Abstract
The essay attempts to discuss the literary meaning of immortality and the symbolic interaction of vampire figures in Anne Rice’s works. The referring works includes: Interview with the Vampire (1976), The Vampire Lestat (1985), The Queen of the Damned(1988), The Tale of the Body Thief (1992), and The Vampire Armand (1998) . Vampires are more like the invention of inter-gender and time-frozen creation, rather than the Freaks of random options. The production of vampires are produced by psychological or physical needs. The reproductive power of vampire is like the mimics of God in the novels. Yet the stimuli of haunting and blood-changing once again shows the inevitable bio demands; in other words, the humanlike aspect of vampires is their continuously struggle to temporal physical happiness and psychological loss. The arguable idea about immortality and death will be closely discussed in the essay.
The essay expound the setting of death drive in Rice’s vampires and its function among the plots. The wrestling of self-destruction and self-protection are the essential forces of ego establishment. It is the strong ego that alienated the egos from the real, they cannot experience the meaning of life through their living. Only spiritual chasing may complete the mechanic living.
Thus, the plight of vampires is very much like what people faced in the modern civilized world. Only love can break up the feeling of self-objectification in lives. Yet love cannot preserve family relationship or end the suffering of immortality. This essay aims to explore the ethnical conflicts in Rice’s myth.
Author Information
Chi Tsai, National Normal Taiwan University, Taiwan
Paper Information
Conference: LibrAsia2014
Stream: Literature
This paper is part of the LibrAsia2014 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Tsai C. (2014) Death Drive: Vampires in Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles ISSN: 2186-2281 – The Asian Conference on Literature and Librarianship 2014 – Official Conference Proceedings https://doi.org/10.22492/2186-2281.20140298
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/2186-2281.20140298
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