semiotics payel basu 113b

7/31/2019 Semiotics Payel Basu 113B

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MICA

Semiotic Study of

Vampires and VampireLore

Individual Assignment for Semiotics

Submitted by:

Payel Basu

Roll No: 113B

A semiotic study of vampires and vampire lore, with an eye on the different cultural implications

that arise through the ages.


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A semiotic study of vampires and vampire lore.

The field of semiotics exists because of the realization that society has a desire to create andproduce signs because it serves as an important aspect and purpose to life. We are capable of

performing semiosis and representation to demonstrate the knowledge in which we come to

understand the world, and conversely, it is through the same process that the world becomes

familiar with the culture in which we inhabit. (WriteWork, 2003)

The vampire is one of the most popular and widely recognised myth/folklore of modern times. The

semiotic analysis of vampires has changed along with changes in society, making the vampire a

vehicle for the oppositional of the era. Marxists considered Dracula as an allegory for capitalism. At

various times the vampire has been thought to symbolise everything from gay acceptance to

homophobia, womens subjugation to empowerment.

Vampires have also gone through the whole gamut of representation. Starting off with the

despicable creature that lurks in the night and feeds off peasants, to the elusive, mysterious

nobleman, to now, somehow, the glittering teenager.

The present day vampire narrative resembles a sort of parallel alternative universe to human

existence. Replete with human behaviour and morality. These stories have imbued familial

structures, emotional depth and hierarchies and interpersonal conflicts into the previous dark hued

world of the vampire.

Initial representation of vampires was quite crude. Almost self explanatory.

The vampire was shown to sleep in a coffin. Using Saussures model to analyse this, a coffin was a

place where you placed the dead. It signified death, hence denoting that the person laid inside was

dead. The symbolic rising from coffin connoted the vampire rising from death, i.e. he was un-dead,

i.e. resurrected from the dead. Rising from the dead, being un-dead was unnatural hence leading to

the final understating that the vampire was unnatural and a thing to be feared.

The vampire was portrayed as a predator. This was depicted by the vampire going for the kill by

biting the victims neck. The imagery used here is that of a predator; say a lion, or a tiger or even a

Rottweiler going for the kill. They aim for the neck, for the jugular. The vampire also went straightfor the neck. Signifying his predator-like instincts. Denoting that he went for the kill, hence the

connotation that he should be feared.

Vampires feed on blood. Blood is signified as the giver of life. In this case blood IS life. This denotes

that blood or drinking blood would prolong life, and increase vitality. This connotation has actually

been around for centuries, an accepted ancient social view point.

Vampire stories have also always had strong religious undertones. Vampires cannot enter churches.

They can be warded off by the cross and holy water.

They are creatures of the night and cannot come out during the day. Night signifies opposite of day.

Day signifies light. As per Christian beliefs, God is Light. Similarly, their apparent adverseness to


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churches, the cross, holy water or anything that denotes God, or apparently blessed by God. The

significance that they are evil creatures, and anything blessed by God is physically agonising to them.

These stories also go a long way in propagating the influence and power of the church. In the end, it

is the appearance of daylight, the cross or the stake that does in these vile creatures of the night,

these object all signify God, denoting that in the end the Lord had a hand to play in striking them

down and hence, the final connotation that in the Church lies the salvation of man.

This is similar theme has been used, but with a twist in modern day movies. The champion here is

not the Christian Church, but the Christian value of love. The modern day vampire stories are mostly

all converted to love stories, and it is love in the end that makes the wheels turn. John S. Bak, in his

essay Post/modern Dracula: from Victorian themes to postmodern praxis says. Coppola inverts

Stokers horror story and turns it into a love story, in order to establish the central theme that

universal love, not hate is what will ultimately save humanity from evil.

Another interesting angle to using the vampire narrative as a tool in Christian hegemony is that

holy ground is never the deterrent to the vampire. It is always holy Christian ground. Religious

artefacts dont prove fatal to the vampire, Christian religious artefacts do. The idea that all religions

are equal, and other religions may also play a deterrent role never comes up. This, despite the fact

that modern day vampire narratives are exploring the realms of vampire history, and have traced

vampiric lineage all the way to Egypt during the time of the Pharaohs. However, the Christian

undercurrents remain. The image of a vampire unable to enter a mosque, or a temple or a

synagogue are yet to be seen, even though the concepts of vampires have existed for millennia with

demonic entities considered the precursor to the modern vampire seen in ancient cultures ranging

from Mesopotamians, Romans, Ancient Greeks and Hebrews.

