Vampires, Obsession Throughout Eternity Obsession Essay, Research Paper

Vampires, Obsession Throughout Eternity

Compulsion. A relentless, upseting preoccupation with an often-unreasonable thought, feeling, object or individual ; loosely: compelling motive ( Collegiate Dictionary ) . Many narratives have been told of obsessed work forces and adult females who waste their lives on lost causes, naming them calamities. But what if you were immortal? What if you were everlastingly? Then your life would non be wasted, but alternatively a ground for life would go natural. And what if holding an compulsion, something criticized by mortal worlds, was the lone manner to maintain your saneness and appetency for life through infinity? When looking through the lamia & # 8217 ; s eyes in movie and literature, we see that the foremost lamias have an compulsion, a naming that drives them. Without this compulsion, it seems, lamias would be lost through clip, rolling the Earth with no motive, and though this may sound redundant, with no life. Vampires, it seems, are more capable of traveling through clip when they have a passion. Whether this passion comes from love, cognition, or power, vampires & # 8211 ; such as the 1s from Blade, Bram Stoker & # 8217 ; s Dracula, and Interview with the Vampire & # 8211 ; are all driven by their ain compulsions, without which they become lost, empty.

Harmonizing to the movie Bram Stoker & # 8217 ; s Dracula ( 1995 ) , Count Dracula was a adult male who had sworn to protect the church from its enemies until he found out that his beloved had committed self-destruction because she thought he had been killed in conflict. His love and compulsion for her, & # 8220 ; Whom he prized above all things on Earth, & # 8221 ; was so strong that he so swore off the church and therefore became lamia. When we once more see Count Dracula, he looks old and weak, and has become really bizarre and apparently insane. But when by accident he discovers that his beloved is alive in Mina, the fianc? of Jonathan Harker, he embarks on a pursuit to be with her. He becomes vernal and craft ; his head seems to be that of a charming and intelligent Lord ; alternatively of that of an aged hermit. We see the undead semen to life, with powers that overwhelm the imaginativeness. But when Mina decides to go forth him to marry Jonathan Harker, he once more turns into a monster, a shadow of his former ego. The life seems to hold drained out of him. This proves that it was his love for Mina, his ageless infatuation with her that had kept him traveling through the ages. It is this compulsion that forced him to go a lamia, and he so hoped that one twenty-four hours he would be reunited with his love, because he knew that she would non hold been able to fall in him in Eden. And though he knew of the dangers that surrounded him, he risked everything to be with her, for he would hold instead dice than to lose her once more.

Love besides drives Louis, the hero ( or victim, depending on the point of position ) of Interview with the Vampire. Louis was a sad individual when Lestat turned him into a lamia ; his exclusive ground for life was his ain guilt and wretchedness. He did non even let himself the ultimate pleasance a lamia has and demands, human blood. He feeds off rats and other animate beings, and wanders the street aimlessly, lost. As he puts it after Lestat tells him that there is no snake pit, & # 8220 ; But there was a snake pit, and no affair where we moved to, I was in it. & # 8221 ; But when Lestat gives him an undead comrade, a immature miss named Claudia, his whole universe is turned upside down. He has a new & # 8220 ; thirst & # 8221 ; for life, literally. He begins to bask the really things he had denied himself. As he put it when narrating his narrative, & # 8220 ; Time can go through rapidly for persons when they & # 8217 ; re happy. With us, it was the same. & # 8221 ; But when his hunt for cognition leads to Claudia & # 8217 ; s decease at the manus of other lamias, he loses his spirit and one time once more becomes lost. As he describes his new life:

For old ages I wondered: Italy, Greece & # 8230 ; all the ancient lands.

But the universe was a grave to me. A graveyard full of broken statues.

And each of those statues resembled her face.

There was another drive force for the lamias of Interview. It was a pursuit for cognition, a mission to happen replies, or a nexus, to a universe that was beyond their appreciation. Louis and Claudia, who became & # 8220 ; orphaned & # 8221 ; after they left Lestat for dead, were so involved on a hunt for other lamias, in hopes of happening out their beginning and nature.

We booked a transition to Europe. Over the hebdomads, while waiting

For the boat, she studied the myths and fables of the

Old World.

