& # 8217 ; s Vampire Chronicles Essay, Research Paper

Bram Stoker? s Dracula and Anne Rice? s series The Vampire Chronicles

are books about lamias. The manner the two writers write about the lamias?

powers, the manner they live and how they are created and destroyed prove that two

books about the same topic can be different in many ways. It besides shows how the

lamia fable has evolved over a long period of clip.

Particular powers are used in both of the writers Hagiographas. A few of the

powers are the same, or really near to it, in each history. enhaced or super-human

strenth is one of these abilites. On page 7 in Anne Rice? s book The Vampire

Lestat, her chief chacter Lestast says? As for my strength, well it was three times

what it had one time been. I could flex a Cu penny double. ? After going a

lamia he notices his ace human strength. Not much is written about Stoker? s

usage of super-strength for Count DraculaTherefore, One tends to believe that

Dracula in fact did non hold enhanced strength. Stoker did utilize the power of

morphing into animate beings in his novel. In Dracula, the Count can morph into a chiropteran

and he can turn into a grey-green mist. He uses these powers so worlds dont

observe his presence. As a gas he can go through by worlds without them even detecting

and as a chiropteran he can cover more land in a shorter sum of clip. Rice? s novels

reference nil of being able to morph into a chiropteran, mist or anything else for that

affair.

The ability to wing is used in each novel but they are used really otherwise. In Dracula

the count can wing but, in order to make this he must turn into a chiropteran and fly as a chiropteran would wing.

More powerful lamias in The Vampire Chronicles can wing as, for illustration, super adult male

would wing. In order for a lamia to wing it requires tonss of energy and a great force of will

Lestat says? It was as if a current of air had caught me. I went up hundereds of pess in one

blink of an eye, and so the clouds were below me-a white visible radiation that I could barely see. I decided

to drift. ? ( Rice, Queen of the blasted 286 )

Mental powers are used extensivly in both of the writers? creative activities. Mind reading is

common in The Vampire Chronicles. Vampires in the Histories can non read the heads of

lamias they themselves have created or heads that are skilfully cloaked against them.

Bing able to read the heads of persons allows them to pull strings their victims. They can

besides hypnotize and scramble the thoghts of persons, as when Lestat takes a drink from a

victim and makes so that she will non retrieve it. When talking with one another and

when giving their powerful blood, they can supply matured images of their yesteryear

experiences. Vampires can travel objects at will, such as when they open doors or locks, or

when jostling another lamia off without touching them. ? When I saw he wouldn? T

move, my choler and out of me like an unseeable fist. And I saw him moved backwards as if

the fist had struck him. ? ( Rice, The lamia Lestat 265 ) In Dracula mesmerism is

mentioned. This is where the phrase? expression into my eyes? was likely coined from. Like

Lestat, Dracula has the ability to alter the will of other people. In Dracula, Jonathen

Harker is a invitee in the counts palace. After a piece Jonathen becomes suapicious of the

counts activities. He so becomes frightened and uncomfortable and he wants to go forth.

Through will altering the count makes Jonathen experience comfy and he unwittingly

supports him as a captive. The powers of the lamias mildly differs between the two

writers. Obviously Rice, because she wrote an full series of novels non merely one, has

more infinite to descibe the indivdual abilities of the chief lamias in her series. Stoker on

the other manus wrote merely one book about Dracula therfore his chacter is described in less

item than are Rices.

The lamias manner of life, unlike particular abilities, is a great beginning of struggle. The

modern age Anne Rice and the authoritative old English Bram Stoker have different positions on the

scenes, travel, contact with people and other lamias, and the manner the lamias feel and

express emotions in their novels.

What comes to your head when you think of the words? lamia state? ? If you

idea of palaces in the center of nowhere and states with names you cant even

pronounce allow entirely cognize where they are, so Bram Stoker doesnt dissappoint you.

Stoker? s novel takes topographic point in and around Transylvania. Raymond McNally says of

Transylvania? At foremost, like many Americans, I assumed that this was some fabulous topographic point. I

found out, nevertheless, that it is a state, a historical part of western Romania bounded

by the Carpathian mountains? ( McNally 1 ) . The eerie atmosphere adds to the enigma of

the narrative. In Transylvania Count Dracula resides in immense, stone palace. The palace has

come to be known as Castle Dracula. In Dracula, Johnathen Harker writes in his diary

? I was non able to illume on any map or work giving the exact location of the Castle

Dracula, as there are no maps of this state as yet to compare with our ain regulation

study maps ; but I found that Bistritz, the station named by Count Dracula, is a reasonably good

known topographic point? ( Stoker 2 ) . In contrast, Rice sets her narrative in the modern universe. New

