Gothic Monsters as Metaphors

[Stygian Inquirer]

Many 'vampire experts', especially Dr. Bob Curran believe that vampires started out as an metaphor for sex and rape because you could not write about sex in the time of Bram Stoker. This fits with the neck as it is typically known as an errogenous zone. Also the idea of the mental dominance has some resemblance to brainwashing like Stockholm sydrome.

[Matthew L. Martin]

My own thinking:

The medieval/folkloric vampire is very much a metaphor for disease--hiding within the community, spreading a wasting death with no apparent reason. The romantic vampire retains elements of this, and adds what one film critic has called 'illicit carnality' to the mix--a promise of pleasure that, instead of being rooted in mutual sacrifice and the giving of life, is founded in selfishness and leads to death and decay.

The ghost is the Unresolved, the refusal or inability to let go, for either good or ill.

The lich and the creator are two sides of the same coin, the desire to be as God. The lich turns this inward, seeking to deny death, and is afflicted with a living death nearly as miserable to him as death would have been. The Creator turns this outward, seeking to create life unlawfully, and finds that he can only create an expression of his own sins and fears.

The werebeast is two themes--the Beast with the mind of Man, and the Man with the heart of a Beast. The natural werebeast (and its cousin, the 'trickster beast') is a predator with the cunning and cleverness of a man; the infected werebeast is a man overtaken by his bestial and evil instincts.

The ancient dead share much in common with the ghost, but are more material and more 'exotic'--often tied to mysterious and ancient forces.

Hags are the corruption of nature, the foul and festering side that seeks the ruin of all that is natural and beautiful. In this, they form a triad of sorts with illithids, which oppose the rational and true, and fiends, who despise the sacred and virtuous.

The Walking Dead are memento mori, reminders of the death that comes to us all, as well as symbols of blasphemy and violation of natural law. If it is not right for a body and soul to be sundered, it is doubly wrong for that body to be wrested from the earth and placed at the common of alien forces or urges.

The Shadow Fey are nature--beautiful and terrible, fallen yet innocent, and undying. Indeed, taking some cues from Tolkien and Andersen, I argue that the Shadow Fey envy us our true immortality--our souls leave the world and face judgement, and reward or punishment. For the Shadow Fey, they are doomed to remain in the world until the world's end, and have no glimpse or hope of what lies beyond. Thus, to many of them, nothing really matters--they just play on for eons uncounted, until the curtain falls on the world, and they know nothing of what lies beyond.

The Terrors from the Deep are primal and atavistic horror, creatures of the Great Unknown, who predate us and despise us, seeking to drown all the world. They are the remnants of what ruled the world before and what might again.

The Eldritch Horrors . . . well, John defined them pretty well.

Fiends are, as JWM put it, spiritual evil for its own sake. They foresook something we can barely comprehend, and they can't abide that we--pitiful little lumps of clay, "ugly bags of mostly water"--might gain something even better than they, firstborn of Heaven's children. Unable to storm Heaven, they seek to drag as many as possible down into Hell.

(The last is taken largely from C. S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters and traditional Christian theology of the demons. I'm also inclined to think that it's true.)

Matthew L. Martin

[Lord Cyclohexane]

Mummys, in my opinion, are the incarnation of History (or legend, if you want to get more romantic about it). They are the embodiement of power and royalty - but a power and royalty long since dead. They aren't kings per se - for their glory is long since past. They are instead the voice of history, echoing off the walls of their lightless tomb.

In addition to just royalty, I think the mummy can come from any individual who builds a Cult of Personality around itself, any person who is basically deified by the adoration of those around him/her. This can be the Pharoah who issues in the Golden Age and is beloved by all (Ankhtepot) but also the popular celebrity musician who everyone wants to be around (like the young Elvis). Eventually, the individual's image grows so large and well-known that the image outstrips the man, hitting the height of the individual's prestige.

