Vampires: more than a mythical creature
Did you know: Vampires also appeared in Vietnamese folklore? A heads up: they’re not so romantically depicted.
(This post is adapted from my essay for the Social Semiotics course during my master’s studies in 2023.)
In popular culture, vampires are often associated with the image of charming immortal creatures hiding in the darkness and feasting on the blood of the living. However, behind this typical figure is a long and complicated history, during which the vampires have evolved significantly from folklore to pop culture. This essay aims to explore the history of the vampire myth and vampire symbolism under the lens of semiotics methods, as we establish a quick collection of vampire accounts over time and analyse this creature in historical and cultural contexts.
Early vampires have existed for a very long time in history and in many cultures. Back then, these creatures were not called “vampires.” In fact, just like the myth, the etymological origin of the word “vampire” is still shrouded in mystery. Hypotheses and evidence point towards different sources, including Turkish’s uber (witch), Greek’s πί (to drink), or Hungarian’s vampir (Harper; Stepanic, 2017; “vampire,” 1989). The most universally accepted explanation, however, is that “vampire” has Slavic origin, with the Serbian word BAMIIUP as the root noun, but this idea is still controversial (Wilson, 1985).
The image of folkloric vampires is remarkably different from the modern vampire. For example, in Mesopotamia, there is the Lamashtu, whose head is that of a lion and body is that of a donkey; in Greece, there are bloodthirsty birds with the name striges (Molina, 2013).
In Vietnam, there are also several accounts of vampires. The earliest one was recorded in the book “Kiến văn tiểu lục” (original title in Nôm alphabet: 見聞小錄, literal: Anecdotes), by the great scholar Quý Đôn Lê, during the Revival Lê dynasty (1533-1789). He wrote about a demon with the name ma cà rồng in Hưng Hoá—a former province in Northern Vietnam—along with precautions and cure against this demon, as translated below:
“This person, during daytime, went about their day as normal. Under the edge of the roof where raindrops landed, placed a wooden barrel containing sappanwood liquid. At night, they put their big toes in their nostrills and flew away in the form of a demon, usually targeted and sucked blood from women who’d just given birth.
If a strange shadow appeared under the light of oil lamp, it meant this demon had flown inside the house; thus, to combat this, people usually covered their homes with nets, and since this devil couldn’t come inside, they’d fly to another place. Some tried to hit the demon by swatting at the air with awls and sticks; if the strike connected, there’d be a faint clattering sound, followed by buzzes similar to those of dung beetles. When hearing the drum signals of the fifth night watch (from three to five in the morning), this demon flew back home, soaked their feet in sappanwood liquid, took their big toes away from their nostrills, and transformed back into their human form. If asked about their activities the previous night, they wouldn’t remember anything.
If a family was harassed by this demon, they had to invite a witch-doctor to perform a ritual of exorcism. If the patient’s pained spot, when examined, showed marks from human teeth, the witch-doctor took their shirt and put it over a rice steamer, chanted, ‘[Demon,] you bit this person, you must release them,’ then draped the shirt over the patient’s body. The patient would immediately be cured.” (Lê, 1977).
(An illustration by Vietnamese artist Ấm Chè can be found here)
The name ma cà rồng gradually became the Vietnamese equivalence to the term “vampire.”
In Romania—the country with a strong connection to the mythical Dracula—there were reanimated corpses, or dead-vampires, which were also the most common type of vampires at the time. This belief came from an idea in Russia, Romania, and the Balkan states that for at least forty days after death, the soul would still stay with the body and not have yet entered Paradise, and this lingering delayed the decomposition process. Moreover, in Romania, there is a custom of disinterring bodies every several years—the number of years is determined based on the age of the deceased—and if the decomposition is not completed, the corpse is believed to be a vampire. There were also other types of vampires, like the live-vampires—people destined to become a vampire after death and could send their souls to mingle with the dead-vampires. All Romanian vampires are mostly called strigoi/strigoica, or less commonly, moroii (Murgoci, 1926).