Orleans is the chief country which her narrative takes topographic point. Her lamias like to populate in houses

instead than palaces. This now brings up the topic of contact with people. Lestat likes

to

talk to people, he finds that if you dress as a person you can easy go through as one. This besides

makes happening a victim alot easier. Stoker ahd his Count more or less lure victims into his

palace or he would wing into town as a chiropteran and provender on unsuspicious passersby. Count

Dracula besides had a hareem of five female lamias populating with him in his palace. Other than

that there is no reference of contact with other lamias. Actually there is no reference of

any other lamias that exist in the universe Stoker created. Anne Rice, evidently with more

infinite to research her lamias, made an full universe of lamias populating incognito with

persons. She really has a household tree of lamias which decends from a lamia in

ancient Egypt. Her lamias can be found in every state and country in her novels. This is

made possible because going is really easy for her lamias. Dracula can every bit long as he

takes some of his native dirt and his casket. Without these he would die. This is really

the key to his death. In his effort to travel from Transylvania to England, Dracula has

some of his native dirt loaded into crates along with his casket loaded onto a ship. After

they arrive he has them taken to another palace he has chosen. The lamia huntsmans,

Proffesor Abraham Van Helsing and Doctor John Seward happen where the crates were

delivered to. after plotting their class they proceed to happen the palace and destroy Dracula

while he was kiping in his casket. Rice? s vampires seem to be more human than Stoker? s

they have more freedom and seem less like monsters. ? Rice? s immortals are beautiful, make

non unrecorded in Gravess, do non avoid Allium sativum, and can see their contemplations in mirrors. Harmonizing

to Anne, in Catholic divinity, the inability to see one contemplation means that the psyche is in

snake pit, and she did non desire her lamias to hold any better confidence of God than persons?

( Mascetti 86 ) . Her lamias ability to experience emotion separates her from every other novelist

on this topic. The lone emotions Stoker shows in his novel his desire. Dracula wants a

adult female named Lucy Westenra and will halt at nil to acquire her. This shows the

development of the lamia myth over a period of about 75 old ages. Rices narratives are

much more modern, non onnly in puting and the characters abilities but ALSs in the manner the

lamias act and think.

Aside from the topic of the lamias emotions, the biggest struggle comes when

you talk about how the lamias in each novel are created and destroyed. The strange

thing about Stokers noval is that he ne’er says how the Count was created. Its as if he was

merely at that place. Dracula does hold the ability to make other lamias nevertheless. We know this

because of the fact that he made the five adult females vampires that portion his palace with him.

He besides turns the object of his desire, Lucy Westenra, into a lamia in an effort to maintain

her by his side everlastingly. His programs fails when Lucy? s hubby kills her for her ain good and

for the good of others. Anne Rice creates all of the lamias in her novel in an Adam and

Eve kind of manner. The first lamia Akasha was a magician in Egypt through thaumaturgy she

transformed herself into a lamia. Akasha so creates her hubby Enkil by trnsfusing

her blood with his. Through clip the two created more lamias and the 1s they created

made more lamias. Therefore making about a 1000 or so lamias in the universe. doing

a person a lamia is a slippery procedure in both novels the procedure is fundamentally the same

except Rice gives a more elaborate description. doing a lamia involves run outing the

chosen person to the point of death-just before the bosom stops-so that the powerful

lamia blood can take clasp and fuse with the bosom. The procedure is hazardous because the

lamia thirsts for the human bosom and might drinkuntil the bosom stops and the person

dies. Plus anything less than taking the blood until the bosom stops would ensue in loanblends

which are more monster than human, or avampire that is excessively weak to last. The

lamia so gives his blood to the person, consuming himself until he is greatly exhausted.

Rices vampires more often execute this than in Stokers novel. In Dracula the count

merely does this one time when he attemps to do Lucy a Vampire. Dracula is overall a more

simpler novel than any one of Rices creative activities. Her books travel into great item on about

any topic that concerns lamias. Rice even changes some facets of the lamia myth

in order to accomodate her characters and her visions for them. Stoker merely takes the

lamia myth and creates a novel about a lamia with these properties.

Although the birth of the lamias and how they are created have some similarities

the mode in which they are destroyed and repelled holds many differences. As mentioned

before Rice alterations some facets of the lamia fable. This is where most of those

alterations occur. A lamia in Rice? s series named Louis says this of an old fable

? Nonsense my friend, sheer bunk. I can look at anything I like. And I instead like

looking at roods in peculiar? ( Rice, Interview with the Vampire 23 ) . In Dracula

nevertheless there is this extract? The count all of a sudden stopped and cowered back. Further and

Further back he cowered, as we, raising our roods, advanced? ( Stoker 271 ) . harmonizing

to legend, decease to a lamia can be caused by few different methods. Stoker uses the

fact that Death can be caused by fire, su