CHAPTER 3 Nice to Eat You: Acts of Vampires Emma McManus Period: 2

What is a preposition? Preposition: Any member of a class of words found in many languages that are used before nouns, pronouns, or other substantives to form phrases functioning as modifiers of verbs, nouns, or adjectives, and that typically express a spatial, temporal, or other relationship, as in, on, by, to, since. Now what is the importance of using prepositions? Well, if you take the “with” out of “Nice to eat with you,” it begins to mean something quite different. Less wholesome, more creepy. So always make sure to use your prepositions!

Vampires in Literature Ever heard of Dracula? Did you ever notice how he had a certain attractiveness to him? Or how he had an alluring or mysterious vibe? Dracula tended to focus on beautiful, unmarried and innocent women. When he fed on them he seemed to grow younger and livelier. This can be compared to a gross old man who is attractive, but also evil and who violates young women. By violating the women, he leaves his mark on them and takes away their innocence -- which leaves them marked as useless and unwanted. In Dracula’s day, if a woman was not a virgin it would be hard to find someone to marry. This infers that evil has to do with sex.

Ghosts, Doppelgangers, and Evil Twins The Victorians were masters of sublimation. They found ways of transforming taboo subjects such as sex and sexuality, because back then those subjects were not allowed to be written directly. The Victorians used ghosts, doppelgangers, and evil twins to symbolize aspects of common reality.

Perspective of the Reader Henry James’ novella, “The Turn of the Screw” (1898) is about a governess who tries, without success, to protect the two children in her care from a particularly nasty ghost who seeks to take possession of them. Either that or it’s about an insane governess who fantasizes that a ghost is taking over the children in her care, and in her delusion literally smothers them with protectiveness. Or, just possibly it’s about an insane governess who is dealing with a particularly nasty ghost who tries to take possession of her wards. To elaborate it means that some readers perceive the story different than others, depending on their take of the story.

Vampire or Not? Can someone be a vampire without having fangs and a cape? The answer is “yes.” The essentials of a vampire story are as follows: an older figure representing corrupt, outworn values; a young, preferably virginal female; a stripping away of her youth, energy, virtue; a continuance of the life force of the old male; the death or destruction of the young woman. Just like in Henry James’ famous story, “Daisy Miller” where the young Daisy Miller is stripped of her life due to obsession of getting the attention of the man she desires. In achieving his attention, she loses her youth, energy, and virtue.

Exploitation in its many forms Whether in Elizabethan, Victorian, or more modern incarnations, it always comes down to one thing; using other people to get what we want. By denying someone else’s right to live in the face of our overwhelming demands, we place our desires above the needs of another. The vampire thinks, “In order to remain undead, I must steal the life force of someone whose fate matters less to me than my own.” My guess is that as long as people act toward their fellows in exploitative and selfish ways, the vampire will always be within us.

You Bleed I Feed