer released her first novel, Twilight. It is a forbidden romance-story that involves a male vampire and a female human. However, contrary to many other vampires, Edward Cullen who is the object of affection for the books protagonist Bella Swan does not drink human blood. He chooses not to. Furthermore, he is not harmed by sunlight, although he is not completely unaffected by it, and he does not sport a pair of shiny sharp fangs. Three facts that, to some extent, go against the definition of the vampire made above. Edward lives in a family of sorts The Cullens and these are the vampires the reader meets the most in Meyers novels. It is therefore the ones this essay will concentrate on. There are several similarities between The Cullens and the traditional vampire. Meyers vampires are immortal beings one of the oldest, Stefan, is over 2500 years old. They are also
4 5

Guiley (2005: 80) Guiley (2005:83-84) 6 Guiley (2005:84)

very pale, and like Rices vampires their skin is described as akin to stone, granite in Meyers case and marble in Rices. Another very sexual trait that vampires are often connected to is their alluring appearance. The film Dracula (1931) starring, as mentioned before Bela Lugosi, is famous for the stripe of light over Draculas eyes making them seem hypnotic and mesmerising. This is something Meyer also plays on.He looked down, and then glanced up at me through his long black lashes, his ochre eyes scorching. [] I blinked, my mind going blank. Holy crow, how did he do that?7 Edward and his family of vampires are all enthrallingly beautiful. Everything about their appearance is inviting, like Edward explains to Bella: I am the worlds best predator aren't I? Everything about me invites you in - my voice, my face, even my smell. As if I need any of that!8 Moreover, Meyers vampires have superhuman powers some, like Edward and his sister Alice, have specific extra powers such as the ability to read minds and precognition. However, in Meyers Twilight (2005), the Cullens contrary to their predecessors refuse to drink human blood. Because they find it morally wrong to do so. When Bella asks Edward why they abstain from the human blood and instead have to be content with merely the blood of animals, he replies that I dont want to be a monster.9 Furthermore, Edwards father, and the person he looks up to the most, Carlisle works as a doctor and spends his time saving human lives. Edward himself has over the years acquired a few medical degrees but does not have the same capability in resisting to drink human blood as one would need when treating bleeding patients. Still, the interest to save humans is present. That a vampire has moral doubts about its way of life is nothing new within literature, in Interview with the Vampire (1976) Anne Rice introduced Louis, a 200-something year old vampire who during a period of his un-dead life chose to live off of rats and chickens because he could not stand to take human life. Before he saw sense and started to prey on humans again. Meyer also separates her vampires from most other vampire lore, and definitely from the defined vampire, by not killing them when they step out into the sun. That the sunlight would kill a vampire could be seen as the good ultimately conquering over the forces of evil and darkness. However, instead of turning Edward to a pile of ashes she makes him glitter. Because, that is what happens when a vampire of Meyers enter the light rays of the sun their skin sparkle like tiny diamonds. Instead of demeaning the vampire by harming it in the sun, Mayer honours it by making it even more beautiful and therefore more powerful. In the sun, Edward Cullen is more godlike then ever.
7 8

Meyer (2005:92) Meyer (2005: 263-264) 9 Meyer (2005:187)

Moreover, the Cullens reside in a spacious light house outside the town where Bella lives. A house which houses no coffins but that has a big wooden crucifix on the wall because its a family heirloom. Contrary to Stokers Dracula who could be badly harmed by a wooden stake through the heart, shunned any Christian symbol though foremost the cross and slept in a coffin on a bed of its native soil, Meyers vampires are unaffected by such things. Furthermore, they never sleep, at all, which makes coffins superfluous. In many ways, this is where Meyer starts to contradict what she is saying with the symbolism of her vampires. Because, although Edward clearly states that Im not human10 the Cullens live very human lives, they do their best to fit in to human society and do not see themselves as superhuman. Although, at the same time Meyer keeps saying that they are. Therefore, erasing parts of the line that differ a human from a vampire. The Cullen family does not scare Bella at all to quote Edward just before she is to meet the rest of his family for the first time: youre worried, not because youre headed to meet a house full of vampires, but because you think those vampires wont approve of you11. Therefore, the reader is never scared of them. In fact, not only is the reader never scared of them, the reader is made to sympathise with them, the involuntary monsters trying their best to be good and comes to respect them for that. In addition, Bella depends on them and trusts them which, again, causes the reader to do the same. Granted, there are evil vampires (or, more specifically, vampires that feed off of humans) in the books. However, these do not appear frequently enough for the general and most important impression of the vampire to be bad. What Meyer does is basically to compel the reader to be unafraid of the vampires. In Anne Rices The Vampire Chronicles, she is steadfast to the fact that her vampires have dead bodies. Therefore they cannot eat, which is already uncommon for vampires to do in most vampire lore, nor do they have any kind of normal blood circulation. As a result, the vampires cannot have sexual intercourse in the traditional sense. Rice instead uses the drinking of blood as a substitute of sorts. Her vampires feed off of each other to achieve the kind of emotional and physical closeness mostly associated with sexual interaction. That feeding off of blood has such sexual connotations is not particularly farfetched either. Blood is often a symbol for life and life force. It flows through every part of us, it is pumped by our heart and it is what keeps us alive. Feeding off of someones blood is drinking that life, absorbing that persons very being. HP Lovecraft once said: The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.12
10 11

Meyer (2005:184) Meyer (2005:329) 12 Turll (1987:165)