The inevitable decline is the mummy, the Ankhtepot who can only dream of the beauty of the past empire, the old Elvis who's abusing the drugs just to keep himself going after losing the popular sphere...

But the person must also still be able to live on as a symbol, that symbol being the past that the person can never again reclaim but which still may drive others. This leads to the person, post-decline (or post-death) being brought back, either through the reverent mummification of Ankhtepot and his exquisite tomb to forever revere his life, young Elvis's continuation even to today as a symbol of rebellion of the current "square" culture, or even forgettable Simon Aderre being brought back as a symbol of the human that is thrown away by the Reniers but which can never be fully beaten down (as evidenced by Simon, killed by his wife after no longer being useful as breeding stock, coming back from the dead).

The mummy is the flip-side of the Cult of Personality that we, as humans, find ourselves a part of. Deified by their fanatical followers but ultimately forgotten. The mummy is Kurt Cobain, putting the shotgun in his mouth, having had everything but losing it all and not being able to cope. Only the mummy doesn't have death as an escape anymore.

Dopplegangers: Represent two things: both our 'doppleganger' (or our evil opposit), and the idea that any-one can be your worst enemy. I've said before that the doppleganger is a symbol of a serial killer: the face is human, but the inside is not. A serial killer can hide in a crowd like a parasite until it is too late. I think its obvious how this relates to Paridon and its darklord.

I think the doppelganger represents the natural human inclination to try and appear like the people around us. In social situations, we will often wear a "mask," a slightly false personality to better interact with the current group. As we move between groups, our masks change a little, we show a slightly different personality, all in the attempt to fit in a little better. But our masks are ultimately not who we are, as there is a true core person underneath.

The doppelganger is that desire to fit in, taken too far. The doppelganger's masks are too good, are too real, allowing the doppelganger to change 100% to fit any social situation, even down to the physical appearance. But ultimately the doppelganger loses who he or she is inside in the desire to constantly change to fit in (or perhaps to specifically not fit in) with others. He or she is so afraid of people learning who he truly is that he shifts and morphs into so many different people that he loses himself, not knowing who he truly is as there are so many masks to protect himself from himself. Eventually all of the coverstories break down as he can't keep all of them going at once, and as everyone sees through simultaneously, all of the social connections he'd made disappear into thin air. But being afraid of himself, he can't resist running away and donning a new mask and becoming someone else again.

[Ail]

Hi,

a few notes then.

It is good that someone raised the Doppelganger. I didn't mean to limit myself to VR monsters when I started this and the Doppelganger is certainly an important monster.
To me, it simply means "Betrayal". It is the personification of a traitor or a liar (this keeping to my initial theme that monsters are derived from personality traits easily identifiable in a human society).

In that respect, Vampire goes very well along with Disease, only a disease made concrete, made matter. I have read these last 2 weeks a book from 1927 (ou 1929) with title Vampire: His Kith and Kin. I can't say I liked the book very much, and I think it is a bit presumptuous at times, but one thing you get from there is that definitely at that time the vampire was still not a romantic figure. At least, that was not the main feeling that came out of it.

The author puts a lot of emphasis in that the vampire is created by some unholy nature: the living person was excommunicated, a suicide, his funeral rites were not completed or so. It is the exact opposite, and mockery, of the Christian saint. And, further, it is a body, though dead, completely without a soul.


As such, I preferred not to associate the vampire to sex nor indeed romance. Picture Christopher Lee in Horror of Dracula. He doesn't even talk. He's merely a hunter going after his food. A beast, and that's it.
As I said in an earlier post, and taking the cue from the book I mentioned, he saps the vitality of people because he still needs that vitality but can not generate it by biological processes, so he has to take it directly from others. The symbol of life is blood, so he takes blood. But this vitality can take other expressions and that originates some different, and rarer, kinds of vampires.

