Week Two: Vampire: Love and Pain

In this weeks reading Interview with the vampire I have been asked a serious of questions.

Question #1. In your reading for the week what pairs of ideas or representations does the author place in opposition to one another? 

Answer #1.  I think one of the ideas the author has put in place is this idea morality. Often times in the book the vampire looks to what’s moral in making his decisions in his new or I guess old lifestyle. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence for why he’s choosing not to kill and for the majority of the time, to do the right thing.

Question #2. What set of values does the vampire represent?

Answer #2.  The vampire represents the good side of morality.  Its as if sometimes he’s not even a vampire, he’s turned into one but his appreciation for human life has not diminished.  He is still very human in that way in in that way he makes moral decisions instead of instinctual decisions or decisions based on an illusion that to be a vampire is to be at a higher standing, to being a predator, which is often the side (master) represents.

Question #3.  Are those the dominant or privileged ideas advanced in the work? How does the story you read embody larger arguments about values in human society? 

Answer #3.  I think yes this idea of being privileged i.e. being a vampire progresses through the book.  They have this idea that because there vampires they have this privilege to a ‘more important life’ that there needs are more important than others.  I mean this echo’s in so many ways in modern society.  You have the class system for one and then you just have ignorant people who are privileges and honestly sometime I feel like they don’t know better because that’s just how they were raised and no one ever told them anything different.

Week One: Beginning with Frankenstein

     I was watching American Psycho the other day and in the beginning scene Patrick Batmen (the main character) attends a dinner in which there is a couple of "Goths" sitting at the table and it made me think of the last time I saw anyone dressed in 'Goth' obviously it was once a really big thing back in the day, even to be represented in films and I’ve realized that it has been quiet long time, so long in fact that I wondered if it still existed...How naiveté.

     I really believe that my first exposure to any kind of gothic medium would be films, specifically vampire pictures such as Underworld or Queen of the damned I might even go as far as to say anything Tim Burton esque. Queen of the damned for sure, in a lot of ways. The costume design for one is very gothic heavy. Thinking back there was so much black leather laced in fishnets, topped with that hairstyle no mother could love.

     Tim Burton films are especially interesting in that way. You can really see what inspires him in his films. Practically all of his films have a gothic framework laid in surrounded by 'his style' that anyone who knows his work could say "that’s a Tim burton film,” Its gothic in nature coated in a whimsical fashion that I think appeals to most people. That’s what makes his films appealing, what draws in the crowd; I'm not going to say that’s what keeps the people in the theaters though because its definitely not his story telling…just saying. Tim Burton films are often dark with whimsy; the dark gothicness of his films brings out the mystery in his story. I believe in this way, the design, and dark over tones is what makes most of his work relatable to the term ‘gothic.’