From Fear to Fascination

With the third movie installment of the "Twilight" movies, "Twilight Saga: Eclipse," based on Stephenie Meyer's best-selling vampire-romance novels, slated to arrive in theaters on June 30, vampires have once again crept into pop culture's collective consciousness.  While true, undead vampires do not exist, some diseases and disorders show themselves in ways that are similar to vampiric ch

As children grow into teenagers they begin a search for self identity. They seek acceptance from their peers while simultaneously seeking individualism from their family. For many teenagers this means learning lessons the same way that they have since birth, through pop culture and the media.

Since the late 1800's, vampires have found their way into literature, folklore, and popular culture. In 1872, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu introduced the literary world to Carmilla, one of the first vampire novels of its kind. The novel clearly illustrated the power of vampire seduction and set the tone for the most famous of all vampire characters.

The original vampires of folklore have been given some hard knocks these days in comparison to their most popular literary descendants. For example, in Anne Rice's novel, INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE, Louis and Claudia encounter in Eastern Europe only dim-witted, savage vampires.

When I was a Vampire, I did it for the money. Which makes me a vampiric whore I guess. Which is mild compared to labels the blood sucking, corruption dealing reps of the Undead have been trading under for millennia.

From Dracula to Lestat to Mona the Vampire, the thirst for vampire novels is unquenchable. They've been examined from every conceivable angle, done to death as it were, and yet literature about them proliferates at greater speed than vampires themselves could ever hope to. So what is it about books featuring the undead that holds us so much in thrall?

Many of the world's myths and legends have some basis in fact, which is why they are perpetuated through the centuries. In one case, the idea of a race of nefarious monsters-specifically, vampires-may actually have sprung from a very real and potentially deadly disease that affects thousands of people worldwide.