Also in the book you get the idea that the vampire is the basic undead, of almost any kind. All the distinctions we know today are probably later. Every corpse that rises and preys the living for sustenance is classified in that book as a vampire.

Since this is the common denominator, this should be the true symbol of the vampire (or hungry undead if you make these modern distinctions): something that sucks life from you, eg, a disease.

You can get the book at Sacred Texts. Google for it and you should find the site. I still have another book on werebeasts to read. It's really interesting to read academic (or at least trying to be) studies from a very different society from ours so that we can understant a different mindset.

I still think sex is best represented by witches. Even if I repeat myself, my basis for this is the medieval mindset and the prosecution to witches as they were led by the Southern Europe Inquisition:

the withc is always a woman, often times still young and beautiful. Many times it suffices to denounce a woman to be a witch without more proof that suppostion, and many times they are accused by their neighbours simply because they crave men much more than they should. They disrespect the Church's stance towards sex, that it should be done only for procreation. These women have sex for pleasure. On top of that, they defy church and think for themselves. They are free-thinkers ahead of time, they know secrets the Church forbids and dare to use and act on them. Often it is enough to be a healer of some sort to be accused of witchcraft. Ok, I may have given too much importance to the sexual element (which, I stress again, is always or very often a part of the accusation: the witch is usually said to have fornicated with the devil, which is in this case the representation of all men she should not have slept with). It appears the actual theme here is the Transgression of the Church's Authority. Defy the moral of the time and you are classed a witch. But indeed sex may be the best representation of the Catholic Moral and of the several "rules" that should not be broken: after all, the Original Sin seems to be at the base of the doctrine and since it is the origin of life, it can only be done towards that end. To play with sex, especially for men, to masturbate, is to deny the life-giving ability that god has put into men, it's, better said, to waste that and give an use to it that was not intended.

Note! These are not my views, are merely what I have understood from the Church's messages still nowadays. That's why the Condom is still forbidden: it is a killing, a destruction of a life-giving force, so in essence, a killing of life in potence. It is akin to murder, in an extreme sense. Sex thus is so powerful that it is THE metaphor for Moral and Restrictions, and thus the one that transgredes (transgresses ?) these is a moral aberration and an enemy of society. In truth, a monster, and its name is Witch.

I still think most of the monsters can be seen as archetypes of some kind of failing, of unwanted trait, like what I tried to do here.

Sorry for the length of this text, but I felt I had not been quite understood before.

Ail

[Undead Cabbage]

Would it be fair to say that Hags also have an element of envy in them?

Hags themselves are putrid and disgusting to the point that merely looking at them causes strength damage. They are bent on the destruction of beauty and happiness. A hag may be a play on the envy someone gains for the youth when they are growing old.

[Matthew L. Martin]

Notes:

1. The Inquisition didn't have much to do with witch trials; those, especially in the sixteenth and seventeenth centures, were more the result of local panics, and occured in both Protestant and Catholic regions. (Indeed, I've just today come across a reference that the infamous Malleus Maleficarum was condemned by the Inquisition's top theologians when it was submitted to them for judgement. The author went ahead and claimed approval anyway.)

2. I'm highly dubious about the historical value of this version of witches, especially since both men and women were caught up in the witch-hunting frenzy. I'm even more dubious about witches as Heroic, Free-Thinking, Sexual Liberated Forerunners of Modernity as a Gothic archetype.

Note! These are not my views, are merely what I have understood from the Church's messages still nowadays. That's why the Condom is still forbidden: it is a killing, a destruction of a life-giving force, so in essence, a killing of life in potence. It is akin to murder, in an extreme sense.

As an aspiring theologian, I suppose I ought to address this.

The sexual act has two purposes: The consummation, renewal, and strengthening of the bond between husband and wife, and the procreation of new life. To use it in a fashion that deliberately denies or frustrates either aspect is gravely wrong, but such sins are considered to be sins against the Sixth Commandment, not the Fifth.

