Vampires Essay, Research Paper

Vampires Although lamias are referred to most about Halloween, these animals of the dark are talked about all twelvemonth long. Vampires have become on of the most popular monsters of our clip. From books to films there is ever a new lamia narrative to hear or watch. Although all of the books & # 8217 ; or films & # 8217 ; plot lines and secret plans are different they all still are focused on the one animal that we have all grown to wish or fear. Although a lamia is capturing, seductive, and witty, he is besides a lifelessly huntsman that stalks his quarry to either do it his ain sort or merely do it his repast. So why have we grown so fond of a animal that merely comes out at dark and has a lecherousness for human blood? In the undermentioned paragraphs I would wish to explicate the properties of lamias in hope to demo what makes us so affectionate to these animals of decease. Webster & # 8217 ; s New Collegiate Dictionary defines a lamia as & # 8220 ; a bloodsucking shade or reanimated organic structure of a dead individual believed to come out from the grave and wander about by dark sucking the blood of individuals asleep & # 8221 ; ( qtd. in Baumann 5 ) . This statement is besides supported by the Oxford Advanced Learner & # 8217 ; s Dictionary of Current English and Encyclopedia International ( 950 ; 6 ) . There are many different definitions of what a lamia is but fundamentally the word lamia is applied to a dead and inhumed individual who rises out of the grave every dark and goes about stealthily sucking the blood of whoever is available. Vampires, like other supernatural animals, have physical features that distinguish them from worlds. By and large, lamias are pale and scraggy and the most widely known cosmopolitan characteristic would be the Fangs ( Baumann 7 ) . Right before the bloody brush, the lamia uses its piercing eyes to hypnotise its quarry. The lamia plunges these two, long, crisp dentition into the jugular vena and sucks the blood from its victims ( Baumann 7 ) . It is besides good known that lamias cast no shadow nor a contemplation in the mirror ( Stoker 245 ) . A lamia can transform himself into a wolf or chiropteran to derive entry into a victim & # 8217 ; s house in which it would restart its normal signifier one time indoors. Vampires, on certain occasions, can besides be seen as apparitions ( Crow 252 ) . Vampires are non ever spotted right off but because of the differences between worlds and lamias, it can be done. Peoples largely like the physical features of lamias because they are non human. Peoples like different things, things that are cold, things that alteration and have powers. Vampires have supernatural powers, but they can non ever do as they wish because their power is limited. A lamia will stay undead every bit long as it feasts blood of the life and is non killed ( Stoker 245 ) . A lamia can non decease like a human but the mere passing of clip and the growth of age because he can turn younger. Peoples who have died by the custodies of a lamia are at his bid ( Stoker 243 ) . A lamia & # 8221 ; can direct the elements: the storm, the fog, the boom ; he can command all the average thing: the rat, and the bird of Minerva, and the chiropteran, and the fox, and the wolf & # 8221 ; ( Stoker 243 ) . A lamia possesses strength so overpowering that it is estimated to be the equivalent of 20 people ( Stoker 243 ) . A lamia can transform himself into a wolf, can come in mist, can steal through hair breadth infinite, can see in the dark, and he can come on moonlight beams as elemental dust ( Stoker 245 ) . A lamia can merely come in a house at first if invited, after that he can so come as he pleases ( Stoker 246 ) . Along with strengths comes failings. A lamia is powerless is the daylight. If the undead animal is non in its casket, it can merely transform itself at dawn, midday, or sundown ( Stoker 246 ) . A lamia with all its power still has to stay by some of nature & # 8217 ; s Torahs. One ground people would wish the powers of a lamia is because we as worlds do non possess these powers and most of the clip we are ever desiring something that we can & # 8217 ; Ts have. Another ground why people would wish the powers that a lamias have is because of what they would make with them if they had them. There is nil a individual wants more than to posses the power to alter into different signifiers or existences or the ability to populate everlastingly. No 1 is born a lamia ; yet, one can go a lamia if certain conditions are met. Harmonizing to fable, when a wolfman dies, it instantly becomes a lamia ( Baumann 7 ) . Priests proclaim that people who commit serious wickednesss leave their Gravess at dark because their psyches can happen no peace ( Baumann 7 ) . Peoples excommunicated by the church are besides apt to go lamias ; so are people cursed by their parents, aces, and people who commit self-destruction ( Baumann 5 ) . Some people can go lamias entirely by holding their blood sucked, during life, by another