Obsessed with the hunt for what she called & # 8216 ; our sort & # 8217 ; & # 8221 ;

Therefore the two of them had a impulsive force, as Louis narrates: & # 8220 ; We searched small town after small town & # 8230 ; ruin after ruin & # 8230 ; state after state. And ever we found nothing. & # 8221 ; But when they find the lamia Armand and his Theatre of Vampires, they found none of the replies they so urgently searched for. The lamia Armand had his ain docket, and therefore sets into gesture the events that would take to the decease of Claudia and the devastation of the Theatre of Vampires. He Knew that he needed something to assist him adhere to the altering times, he needed Louis to steer him, to be his compulsion. & # 8220 ; The lamias from the new universe came to steer us into a new epoch, as all we love easy putrefactions and slices away. & # 8221 ; But when Louis turned down his offer, cognizing that Armand had been responsible for Claudia & # 8217 ; s decease, Armand realizes that without Louis as his compulsion, he is & # 8220 ; dead. & # 8221 ; As is, in a manner, Louis:

I go on dark after dark. I feed on those who cross my way.

But all my passion went with her aureate hair.

I & # 8217 ; m a spirit of uncanny flesh.

Detached. Unchangeable. Empty.

The action film Blade, though trusting more on the action sequences and Hong Kong manner soldierly humanistic disciplines, contains a captivating secret plan with some interesting turns on the lamia myth. Yet one thing remains changeless, and it is the driving compulsion behind the two chief lamias. In this instance, it & # 8217 ; s power. Deacon Frost, leader of a lamia cult, is obsessed with happening LaMagra, a supernatural being that he believes will give him the power to suppress the universe. Blade, on the other manus, is driven by a overzealous passion and power haste he gets from killing lamias. Their compulsions lead to several confrontations, which set the phase for the concluding confrontation. What makes Frost the strongest lamia among his family and makes him stand out is his passion to suppress the universe with LaMagra. But he is met with resistance from both the House of Erebus ( the opinion council of lamias ) and from Blade. Yet his thrust is so strong he is rarely seen kiping nor feeding, but ever working on a manner to carry through his end. He becomes strong plenty by this that he is finally able to take on and destruct the House of Erebus. This compulsion is evident when he throws a party and the inquiry on everyone & # 8217 ; s head is & # 8220 ; But, where is he? & # 8221 ; He is so shown in forepart of his computing machine, still working on happening LaMagra. Blade besides seems to hold given up everything for his desire to kill lamias. He allows himself to experience nil, non even love for his male parent figure, Whistler. He is so goaded that he frequently loses sight of the really humanity he tries to protect. At an blink of an eye where Frost throws a small miss in forepart of a coach in order to get away, Blade really hesitates in taking between taking out Frost and salvaging the small miss. Furthermore, when Blade is offered a remedy for his vampirism, he decides to turn it down, stating & # 8220 ; You keep your remedy. It & # 8217 ; s non over & # 8230 ; there is a war traveling on. And I have a occupation to make! & # 8221 ; Thus, this ageless passion is what gives Blade life. Because without lamias to run, Blade would hold nil to populate for.

Vampires are frequently described as immortal existences of superhuman strength and ageless beauty. Yet this seems to be more of a expletive than a gift. Because how can a lamia live through infinity in an of all time altering universe while they remain the same. This is why the extraordinary lamias of Interview With the Vampire, Blade, and Bram Stoker & # 8217 ; s Dracula stood out, because they found the reply, they found a ground for life. Since this ground for life had to be in ageless proportions, it could come as nil less as an indispensable compulsion that drives through the ages, without which the lamias would be lost. Yet this compulsion comes in the same form as those cardinal human compulsions ( therefore demoing a glance of the lamia & # 8217 ; s fledging humanity ) & # 8211 ; Love, Knowledge, and Power.

Blade. Dir. Stephen Norrington. Perf. Wesley Snipes, Stephen Dorff, and Kris

Kristofferson. New Line Cinema, 1998.

Bram Stoker & # 8217 ; s Dracula. Dir. Francis Ford Coppola. Perf. Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder,

Keanu Reeves, and Anthony Hopkins. Columbia Pictures, 1992.

Collegiate Dictionary. Merriam-Webster OnLine. 5 March 2001.

Interview with the Vampire. Dir. Neil Jordan. Perf. Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, and Antonio

Banderas. Geffen Pictures, 1994.