To swing back to our topic for a moment, the Romantic vampire is a symbol of the dark fascination, decay, slavery, and death that result from denying both aspects, and the Created are a symbol of what happens when you try for procreation without the human aspect.

I've only brought up the theological note in public because the misunderstanding was public; further discussion should probably be taken off the board.


Matthew L. Martin

[Dominique]

WARNING: ENGLISH MAJOR RAMBLING

I'm not familiar enough with early vampire folklore to know what the original metaphor for vampires was, but I think that Dracula definitely puts them over into the "lust" category. IMO (and a lot of lit critics agree), vampirism in Dracula is a big metaphor for seduction. Being turned into a vampire in Dracula isn't like being turned into a werewolf--things aren't completed in one big chomp, but through a long, slow process in which the vampire-to-be is first a victim, then eventually a willing co-conspirator in her own damnation. And even in the early stages, she (and it's always a she) isn't entirely a victim, because in order for Dracula to come in and harm her, she has to invite him in.

I couldn't think of a better metaphor for the way sex, and especially a woman's role in sex, were viewed in that time if I tried all day. A woman was a basically chaste, pure, passive creature, but her purity would only last until she allowed herself to be seduced by some perverse debaucher. Once that happened, according to the view of the time, she would not only suffer an unsavory reputation and be an unworthy match for any gentleman, but would begin actively seeking out further sexual encounters; having partaken of the forbidden fruit, the woman was far too weak to stop herself from going back again, and again, and again. (Check out Tom Jones if you want a good example of this. All but one or two of the women who engage in premarital sex change from innocent girls to hypersexualized vixens overnight.) Lucy looks into Dracula's eyes, invites him in . . . and then he has power over her forever, eventually transforming her into a decadent creature like himself.

Throw in the fact that Dracula only seems interested in turning women into vampires, the incredibly disturbing pseudo-rape scene where Mina drinks his blood, and the fact that the entire idea of vampirism revolves around fluid exchange, and we're about as graphic as we can get in 1898 . . .

[Mangrum]

I'm not familiar enough with early vampire folklore to know what the original metaphor for vampires was

Originally, they weren't so much a "metaphor" as straight-out "attempted explanation" for infectious wasting diseases, with cholera being high on the list.

Vampires were Plague, and rather unromantically so; like most Gothic monsters, they changed extensively in the shift from folklore to fiction.

[Gemathustra]

I'm not familiar enough with early vampire folklore to know what the original metaphor for vampires was

Originally, they weren't so much a "metaphor" as straight-out "attempted explanation" for infectious wasting diseases, with cholera being high on the list.

Vampires were Plague, and rather unromantically so; like most Gothic monsters, they changed extensively in the shift from folklore to fiction.

Like, say, the Romanian larval vampire that goes around painting the walls of buildings with dung, or the Russian vampire that was filled with bugs and vermin?

[DeepShadow of FoS]

And even in the early stages, she (and it's always a she) isn't entirely a victim, because in order for Dracula to come in and harm her, she has to invite him in.

Bear in mind this wasn't just a vampire motif, but originally dealt more with the protective power of the hospitality laws. Thus the ogress Ubir from Tartary is prevented from killing the woman Rosalie once Rosalie has been offered the protection of her brother. Merely sleeping in her brother's barn with his permission keeps Rosalie safe from Ubir.

Ubir's a far cry from a vampire, but several elements of the story give it hag overtones. Ubir's singular theme is definitely gluttony, and if we understand the Inuit myths correctly, she's not the only all-devouring hag in folklore: I think Nathan's placement of the hag in the gluttony section is well-deserved. In the maiden-mother-crone arrangement, the crone is the end of all things (a la Atropos) and thereby represents the consuming part of nature. Many scholars beleive that Black Annis, one of the quintessential hags, was originally the 'destroyer' aspect of the Celtic tripartite mother goddess, kept alive long after her two counterparts had been forgotten.

