Vampires in Anne Rices books

Anne Rice creates an intricate, detailed history of vampire lore in her novels. Her ideas redefine what it means to be a fictitious vampire; most vampire tales have since owe much of their theories to Anne Rice. She recreates the tale of origin of vampirism, rewrites the transitional stage between being a human and being the living undead, and redefines what it means to live as a vampiric creature. All this she shows us through the complex and interweaving tales of her many characters of The Vampire Chronicles’.

Firstly, how does Rice’s vampire lore differ to previous ideas? The first writer to truly create the vampire as a quintessential icon of the horror genre was, of course, Bram Stoker. Before Anne Rice, Stoker’s vampire lore was the most famous.

Dracula’s vampirism arose from his use of the black arts to defy God and mortal death. Anne Rice’s vampires originated in Egypt, when the evil spirit Amel fused with the spirit of the Queen Akasha as her spirit left her body after an attack. They joined spirits re-entered her body, fusing with her heart and brain, creating a hybrid between mortal human and immortal spirit: a vampire.

Stoker’s Dracula creates other vampires in the same way Rice’s vampire do, by draining their blood and feeding them his own. However, unlike with Rice’s vampires, Dracula’s vampires are always weaker than him, and bound to him almost as a slave.

The transition between being alive and being undead also differs: in Stoker’s novel, the transformation takes days, in which the victim appears very ill and weak, gradually displaying signs of vampirism, such as a defiance to all things holy; in Rice’s novels, the human dies the same night he or she was bitten, going through a painful mortal death which lasts varying amounts of time, until that same night, they rise as a young vampire.

According to Stoker, the only way to kill a vampire is to sever its head, and then pierce its heart with silver. Sunlight does not destroy them. In typical vampire legend, vampires are nocturnal creatures, but the destroying properties of sunlight are not mentioned. The first depiction of sunlight killing a vampire was in the 1922 silent film Nosferatu’. According to Rice, young vampires are killed by sunlight, but as they grow more powerful with age, they build up a resistance. Fire and decapitation also kill her vampires, but holy water, crucifixes (Actually, I’m quite fond of looking at crucifixes’ Louis) and garlic do not.

Dracula has