creative project

For my creative project I will be writing a piece of fan-fiction. One idea I currently enamored with is an alternate history set in the fictional world of Frankenstein, where Victor’s research on reanimating the living were not lost and there is a large population of the Creature’s ilk. But if it becomes obvious that I cannot produce anything worthwhile from said idea I might do a piece of fan-fiction on Interview with a Vampire, from the perspective of one of the vampires victims.
The passage that my idea about the Frankenstein fan-fiction came from is on page 98 of the novel and is written, “What I ask you is reasonable and moderate; I demand a creature of another sex, but as hideous as myself; the gratification is small, but it is all that I can receive, and it shall content me. It is true, we shall be monsters, cut off from the world; but on that account we shall be more attached to one another. Our lives will not be happy, but they will be harmless, and free from the misery I now feel.”
Out of all the available creative project options a few stood out to me. If I were a talented artist I would definitely have enjoyed to create a piece of visual art concerning one of the novels. I thought that the psychoanalysis was very interesting as well, but I have no background in psychiatry, and would most likely botch the psychobabble. I’d be interested to know how any multimedia projects were done in the past, it seems to me like a difficult project to pull off.
As to the written component of the creative project I believe I will be trying to accomplish a passing grade as well as a chilling what-if style alternate past where the creatures have become slaves and beggars living underneath the modern society. I’ll focus on architecture, religion, the supernatural, and the sense of the uncanny those who encounter the Creatures will experience in an effort to make the piece sound gothic.
I can already tell you what I best like about this project and that is the idea. Sadly, once pulled out of its theoretical and hypothetical realm, this idea will become marred, tainted, and stained by the grim realities of my writing capability and inability to make any deadlines.
Speaking of, question five of the written component asks “How did you get your project done? Did you wait until almost the last minute and then create it all at once? Did you do extensive revising, or did you find that your first draft was fairly clear and complete already?” The initial two sentences scream to me the word ‘trap’. Although you could be subconsciously impressed by the quality of a work started and finished hours before it is due, some semblance of coherency while barely making it to the desired length would be the impressing features, I can’t help but feel as though you are looking for a specific answer to this question.

Benefiel’s Blood Relations: The Gothic Perversion of The Nuclear Family in Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire

Benefiel’s Blood Relations: The Gothic Perversion of The Nuclear Family in Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire explains the vampire’s transformation from a hunted monster to drive the plot forward from shadowy castles to deeper characters capable of eliciting sympathy. The vampire has been a vehicle for social commentary for as long as it has existed, with the foreigner, and the homosexual in the past and now more contemporary topics like drug addiction, AIDS, and the selfishness and narcissism of the baby boomer generation.
On page three, Benefiel writes, “In the bulk of vampire fiction, a master vampire serves as father, mother, and husband, while other younger vampires serve as children/lovers”. The conventions of the nuclear family are queered by vampirism, with the typical relationships blurred. The older vampire acts as the father, mother, and husband, but also as a teacher to the younger vampires. The incestuous familial relationships between vampire families creates a feeling of the uncanny. In addition to the vampire acting as mother and father, the vampire is bisexual or pan gendered, feeding off of men and women whenever they see fit.
On page four of the paper Benefiel states that, “Within the family, after its creation, there is no sexual contact-normal or otherwise-between the members”. I thought that when Lestat took Claudia out hunting it was more or less a sexual act. The act of sex is described as a pale shadow to killing, so to share in the kill would be very intimate and passionate. Louis is the prude of the family, refusing Claudia’s requests to come kill with her, instead Louis kills in solitude, out of necessity and not pleasure. In addition to the homoerotic overtones when Louis is turned, Lestat seems drawn to Louis consistently after they part ways. To me, Lestat seemed to be following Claudia and Louis to England to get his revenge on Claudia but also to reclaim Louis. Lestat shouts his name in the theatre of the vampires and tells him he has something to tell him. At the end of the book Lestat is a tottering old senile, begging Louis to stay and help him, a request that Louis refuses. Without having sex, the two main male vampires seem to treat each other like jilted lovers from time to time. The time and proximity they share makes us wonder how close they really are.
On page 9 of the readings Benefiel describes Claudia as a rebellious teen. The closeness to the typical nuclear family and its roles and tropes causes Rice’s family to be a kind of parody. Claudia wishes for her own coffin to sleep in and she removes herself more from the family, evading Lestat for weeks despite them living together. The way the vampire family follows the conventional family ideas and aspects while mixing them to ultimately queer the traditional values ascribed to them is how the novel makes commentary on today’s social structure.