The belief in vampires aroused from the need to explain unusual phenomena, like deaths from unknown diseases or the plague, during the times without the progress of science. When science could not provide a believable explanation, people turned to the supernatural for answers, and vampires were blamed for such misfortune. People looked for evidence in the dead to prove that the corpses had been reanimated as a vampire and were leaving their graves to disturb and feast on the living. For instance, the bloating of the belly and traces of blood around the mouth of the corpse indicated that they drank blood; the growing of hair and nails after death and the shambling and cracking sounds inside the graves implied that the corpse was still alive. These traits became the ground for the image of modern vampires, like consumption of lifeforce of the living—which is blood in most cases; shape-shifting ability—transformation from humanlike form to true vampire form; nocturnality, and so on. Interestingly, all of the evidence actually has roots in science. Signs of reanimated corpses are actually normal process of decomposition: the belly is bloated due to gases from bacteria, which forces blood and other matter to spill out from the mouth; the growing hair and nails are because of dehydration of the skin; the strange sounds from inside the graves are from the body rupturing and exploding during composition (Barber, 1987; Molina, 2013; Stepanic, 2017).
The aforementioned evidence led to many rituals and practices to prevent and cure vampirism. While varying from culture to culture, common practices included digging up the corpses, staking through the heart, decapitating or dismembering, or burning before re-burying them. The strong belief in vampires caused a lot of troubles, to the point that authorities had to investigate and put measures in place to prevent and advise people against digging up corpses and disturbing the deceased (Barber, 1987; Molina, 2013).
Early vampires are certainly not the most charming creatures. Then, where did the image of romantic vampires come from? One may easily think of Dracula, but the truth is Dracula was not the pioneer in vampire romantic literature, but another character in a less known piece of fiction—Lord Ruthven from the novella “The Vampyre” by Polidori. The story was written in June 1816, during a ghost-story literary competition considered the most famous of all time, which also marked the birth of Frankenstein. Polidori based his work on Byron’s unfinished “Fragment of a Novel,” which was also about a vampire, and other poetic descriptions of vampires at the time. What makes Polidori’s story stand out is his ability to transform the folkloric vampire, with their foul and inelegant appearance, to a more romantic one, with their nobleman charm and sexual appeal but not without a hint of danger. The vampire Lord Ruthven was based on Lord Byron and his questionable and hedonistic morality, and the complex and toxic relationship between the main character Aubrey and Lord Ruthven seemed to be Polidori’s projection of his personal relationship with Lord Byron. This fascinating tale marked the beginning of the vampire craze and sensation in literature (Halmi, 2016; Morrison, 2012).
While Lord Ruthven was considered the first romantic vampire, it is no doubt that Dracula is the most famous and important one. Inspired by previous literary works including Polidori’s “The Vampyre,” Sheridan Le Fanu’s “Carmilla,” and vampire folk tales, Bram Stoker wrote “Dracula” in 1897. Dracula, “with his thin, aquiline nose, his ‘lofty domed forehead,’ and above all his ‘peculiarly sharp teeth; these protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years,’” is a 400-year-old vampire parading under the guise of an ominous nobleman (Kostova, 2005, p. 4). The work incorporated historical elements and materials from the Victorian era and Transylvanian folklore, together with newly invented elements like vampires’ fear of crucifixes, vulnerability to sunlight’s exposure, and lack of reflection in the mirror. However, in novel form, “Dracula” only achieved moderate success. The reputation for this work only came when a German studio produced an unlicensed silent movie adaptation—“Nosferatu”—in 1922, and lost the copyright battle, which led to the copyright establishment over Hamilton Deane’s stage production of Dracula. The stage version, despite its major differences from the novel, was a success, largely thanks to Bela Lugosi’s performance as Dracula, and his portrayal persisted through time until the present day (Molina, 2013; Stepanic, 2017).
Bela Lugosi as Dracula, anonymous photograph from 1931, Universal Studios. Public Domain.