lamia ( Crow 252 ) . Even after decease a individual can go a lamia, that is if an carnal leap over the cadaver or if a bird flies over it ( Crow 252 ) . These undead or living cadavers are doomed to populate as lamias until they can be destroyed. Although people do so like lamias, they still would be afraid of them and would desire to cognize the ways to halt or kill them if they were being attacked. Certain processs have to be employed if one desires to maintain lamias off and endure safety from them. The most common method is puting garlic in forepart of all doors and Windowss ( Baumann 8 ) . A individual have oning a rood or prayer beads is besides supposed to be safe, so is person standing in a circle of holy H2O or salt ( Baumann 8, 76 ) . If a vas of holy H2O is thrown onto a lamia, it would be burned and scarred ( Baumann 8 ) . The same consequence would be achieved utilizing a Holy Wafer ( Stoker 302 ) . It is said that puting a natural state rose over a lamia & # 8217 ; s casket would forestall him from go forthing it ( Stoker 246 ) . For people that lived in fright of lamias, these would be the ways that they could protect themselves from them. Although lamias are immortal, they can be killed, but they do non decease every bit easy as a normal human. As a human dies and turns into a lamia, it is as if it has merely been born once more, but as a lamia this clip who has been baptized with blood. Morning is when lamias are normally found in their caskets ; they must be killed instantly before they can name for other lamias to help them. There are many ways to kill a lamia such as driving a big nail across the caput, through the temples, driving a interest through the bosom, cutting the caput off, or firing the whole organic structure ( Crow 252 ) . Some people believe that it takes a series of methods kill a lamia. & # 8220 ; The commonest methods of ablation of lamias are decapitating the suspected cadaver, taking out the bosom, transfixing the cadaver with a white-thorn interest ( in Russia and aspen ) , and firing it & # 8221 ; ( Encyclopedia of Occultism, & # 8220 ; Vampires & # 8221 ; 1362 ) . Methods used to kill lamias besides depend on where you leave and how you believe. & # 8220 ; A Bulgarian belief was that a ace or magician may ensnare a lamia by puting some nutrient for which the lamia has a fondness in a bottle. When the lamia enters in the form of fluff, the magician can seal up the fla

sk and throw it into the fire.” ( Encyclopedia of Occultism, “Vampires” 1362 ) . If a vampire’s casket is found empty, normally at nighttime, a rood is placed in the grave so the lamia will non be able to acquire back into it ; so when the Sun rises its beams will transform the lamia into a amorphous heap of dust ( Baumann 3 ) . A lamia can besides decease if a sacred slug is fired into the casket ( Stoker 246 ) . Peoples believe that lamias live on and on, banqueting on the blood of the life, unless one of the mentioned anti-vampire redresss is used. So why would people be attracted to such in writing ways of killing a lamia? I think that it is human nature to be attracted to such things. Everybody likes a small force even if it is every bit atrocious as watching person thrust a interest into a vampire’s bosom and so continue to cut off his caput.

Dracula, frequently assumed to be a lamia, really did be ; sixty old ages after the publication of Dracula, his individuality was steadfastly established ( Baumann 10-11 ) . Dracula means & # 8220 ; boy of the firedrake & # 8221 ; or & # 8220 ; boy of the Satan & # 8221 ; ( Baumann 13 ) . If it had non been for Bram Stoker, the existent Dracula would really probably have been lost to history ( Baumann 13 ) . Dracula & # 8217 ; s childhood may explicate why he & # 8221 ; was one of the cruelest and most barbarian swayers in recorded history & # 8221 ; ( Baumann 13 ) . At eight, Dracula was imprisoned by the Turks for four old ages and, as a consequence he became eager for retaliation ( Baumann 16 ) . Dracula was released from prison and he ruled Walachia ( Baumann 16 ) . On one juncture, three hundred soldiers entered Walachia ; Dracula had several of them fried in oil, made their comrades eat them, and told them that they would go on eating each other if they did non hold to contend the Turks with him ( Baumann 18 ) . He got into more problem with the Turks than he could manage and fly to Hungary, but at that place he spent 17 old ages in prison ( Baumann 18 ) . Even though Dracula was imprisoned, he still had to see blood flow. Guards brought him animals and the Russian embassador to the Court of King Matthias ( the male monarch of Hungary ) reported that: & # 8220 ; Dracula peculiarly enjoyed tweaking all the plumes off poulet. He would watch in captivation as they ran around his cell in wild circles. When the freshness of that eventually wore off, he would slice their throats. & # 8221 ; ( Baumann 19 ) . Dracula & # 8217 ; s long old ages in prison were non wholly unpleasant ; the sister of the King liked him and as a