Vampires Untold: Journey from Mythic Monsters to Modern Day Heroes

The vampires have been the source of fear as well as fascination over the ages. The vampire legends have its origin in the mythical folklores, and yet have outlived their mythical origin and successfully reached twenty-first century. The reason that the vampire literature is always in vogue is its evolution in relation to the socio-political and cultural background of any age. The vampire started his career in the literature as a gothic monstrous creature evoking terror, but ended up being the sympathetic romantic hero of the twenty-first century. This paper will try to explore this process of the evolution from the beginning. It will trace back to the interplay between folkloric legends and historical facts, and shows how a folkloric creature made its debut in literature. The paper thus attempts to present the social, political and cultural reasons behind the evolution of the vampires. In relation to the evolution of the genre, the paper will discuss three novels critically in order to unveil the socio-political and cultural issues. Bram Stoker's Dracula will be analysed in the context of the Victorian era and specifically in relation to the anxiety between science and religion, the fear of reverse-colonization and the angst of the changing expression of female sexuality. The next novel, Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire from the late twentieth century will be presented to portray the new sympathetic vampire as well as the period's anxieties around the aspects of homosexuality, religion, racism and patriarchy. Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series will serve here as a representative text of the twenty-first century literature, breaking the traditional vampire myth. The possible socio-political and cultural issues involved in the changes thus traced are addressed side by side.