After Louis and Claudia escape Lestat in their burning home they board a ship for Europe. On the way they muse as to how Lestat had survived Claudia’s poisoning and stabbing. “But how could he have survived? I asked her. You saw him, you know what became of him.” (162) Recounting how Lestat might have survived the night he was dumped into the swamp, Claudia attributes Lestat’s vivacity with his tenacity or a will to live. Louis rejects this conclusion, instead offering, “…perhaps he was incapable of dying…perhaps he is, and we are…truly immortal?” To Louis, the immortality vampirism offers is a very religious thing, and the life that he has gained is a curse.
When confronted with the thought of Lestat being burned to death, Louis thinks that the will to live had nothing to do with Lestat’s survival. He instead feels that to Lestat there was no recourse. There is no choice for a vampire when it comes to death. The sun and earth reject them as agents of Satan. Louis feels that a vampire burned still lives, that the body has been more or less destroyed but that perhaps the vampire remains conscious forever.
When Louis first drinks the blood of another human he does not describe the physical beauty of the runaway slave, nor does he comment on his pressing hunger for blood. When Louis drinks blood for the first time, all else vanishes “and there came the beating of the drum again, which was the drumbeat of his heart-only this time it beat in perfect rhythm with the drumbeat of my own heart, the two resounding in every fiber of my being” (30). The way Louis describes the heart of his victim I think that the life of a vampire is more closely tied to the heart of its victim then its blood.
For many of the vampires in the book interview with a vampire, life itself means much more then the beating of another’s heart. When Louis first feels and then kills a rat or mouse he senses the creature and it’s life force. Blood itself does not fuel vampires, because blood from the dead is deadly and unpleasant and blood taken out of the body and put in a wine glass soon becomes cold and unpleasant. The life force itself seems to be what vampires feed off of, and blood then is vessel for it.
Lestat kills young rich women and young men at the prime of their life. I couldn’t decide if this destructive tendency of killing people at their pinnacle was another way Lestat choose to get revenge on the world or if all vampires choose to kill the young and beautiful for the pleasure of snuffing out life. The animals that Louis kills are smaller then humans but no vampire makes any attempt to kill horses or cows instead of their regular human kills. I think that this is because the amount of blood has little to do with the amount sustenance drawn from a victim. That is why an animal would never be as pleasing to the palette of a vampire opposed to a human. The life of an animal is a pale comparison to the life of a human.

Interview with a vampire

In Interview with a Vampire I was somewhat perplexed by the character of Lestat. He enters into the story a mystery, and he seems to remain one. Louis is the stories narrator, and so we get to see every single occurrence in his life. Claudia is found as a child, and while her reasoning and perceptions are complex and unreadable at times, we are allowed to see her life from it’s beginning to end, without any gaps. Lestat on the other hand is a character throughout the novel and we hardly ever gain insight to his motives or thinking.
Louise constantly derides Lestat as a terrible teacher, one who failed to fully explain the senses of a vampire and focused only on the love of killing others. Throughout the novel we are told again and again that Lestat knows nothing of vampires origins or powers. But by threatening Claudia and Louise with the possibility of some critical knowledge he is able to keep them under his power for decades.
Most puzzling is Lestat’s past. His blind father asks forgiveness for burning several of his son’s books so that he could not go to school, but how Lestat is transformed into a vampire is never explained. Later when Claudia and Louise find Armand and his group of vampires, it is reviled that Lestat had been one of several vampires under one master. But whether Lestat killed his Master or not remains mere heresy.
Lestat remains a mystery throughout the book. In the first half of the book he acts violent and vengeful in nature interspaced with bouts of civility and what could be love. On page 55 Lestat refuses to forgive his father saying, “For what! Taking me out of school!” he threw up his hand in desperation “Damn him! Kill him!” After Claudia poisons and stabs Lestat he manages to survive, though the ordeal is never told. After that Lestat is left in New Orleans for years, only recurring to help kill Claudia, after which he seems desperate to tell Louise something that the readers never find out. Finally at the end of the book Lestat eats only cats and babies, frightened of sirens. He tells Louis “Louis, I can’t bear it, I can’t bear it, Help me, Louis, stay with me.” Lestat acquires another young vampire for a slave, and ages and degenerates so much, but the stories behind these things we never learn.

