The Vampire as a Gothic Figure

The Vampire as a Gothic Figure

The vampire myth has persisted through many ages and cultures; although it has not always been called the vampire. In the Gothic literary genre the vampire has evolved with the culture it is written into and this has continued into the post-modern media's. The vampire is most certainly a gothic figure, embodying many common themes including abjection, female gothic, the outsider and the doppelganger.

Abjection, as described by Julia Kristeva in "The Improper/Unclean", is easily summed up as a distortion between self and other. The examples of this in vampire tales are extensive and many beyond those here can be found. Life and death is the most obvious as is death and birth. There is also an element of sexual ambiguity. A female, when changed into a vampire, now takes on the position of being the one to penetrate, by her fangs, her victims; a very male position. This penetration, the vampires bite, brings pain or pleasure which is often given a particular sexual description. The boarder between pain and pleasure is being distorted. In White Wolf's "World of Darkness" especially, the vampire's bite referred to as a Kiss is portrayed as pleasure, nearly orgasmic yet death and sickness are its end. The description of a vampire's bite, the drawing of blood and life from a human as a kiss, something so intimate and special is, in itself, another

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ambiguity. A much ignored element of abjection involves the familial relationship. Those of the human