More than simply fascinating stories about a mythical, seductive creature, vampire imagery is associated with many symbolisms and meanings, and plays a cultural and social role. As a myth, vampires provide a “pre-logic” explanation to phenomena like deaths from unknown plagues and diseases, in contrast to science, as shown above. It also has the characteristic of binary opposition, signifying the battle between good and evil, between morality and immorality, between traditional and “invasive” values. In Dracula, Britain was declining as a world power in the late-nineteenth century and its people were losing confidence in the country’s influence. Additionally, fear of reverse colonization—the “civilized” values seemed to be under threat of “primitive” ones—started spreading. Thus, Dracula, with his ambiguous, obscure origins and associations with Transylvania—a far away land that was considered somewhat savage—was seen as an exotic external force and a sign of trouble as he invaded London—the heart of Great Britain. Dracula’s spread of vampirism symbolized invasive values from other cultures that were corrupting traditional values of the Victorian era: he did not simply destroy his victims but turned them into one of his kind, thus extending his conquest even further. The battle between the protagonists and the vampires was an attempt to take back the values and ease the anxieties of the time (Arata, 1990).
Another meaning associated with vampires is sexual deviancy. Within the setting of Dracula, women living in Victorian era were expected to play a passive role, to be “enduringly, incorruptibly good, instinctively, infallibly wise—wise, not for self-development, but for self-renunciation” (Rushkin, as cited in Craft, 1984, p. 108). However, the three vampire brides in Castle Dracula were openly and sexually active, as they seduced the protagonist, Jonathan Harker—who, in this case, played a passive role in their sexual advances—to be kissed by their red lips. Dracula’s erotic appearance was also described in detail, with a mixture of masculinity and femininity: “His eyes flamed red with devilish passion; the great nostrils of the white aquiline nose opened wide and quivered at the edges; and the white sharp teeth, behind the full lips of the blood-dripping mouth, champed together like those of a wild beast” (Stoker, p. 336, as cited in Craft, 1984, p. 109). The blurred lines between the genders at the time of the novel were, no doubt, immoral and dangerous. The Count’s relationship with Jonathan Harker was also described with homoerotic undertones, and hinted at homosexuality—which was still considered a crime and a taboo back then (Craft, 1984). Such themes of sexuality and morality continue to be explored in later literary works, like Anna Rice’s “Interview with the Vampire.”
To conclude, the vampire myth, despite its seemingly simple concept, has a long history and significant cultural values. With such complexity, the scope of this essay is, without doubt, limited. All in all, the vampire legacy has persisted, and will continue to persist and evolve for many years to come.
References
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Craft, C. (1984). “Kiss Me with those Red Lips”: Gender and Inversion in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Representations, 8(Autumn 1984), 107-133.
Halmi, N. (2016). “A dream, which was not all a dream”: dark reflections from June 1816. Oxford University Press Blog. https://blog.oup.com/2016/06/byron-ghost-story-competition/
Harper, D. Etymology of vampire. In Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved May 19, 2023, from https://www.etymonline.com/word/vampire
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Lê, Q. Đ. (1977). Quyển VI: Phong vực. In Kiến văn tiểu lục. Social Sciences Publishing House.
Molina, M. (2013). Vampires: Folklore, fantasy and fact [Video file]. https://youtu.be/_0ThKRmySoU
Morrison, R. (2012). Vampyre Rising. Oxford University Press Blog. https://blog.oup.com/2012/06/vampyre-rising-polidori/
Murgoci, A. (1926). The Vampire in Roumania. In A. Dundes (Ed.), The Vampire: A Casebook (pp. 12-34). The University of Wisconsin Press.
Stepanic, S. (2017). How did Dracula become the world’s most famous vampire? [Video file]. https://youtu.be/7uiyz3139tE
vampire. (1989). Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved May 19, 2023, from https://www.oed.com/oed2/00274736
Wilson, K. M. (1985). The History of the Word Vampire. In A. Dundes (Ed.), The Vampire: A Casebook (pp. 3-11). The University of Wisconsin Press.