This is probably why vampire legends exist in so many different cultures we all fear dying (the largest and therefore scariest of the unknowns) in some form or another. If it is physical, emotional or spiritual death depends on the way we are and what culture we belong to. The vampire represents the monster who can take our life force away (Perkowskis definition of the vampire) it can drain us of our blood, it can drain us of our force of life. Therefore, the act of drinking someones blood would be very intimate one would after all be consuming that someones life force, that someones soul. Furthermore, when the vampires feed off each other, they would both be absorbing the others life or being - a different kind of connection. With the mentality of Edward Cullen Meyer takes it a step further. Not only does Edward refuse to drink Bellas (or any humans) blood and make her a vampire like him he also refuses sexual intercourse before marriage. His primary reason for this is that he might hurt her. However, in the third book Bella figures out that he is also trying to protect his virtue by not having premarital sexual intercourse. Ive stolen, Ive lied, Ive covetedmy virtue is all I have left.13 With her books, Meyer may have created the first virtuous vampire a paradox in itself. Going back to Perkowskis definition of a vampire, it is a being that weakens its victim physically or emotionally. As a result, Edward by Perkowskis definition, which this essay agrees with should weaken his victim. It is true that he (like his family) does weaken and kill animals. However, if one were to see Bella as his victim for she is the protagonist and therefore the one who is important to analyse since it is she to whom the reader relates to the most he does the opposite. He adds to her emotional well being to such a degree that she can hardly live without him. In that way, one could possibly say she is weaker. However, Bella (and as a result, most readers) would not think of Edward as draining her emotionally. In a way, he is almost an anti-vampire, strengthening Bella instead of weakening her. The question then becomes if this does not undermine the very essence of the vampire. Because, as earlier stated, the vampire is someone who drinks blood. That much is true even of the Cullens. Moreover, that blood is more or less equal to life, to the soul and spirit. This must mean that a vampire is someone who feeds of off what makes us humans again relating back to Perkowski, Melton and this essays definition of what a vampire is. Since the Cullens are not feeding off of humans they can therefore not feed of what makes us human, that much is clear. This makes the Cullens, by Melton and this essays and in some ways Perkowskis definition, not vampires. In addition, the vampire could also be seen as a metaphor for sex and the animalistic sexuality that resides in all humans. Not only does the deep
13

Meyer (2007:454)

intensity of taking someone elses blood leads to this metaphor. The actual act of sucking also correlates to this. The oral erotic basis of vampirism would also help explain why this belief ranging from normal oedipal heterosexuality [] to homosexuality and lesbianism. The latter forms of sexuality, after all, often do involve oral genital sucking activity. For that matter, even kissing is essentially an act of sucking, not to mention the love-bite.14 For as long as he can, Edward fights both of these basic, instinctual desires the act of drinking Bellas blood and sharing her bed. He resists all things that essentially make him a vampire. Although not all of Meyers vampires are celibate, Edward is the vampire that ends up being the main focus because he is the main focus of Bella. He is also the one that most girls and women who read the book fantasise about. As a result, he is what readers of the book think about when they think about the Twilight-vampire and perhaps vampires in general. A beautiful, polite, 100-year old virgin who gives moralising lectures and eats deer. It is about as far from Dracula one can come. If a vampire traditionally represents death and sexual desires, this crashes immensely with what Edward Cullen represents. Furthermore, it could possibly harm the conception of what a vampire is. The vampire was made out of fear, to be feared. It is as HP Lovecraft wisely stated human nature to fear the unknown. With the creation of Edward Cullen, as a reader one is no longer allured by the mystery that surrounds the vampire. One no longer feels both the pull of temptation and seductiveness, as well as the aversion of fear. Instead, there is only the attraction to the beautiful, godlike faade there is no fear because the reader knows he is good, pure and virtuous. This could be argued to be a good thing, that fear is a purely bad emotion and that the less we fear is better. On the other hand, it could also be argued that the vampire was created for a reason. We need something to fear. Or rather, we need something to project our fears on. However, what is more important is what happens when the Twilight vampire gets more and more accepted as it reaches more and more readers. More and more readers now see the anti-vampires of the Cullen family as vampires, with all that that entails. When two extremely different things the traditional vampire in contrast to the Twilight vampire get the same name, it could lose its meaning. The vampire for all its intents and purposes is no more.

14

Dundes (1998:170)

BIBLIOGRAPHY
PRIMARY RESOURCES

Meyer Stephenie. 2005. Twilight. New York: Little, Brown and Company. Meyer Stephenie. 2006. New Moon. New York: Little, Brown and Company. Meyer Stephenie. 2007. Eclipse. New York: Little, Brown and Company. Meyer Stephenie. 2008. Breaking Dawn. New York: Little, Brown and Company. Rice Anne. 1976. Interview with the Vampire. New York: The Random House Publishing Group. Rice Anne. 1985. The Vampire Lestat. New York: The Random House Publishing Group. Rice Anne. 1988. Queen of the Damned. New York: The Random House Publishing Group. Rice Anne. 1992. Tale of the Body Thief. New York: The Random House Publishing Group.
SECONDARY SOURCES PRINTED SOURCES

Dundes, Alan. 1998. The Vampire a Bloodthirsty Revenant. In The Vampire: a Casebook, ed. Alan Dundes. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press. Guiley, Rosemary Ellen. 2005. The Encyclopedia of Vampires, Werewolves, and Other Monsters. New York: New York Facts on File. Melton, J.G. 1994. The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead. Detroit: Visible Ink Press. Perkowski, Jan L. 1976. Vampires of the Slavs. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Slavica Turll, Dan. 1987. Vampyrer. 2nd ed. Lund: Lund Bakhll.
ELECTRONIC SOURCES

Twilight Lexicon, http://www.twilightlexicon.com accessed: 24th of May 2009 Vampires A-Z, http://www.vampiresaz.webs.com accessed: 24th of May 2009