The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #139835 Message #3210274
Posted By: JohnInKansas
21-Aug-11 - 05:55 AM
Thread Name: Folklore: Vampire, Werewolf,Zombie-You choose ?
Subject: RE: Folklore: Vampire, Werewolf,Zombie-You choose ?
The lore of all three goes back a lo-o-o-ong way, and each has been warped (in folklorish manner?) over a few centuries. No choice should be admitted without at least some explanation of the "view of the creature" that results in the choosing.
The zombie is probably easiest to interpret, as an unsophisticated (to us) struggle to understand the "life after death" mystery of most(?) religions. I can't really relate to a religion with so much reliance on "fear," but it's fairly common in shamanistic societies.
The werewolf is a "naturist" struggle with the dangers of wild animals and the possibility of them being "humanlike" or of humans being "beastlike." It demands a fear of animals that I've never been quite able to get with, having been raised with and around so many of them (and especially so many that "understood me" better than they did their owners). Once when I asked a noted poodle breeder why poodles, unlike most dogs, have hair inside their ears, her reply was "have you ever looked in an old frenchman's ear," which made perfect sense to me (some may have to think on it) so I suppose the werewolf seems like the more natural (than zombies) phantasy to me.
The "modern" Dracula story, and the several movies, have produced a "being" that quite probably has little resemblance to older related legends, but it's the most likely one to be assumed by most of us. The gist of it is that the vampire must love but the love can never be "actualized," with nearly equal dominance given to the notion that an "unrequited love" is always destructive to its object. Some have tried to relate the response by the love object to a masochistic element "in all of us," but I think that's a rather weak argument.
All told, I would have to choose the vampire role, as I can relate to loving, and in particular to "unrequieted love," as my successes have fallen exceedingly far below my phantasies (mostly when I was a lot younger). The taking/exchanging of body fluids with an object of my affections is an acceptable means of "bonding" but I think I'd prefer to forgo the blood and stick to wet kisses.
Note that the Frankenstein monster was omitted from the choices, and possibly should be an option. I'd have difficulty choosing to be like him, but some of us have enough artificial body parts now to be called "children of the monster" and we seem to benefit quite nicely. My reaction to the tale(s) is possibly a little different than that of others, as there seems to be a tendency to center on the "horrible mad scientist" while I've always seen the story more from the viewpoint of the creation he produced. (But I never claimed to be conventional.)
John