However, as time progressed, vampires and the connotations attached also evolved.

Vampires have always connected with the sexual. Working with this angle, a semiotic analysis can be

made likening the vampire bite to phallic penetration. For instance, vampire fangs have a phallic

connotation. As per Daniel Chandler in his article Semiotics for Beginners, we all know that 'a thing

is a phallic symbol if it's longer than its wide. Thus vampire fangs denote a phallic symbol, and the

act of biting the victim is an act of phallic penetration. In the olden days, vampire bites were always

viewed as attacks making them akin to rape. This went with the socially accepted puritan view

point of being faithful, women should be demure and not put themselves in a position where or actin a way that attracted undue male attention. And those who did not live by this strict moral code

were considered fallen. This is also something whose connotation comes across in the vampire

movies, where Draculas (or the main male characters) female brides are all shown as

seductresses, and as a result of being vampires, ostracized by society. Another point to note is that

the main male vampire always had number of vampire brides. This denotes a harem which signifies

that no one vampire bride had precedence over the other, again signifying that no one bride was

the mistress of the castle, or the favourite of the male vampire, unlike the good Christian women in

the house, who did not give in to temptation, did not tempt other men, and hence ruled over the

house and the hearts of their husbands.


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In modern society, post the sexual revolution and womens empowerment, vampire bites are not

always viewed or portrayed as attacks. The concept of vampire bites as a source of pleasure, and

human-vampire relationships, are themes that are gaining popularity in main stream media. This

concept is portrayed by image of humans who willingly let themselves be bitten by vampires,

signifying that the vampire bite is pleasurable. This denotes that the human made a free choice

about his/her pleasure which in turn connotes sexual liberation.

A recent and significant development in vampire narrative is the appearance of the strong and

sometimes central female vampire character. This is symbolic of the rise in womens empowerment,

connoting the rise of the status of women in society, both the human society we exist in and the

vampiric society that evolves simultaneously.

Vampires, and their lifestyle were recently also considered to signify AIDS. This underlying logic

behind this can be concluded by drawing up parallels between the vampiric lifestyle and the AIDS

infliction course. It is a well known part of the modern day vampire narrative that to become a

vampire or to be turned you do not have to be killed by a vampire. The turning process consists of

the original vampires blood being ingested or consumed or simply inserted/injected into the body

of the human or victim that is to be converted into a vampire. This could be interpreted to denote

that the victim was subjected to a foreign matter that changed his/her physiology. Further

connoting that vampirism is a communicable disease. Similarly, in the case of AIDS, it is through

sexual intercourse with an infected person, or the use of an infected syringe, wherein the AIDS virus

is transmitted to the victim.

On a lighter note, there is also a semiotic reasoning to the sudden popularity of vampire genre in

main stream media. Broadcast journalist Miranda Shafer wrote Vampires used to lurk on the fringes

of pop culture: but these days they are heroes, heartthrobs, and the family next door. The answer,

quite simply put, is teenagers. Not just girls who swoon over Edward Cullen, or Stephan Salvatore.

The vampire genre was gaining popularity since the time of Interview with a Vampire. The target

audience for vampire flicks are teenagers, coming of age, filled with angst and anger. This juncture in

life signals the start of formation of darker impulses. The cusp of adolescence and your body

changing, or threatening to change, and the fact that there is nothing to be done to stop it is

paralleled to the transformation of the vampire, the losing of control of the body due to blood-lust.

The modern humanisation of the vampire shows the emotional changes the vampire goes through

during transformation, the guilt, the rage, the angst, almost the identical portrayal of the modern

day teenager as he turns from a child to a teenager to an adult. These parallels are what fuel the

feeling of relate-ability and hence the popularity of the vampire in todays main stream, young adult

oriented media.

semiotics payel basu 113b

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