The Sympathetic Vampire:A Study of Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire

Abstract

The myth of the vampire has continued to frighten and fascinate people all over the world. The idea of an undead night-stalker that feeds on human blood has been around for centuries and endures to this day. Numerous countries and cultures across the globe have personal deviations of a similar mythical entity. No matter the variation, all the vampire tales have a key commonality ‒ the lust for human blood. The cornerstone upon which all the vampire characters now turn was established in 1897 byBram Stoker in his novel Dracula which, since its publication, has never been out of print and its title character, Count Dracula, has become an icon of terror that inspired many subsequent novels and stories of the vampire fiction genre. However, only a handful of these novels were considered of literary merit. That handful includes the works of Anne Rice (1941‒) in which she develops a new way of portraying the vampire in fiction. The figure of vampire has changed from the evil and menacing figure of Dracula to a kinder and more sympathetic vampire who questions the meaning of its existence.