When I read the literary criticism “The Occidental Tourist” I found myself agreeing with the majority of Arata’s points. On page 463 Arata notes on how Stoker links vampires to military conquest and the rise and fall of empires. Van Hellsing provides this insight to the behaviors of vampires, “He have follow the wake of the berserker Icelander, the devil-begotten Hun, the Slav, the Saxon, and the Magyar.” This makes perfect sense to me. The supernatural creature that is the vampire has nothing to fear when it comes to men’s rifles or swords. The battlefield would be the perfect environment for the vampire. There would be scores of bloodied and dying bodies; with so many deaths a few paler corpses with pricks in their necks would go completely unnoticed. Additionally the vampire could reap the spoils of war, such as gold, land, and titles for fighting for his country.

With Dracula’s history in such a war-torn area, it is no surprise he was able to amass such a fortune and fortify himself so steadfastly into the country. Before Dracula moved to England he imprisoned Johnathan Harker to learn the subtle mannerisms of a British man, and Dracula also purchased and studied any written material on his intended land of conquest. On page 26 of the novel Dracula explains that ‘I am content if I am like the rest, so that no man stops if he sees me, or pause in his speaking if he hear my words, to say, “Ha, ha! A stranger!’ Dracula lost the defenses of his castle that included the forest full of wolf minions and the heavily defended castle for the anonymity of the “teeming masses”.
Dracula is portrayed as not only a bloodthirsty vampire but also as a Szekely warrior. The reasoning behind Dracula’s move from his homeland to a new place with potential danger was made much clearer after Arata stresses the conqueror spirit in Dracula. Dracula had been living in his castle for centuries and the allure of Britain was too much for him. Dracula is a conqueror of the lands, men, and women. He is defined through the immense power he wields wherever he goes. The newness of Dracula’s three wives had worn off, children were easy prey, so it is understandable that Dracula wanted a challenge.
Victorians view that Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster were capable of rearing hordes of demonic offspring seem to point to a xenophobic undercurrent in the thoughts. In Frankenstein the monster wanted a wife created the same as him to be his companion, but Dracula takes these thoughts a step farther through Dracula’s conquest and defilement of English women. Throughout the novel women seem to serve as the main battlefield for Dracula and the Victorian men. Each male character gives his own blood trying to save the life of Lucy as she is being fed upon and later Mina is in constant danger of being taken by the Count. I agreed with Aratathat the role of women in the novel was that of life givers, the means to which the race was continued.

Throughout the novel the editor comments on how the book Dracula differs from the film. The first such instance described Dracula’s hairiness, “film adaptations avoid Dracula’s hairiness; different as they are from each other most cinematic Dracula’s are clean shaven…these hairy palms are one of Dracula’s few affinities with the werewolf (and in the opinion of some commentators, with the Victorian masturbator as well.”(24) While I don’t think that Dracula’s pleasure is ever autoerotic, the very idea of the vampire is one who feeds of others to survive, I did find Dracula’s werewolf qualities interesting. In addition Dracula is described as having a uni-brow and a large white moustache, drastically different from any vampire I have ever seen.
Although it makes sense for a vampire to grow a moustache if he could, it helps hiding big fangs. Another strange example of how novel Dracula differs from film adaptations is when Jonathan Harker witnesses Dracula leaving, crawling down the sheer face of his castle walls face down. The related footnote seemed odd to me, “Jonathan’s repeated association of the crawling Dracula with a lizard aligns the vampire with those monstrous proofs of Darwinian evolution, dinosaurs-which Victorian scientists classified as reptiles-rather than with the mammalian bat.”(39) This was the first instance I had heard of with Dracula crawling around rather then flying, but I did not compare Dracula to a dinosaur in my mind or see how evolution tied into the equation at all. Later on in the story Dracula transforms into a large black dog, a mammal. And Dracula’s vampire brides transform into moonbeams while harassing Jonathan in the castle. My point being vampires abilities are much more likely to be tied with the supernatural then with Darwinian evolution.
All-in-all I found the barrage of footnotes helpful. The majority of notes deal with the names of nationalities and geography in the start of the novel. The editors call continuity on Bram Stoker a few times, though I worry they might be jumping the gun. The footnotes draw constant correlations with the Bible and Shakespeare, and without the notes I would miss most of the references entirely. But a select few notes seem unnecessary, “The first of many tributes to Dracula’s mastery of languages.” Is footnote number 9 on page 18. While I in no way disagree, I don’t think the editors need to add in the patterns they see.
The novel’s footnotes also play up the aspects of technology in the novel, giving the introduction every piece of gadgetry an aside. I only wish that the same were done for each mention of religion. While many of the superstitions are described to us, and there are a good number of footnotes concerning Biblical references, the technology in the novel is examined closely under a microscope, the subverted purpose of specific characters and their relation to the equipment pondered, while I am left scratching my head over the meaning of old men giving monologues on the dead and the grim reaper.
“There is legend that a white lady is seen in one of the windows.”(63) This brief aside reminded me deeply of the novel “The Monk”. The ghost is a part of local legend and there is speculation as to her true identity as well as why she walks the ruins of Whitby Abbey. I also had strong vibes of the Monk when the gypsy woman comes to the castle after her child is taken from her by Dracula and eaten. She pounds on her chest and has a fit outside the main door. But instead of the character falling sick from her outburst, she is eaten by an army of wolves sent by Dracula almost immediately.

