I chose the following question to discuss.
How was Dracula a caricature of people in his time and how are modern vampire characters different to that caricature? How does the change in the archetype reflect changes in our culture?
The changes in our culture such as what we find intriguing, and what’s become okay to do under certain circumstances reflects on how vampires have drastically changed into what they are today.
First, how I would describe a modern day vampire vs. a traditional vampire and how the changes of the vampire reflect in our culture… With time gone by, more scientific research is constantly being done and today we know for sure that vampires aren’t real. Because everyone knows they’re made up we’ve chosen to think of them more in a fantasizing way. Our society now admires and values looks, beauty, charm, the darkness, and the mystery unknown. So that is what they’ve become and the reason why they’ve become so romanticized. In Dracula’s time the vampire was thought to be real by many which is what made it so terrifying. The fear of the people reflected of how Dracula would appear, which was ugly, intimidating, evil, as he was described in the book… “His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel-looking…For the rest, his ears were pale, and at the tops extremely pointed”.
Another reason I see to what has made the caricature of the vampire change is what women value in men. In Dracula’s time women valued men who may have been older, who were wiser and held more power, such as Dracula who had much power. Today the majority of women value men more for their looks and less power. This also reflects greatly on how our culture has affected the vampire’s caricature.