consequence, he was given particular intervention by the guards ( Baumann 19 ) . He ate and drank good, and he spent much of his clip in the castle because the King enjoyed demoing him off to his visitants ( Baumann 19 ) . Dracula married the Princess when he was released from prison, but was so killed on the field of conflict by anon. bravos, who cut off his caput and sent to the Turkish Sultan in Constantinople where it was openly displayed on a interest ( Baumann 19 ) . & # 8220 ; He spilled the blood of 1000s of people, but he ne’er drank any of it. Contrary to common, popular belief the existent Dracula was non a vampire. & # 8221 ; ( Baumann 13 ) . Even though Dracula was decidedly a disturbed single and really violent, his narrative attracts your attending. While reading this I ne’er one time wanted to halt reading even though some parts were rather in writing and to state the least disgusting. Peoples are attracted to violent things and even though they might desire to set the narrative down and halt reading, they can & # 8217 ; T because it attracts their attending. Although Dracula was non a lamia, they have ever been thought to be. Men centuries ago signed statements stating that a adult male by the name of Arnold Paole became a lamia because he was bitten by one during his life-time in 1727. Within months after Arnold & # 8217 ; s decease, a figure of villagers claimed that they had been haunted by him and his every night visits left them weak ; some of them died shortly subsequently. A party was sent to destruct the lamia ; when the grave was found and opened, Arnold & # 8217 ; s eyes were broad unfastened and blood stained his lips. He looked as if he had died late ( Baumann 49 ) . As a interest was driven through Arnold & # 8217 ; s bosom, the cadaver shrieked ( Baumann 52 ) . The same was done to the people who died because of him, and no more onslaughts were reported ( Baumann 52-53 ) . Many similar narratives are told, including 1s about the Vampire of Croglin Grange and the Vampire Shoemaker but no one truly knows if they are truth or fiction. Some people take their beliefs in lamias really earnestly. At Highgate Cemetery in London, England is said to be an broken and instead awful topographic point. It is said that an epidemic of shade sightings began in 1967 and still continues ; there is grounds that at least one of the shade is a lamia ( Baumann 70 ) . Dead foxes and coneies were found in the graveyard ; they had lesions around their pharynxs and their organic structures had been wholly drained of blood ( Baumann 70 ) . Manchester, President of the British Occult Society, personally investigated the affair and found that the most accurate description of the apparition came from a adult male who said that he had been attacked one dark while walking in the graveyard ( Baumann 73 ) . Elizabeth Wojdyla had the symptoms of a lamia victim and contacted Manchester ; she bore the & # 8220 ; grade of the lamia & # 8221 ; on the side of her cervix ( Baumann 74-75 ) . On several occasions, it was said that Elizabeth went into a enchantment and sleepwalk to the northgate of the graveyard and so came back ( Baumann 76 ) . She was attacked several times by the lamia and despairing steps were taken to forestall farther onslaughts ( Baumann 76 ) . The onslaughts stopped, which indicated that & # 8220 ; the ancient anti-vampire redresss still worked in the 20th century & # 8221 ; ( Baumann 77 ) . The lamia, unluckily, found another victim & # 8220 ; Lucy & # 8221 ; , who developed the same symptoms as the 1s Elizabeth had ( Baumann 77 ) . Manchester believed that if Lucy were followed while somnambulating, the lamia & # 8217 ; s grave would be found, which is said to be what happened ; but he could non be kill the lamia because upseting a cadaver was against the jurisprudence ( Baumann 77-81 ) . The entryway to the grave was sealed ( Baumann 82 ) . Four yearss subsequently, the organic structure of a dead adult male was found in the graveyard ; it was believed that he had died from a lamia onslaught ( Baumann 82 ) . Strange things were still said to hold happened in Highgate Cemetery but none of the narratives were of all time proven to be true. Although no 1 knows if the narratives are existent, it does do one to inquire if the occurrences were true and that there might be a lamia out at that place someplace waiting for his following victim. What makes people like this the most is the unknown. No 1 knows if it & # 8217 ; s true or non and that & # 8217 ; s what makes it attractive to people. From stating person how one becomes a lamia to cognize how to kill one, every individual in some manner is attracted to these animals of the dark. So what makes us so affectionate to these animals? Is it the romantic side of the lamia that attracts us or is it the ferociousness when he overcomes one of his victims? Possibly the inquiries will ne’er be answered but the facts remain the same, we all are attracted to these animals of the dark and likely will be for a really long clip.