Out of all the characters in the novel Nelly is by far my favorite, mainly because she is reasonable and well meaning. After Heathcliff makes a move on Isabella, and Edgar and Cathy both become depressed and self-obsessed, Nelly thinks, “that the Grange had but one sensible soul in its walls, and that lodged in my body”(94) I was sorely disappointed how her treatment of the hysterical Catherine backfired. Cathy planned to act crazy to garner sympathy and attention from her husband but Nelly announces her plan almost immediately. Everyone then acts self absorbed and childish by going off into their own sulkily and hoping that the other will come to them. Kenneth, the doctor practiced blood letting on Cathy but was able to predict how she was in danger of becoming so upset it damages her health. She couldn’t be contradicted, is that a disease? I am reminded of how emotions can quickly put characters on the verge of death, much like in “The Monk”. Story told almost entirely from her perspective.

The character of Joseph is a religious man, but also an evil one. He has memorized scriptures and often speaks of God. Even though he is truthful and shows a sense of duty few others do, he is clearly an unlikeable character. While I was reading I couldn’t help but wonder what the book was saying about religion through Joseph. I don’t think it’s anything good but besides being generally overbearing and strict Joseph hasn’t done much of his own volition. I’m glad that the revised copy has translations of Joseph’s dialogue because without it I would have little to no idea what he was saying.

Nature in the story, is harsh and unforgiving. The landscape is made up of swamps and bogs as well as high rocky hills. Although Mr. Lockwood finds the surroundings beautiful when he first arrives, and Catherine grows to love the hills and outdoors more after her sickness, the natural elements act as antagonist repeatedly. When Heathcliff hears of Catherine’s designs to marry Edgar Linton and steals off, a storm soaks Cathy to the bone while she remains outside on the lookout for Heathcliff. The gales knock a tree into the house and “Joseph swung onto his knees, beseeching the Lord to remember the Patriarchs Noah and Lot”(67). The second act of nature in the novel chronologically, or first in the novel, is when Mr.Lockwood is trapped in Wuthering Heights by a great snowstorm and when walking home he falls up to his neck in a snowdrift, weakening him so much he is bed-ridden for days, allowing Nelly a chance to provide back story on the characters we have had the pleasure to be introduced to.

I found the cursing in the novel is a bit strange, partly because of the dialect of the time and partly because of how they were occasionally omitted. On the very first page of the novel Mr. Lockwood describes Heathcliff’s mannerisms thusly; “The ‘walk in,’ was uttered with closed teeth and expressed the sentiment, ‘Go to the Deuce!’”. After I read this I had to go back and try to glean the meaning of the insult, which has evaded me expertly. Hareton swears like a sailor at Nelly when she visits Wuthering Heights. Again it was difficult for me to use context clues to find the meaning behind Hareton’s insults, but found it odd that Hareton thought his swearing somehow protected.
The second contributor to my confusion was the practice of some characters, Nelly for the most part, to use dashes instead of curse words. I read briefly about how dashes were used in the preface, but had forgotten about it by the time I was given an example. I think what threw me off most was how up until that point Nelly had always omitted swearing by casually mentioning it was too horrible to repeat or remember. The sudden switch in styles made me reread the sentence to realize that the dashes were meant to cover up swearing. I can understand how an editor could have made punctuation like that more confusing.

Although I still don’t understand Cathy’s reasoning behind turning civilized and then marrying Edgar Linton.