[Manofevil]

Sheesh I'm gonna bump so many of these threads, you guys are gonna get sick of hearing from me.
I really like where you guys went with this thread and I'd like to add my own take on 'Frankenstein' and his RaveLoft equivalent, 'Mordenheim'.
I feel that the largest underlying theme of 'Frankenstein' is one that's both very contemporary and as ancient as family law. And it's fitting that a victorian woman is actually the one to write this into her novel given the birth of the women's movement during that time period. It's the Deadbeat Dad.
Like the contemporary Deadbeat Dad, Frankenstein creates life, though in the laboratory rather than the womb, and refuses to to take responsibility for it. Correspondingly, his creation (never named) blames his father/creator for everything bad that happens to him and everything bad he ever does. Notice I refer to the creation as 'him' and not 'it'. He is not a machine that runs amuck, he is a living, breathing, thinking, person capable of considered action and is therefore responsible for his own actions. And, as previously stated, everything he becomes, he blames on his father/creator, like most abandoned children even today.
The RavenLoft equivalent, MordenHeim, is less harsh but no less tragic. Mordenheim DOES take reponsibility for his creation. He names him, teaches him, nurtures him, even tries to make him part of the family. What ensues is a family tragedy that both persons spend the rest of their lives, even eternity, blaming each other for.
It is these family issues, I feel, that set these stories of the created apart from other gothic tales. I feel that the story of the created goes beyond the hubris of the creator with the bitterness of the created. It can be argued that the created are no less human than their creators and that noone will acknowledge this fact. It's like the old slavery arguements. Either the individual in question is a person or a beast. There can be no in-betweens.
Here we have the quintessential conflict of these stories: Parents and children vs scientists and specimens. Eventually the Specimens demand their basic rights as persons and their creators (or someone else) denies them. Classic.
Lastly I will add this. We accuse these creators of playing God. Everyone wants God's powers. Noone wants God's responsibilities. In theory, God created the human race out of love. He is supposed to be the universal parent. It's also said that God smites the wicked. And so people constantly beseech him to smite their wicked neighbors without realizing the greater connotations of what that means. These wicked are as much God's children as anyone else. Effectively, God is asked to commit infanticide. The idealized parent, as God is purported to be, give the children every chance to get it right that he can. To do otherwise is to fail as a parent. This is perhaps the part of God that the creators fail to realize going in, (their atheistic nature, perhaps) and fail to put into practice. Now there's been an entire spectrum of these relationships portrayed. There was the original novel where the creator ran in horror from his creation the first time it opened it's eyes, There's Mordenheim, who tries admirably and fails, and there were all the Frankenstein movies which, (based on the few I've seen) had a different relationship each time. Perhaps the next permutation will have a young female creator building a creation and falling in love beauty-and-the-beast style.

God I really went a lot of places with this post.

[Ail]

To Manofevil:

your last supposition is the oldest story of the kind, dating back to Ancient Greece. It can be argued that it is the model of the story of Pygmalion and Galathea (spelling?). Pygmalion (Ok, he's a man, but that changes little) builds a statue of a woman and finds it so adorable that he falls in love with her, and Aphrodite turns her into a real woman.

I don't know anymore if that is for good or bad motives, this is, if Pygmalion actually wished Galathea to be alive, but I believe so. He at least liked the result, it seems. As a further note, this is essentially the same story of My Fair Lady, which to the barebones can be described as "The Creator falls in love with his Work".

Alex

[Manofevil]

I thought of that myself. but considering the amount of scarring that the created usually have, I thought it more likely to be woman creator to man creator than the other way around.

[Gemathustra]

I thought of that myself. but considering the amount of scarring that the created usually have, I thought it more likely to be woman creator to man creator than the other way around.

Yes, especially since there are so few men who know how to sew and stitch by hand, properly.
(It's very hard to get ahold of a sewing machine that can handle bodyparts, let alone denim)