Vampires. Those Romantic (literary period), romantic (sensual) monsters, have been a fixture in the horror genre since the dawn of the 20th century. Over the years, writers have painted vampires as predatory villains, supernatural beasts, and irresistible lovers. However, vampires are not just representations of our darkest fears and fetishes; like other monsters in modern horror, vampires can serve as a metaphor for issues we might not like to directly address. Using a fictional proxy like vampires, zombies, and werewolves can open up discussion of serious themes that might be too heavy for audiences if they were played out literally in a story.
1. Sex.
This is first on the list because it’s the earliest theme in non-folklore vampire stories. The titular character in John Polidori’s 1819 story “The Vampyre,” the first English-language prose about a vampire, was an unabashed reference to Lord Byron and his various sexual scandals, with blood-sucking as the metaphor. Sheridan le Fanu’s 1872 novella “Carmilla” follows a young woman seduced and preyed-upon by a vampire. Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel “Dracula” included several vampiric seductions. Even Stephenie Meyer’s wildly successful 2005 novel “Twilight” and its subsequent sequels painted the vampiric plight as a metaphor for resisting the temptation of premarital sex. The list goes on, even outside of the vampire romance genre.
2. Drugs.
A vampire’s thirst for blood can represent an addict’s need for a rare substance that they will go into a frenzy for if they don’t get it. It’s sometimes talked about like food and water, but, given how rare human blood can be for a vamp and the extreme bliss they often seem to feel when they consume it, it’s definitely not Jim Jarmusch’s 2013 movie “Only Lovers Left Alive” that nods at this with dialogue like, “I need blood bad, man. Maybe you can hook me up with some of the good stuff?”
3. Parasites.
Pun intended. Well-dressed, wealthy vampires can represent the common citizen’s (sometimes suppressed, sometimes not) envy for lawyers, Wall Street execs, and other Highly Effective People™. Because of their immortality, many vampires in modern settings have been able to build massive riches over the centuries. Whatever the real impact that the upper class has over the world economy, slang insults like “bloodsuckers” can be taken literally when vampires use their longevity to gain an upper hand in the economic long-game, like old-money human families maintaining their place in the food chain.
4. Christianity.
_-_Poussin_-_NGofScotland.jpg)
Blood sacrifices are a major part of Christian and Jewish theology. One of Christianity’s main religious rites, the Eucharist, even involves drinking Jesus Christ’s blood, in connection to Christ’s life-giving sacrifice on the cross. (It’s wine or juice in the cup; whether it only symbolizes Christ’s blood or really is his blood is a big topic of debate that I’m not equipped to go into. Either way, it’s pretty hardcore.) “[God,] even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ” (Eph. 2:5 ESV). I haven’t seen this played straight in a vampire story yet, probably because the Christian population has tended to avoid the horror genre (for a variety of legitimate reasons). However, after seeing a book like Jeff Kinley’s “The Christian Zombie Killers Handbook: Slaying the Living Dead Within,” it might make a vampire-fan wish for a Christian allegorical novel about vampires.
