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7. Good at Being Evil:the Demons of The Vampire ChroniclesAz,the evil mother of all demons,grew angry and ragedfor her own purposes.From the dirt of male and female demonsshe made this body and entered it. […]She created the body as a prisonand chained the grieving soul into it.– “Adam, Child of Demons”(A Manichean Creation Myth) 1NATURALISTIC SUPERNATURAL IN HORRORThe early 1970s were a time of renewal for the demons. They had a prominentrole in the redefinition of horror fiction that was taking place in thosedays. The general thrust was that somewhat romantic and formulaic old horrorwas being replaced by realistically depicted violence and by stories thattook their inspiration from the fears of insanity in an increasingly anonymousworld. Alfred Hitchcock’s two classic films of the 1960s, Psycho(1960) and The Birds (1963) were indicative of this movement towardsmonsters that had different sort of claims on realism and even credibilitythan what had been the case before. This new style was especially striking inthe movies – the comfortless graphic realism of The Night of the Living Dead(1968) and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) caused shocks and latercampaigns to ban horror in home videos – but the new horror movies concernedwith the demonic had their origins in novels. The movie adaptationsof Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and The Exorcist (1971) were exceptionallystraightforward: the novels themselves were situated in contemporaryAmerica and written in documentary style that abandoned the twisted proseof some earlier horror in favour of low key presentations of natural and supernaturalevents. Even details like the rhythm of the text, its division intochapters and the distribution of sudden, “shock” effects into the text makethese novels “cinematic.” Also traditional monsters, such as vampires, werein for a change in this redefinition of horror fiction. The aesthetic subversionreflected a change in attitude; one indication of this was the interest in1The Other Bible (Barnstone 1984, 45).
170Demonic Texts and Textual Demons“turning the tables” by letting the narrative focus and point of view shift tothe side of monsters, instead of their hunters. In the case of vampires, in1975 The Dracula Tape by Fred Saberhagen lets Dracula tell his own story,and to prove himself more humane and sympathetic than the humans huntinghim. 2 The time was right for an even more radical rewriting of thestereotype; Anne Rice had already worked on a short story about a vampiregiving a taped interview in 1969, and developed it into a completed novel inJanuary 1974. 3The first part of Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles, 4 Interview With TheVampire (1976) took almost twenty years before it was translated into amovie version (1994, by Neil Jordan), but this is not to blame the novel itself:it is cast in an emphatically realistic and documentary mode. As its titleindicates, Rice took this most popular and most traditional of horror moviemonsters, the vampire, and put it through an interview. 5 During an all-nightdiscussion the vampire (named Louis de Pointe du Lac) sheds light on hislife and tells about his loves and fears and aspirations, much like any moderncelebrity in an in-depth interview. The basic attitude is aptly captured by anothercelebrity of the “new horror,” Clive Barker: “To deny the creatures asindividuals the right to speak, to actually state their cause, is perverse – becauseI want to hear the Devil speak.” 6 Anne Rice’s vampires are very selfconsciousindividuals, and the demonic element in their immortal lives putsthis individuality into double illumination. Focusing on these characteristics,I am going to concentrate in my analysis on the metaphorical capacitiesof the vampire.As a metaphor, the vampire has been fertile in many discussions ofmodern society and individuality. Perhaps the most famous case is Karl2 See Auerbach 1995, 131-32. – The essay and anthology of texts collected in Frayling1992 make up a good introduction to the literary history of vampires. See also Barber1988 for the social and psychological history behind the “vampire myth.” Carter 1989 isan informative bibliography of vampire literature, drama, and criticism.3Ramsland 1995, 207-8; Riley 1996, xv. A version of the original short story (dated inAugust 1973) is printed in Ramsland 1995, 553-72.4 The series reached a momentary conclusion in its fifth part; I use the following abbreviationsin the references: Interview with the Vampire (IV; Rice 1975/1996), The VampireLestat (VL; Rice 1985/1986), The Queen of the Damned (QD; 1988/1989), The Taleof the Body Thief (BT; Rice 1992/1993), Memnoch the Devil (MD; Rice 1995). It shouldbe noted that because of the considerable length of the series (the five books amount to2370 pages), it has not been advisable to paraphrase the story-line of them all. I have concentratedin my analysis on the most outstanding features of Rice’s demonic vampires.(Pandora, published in March 1998, leaves the narrative of Louis and Lestat and opens anew series “New Tales of the Vampires,” exploring the lives of interesting minor charactersfrom the Vampire Chronicles. The latest addition is The Vampire Armand [October1998], which returns to the popular Vampire Chronicles subtitle.)5 Rice: “I was just sitting at the typewriter wondering what it would be like if a vampiretold you the truth about what it was like to be a vampire. I wanted to know what itreally feels like.” (Ramsland 1995, 207.)6 Clive Barker, interview with Phil Edwards (“Hair-Raiser,” Crimson Celluloid No.1/1988; Barker - Jones 1991, 11). This claim is discussed below, page 193.
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TAMPERE STUDIES INLITERATURE AND TE
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Tampere Studies in Literature and T
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ments, and also such further lines
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IllustrationsCover: “Possessed Re
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The BeginningsAnd Jesus asked him,
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The Beginnings 3mons form an import
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The Beginnings 5negative, demonic a
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The Beginnings 7chapter four), but
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The Beginnings 9scious conflict, fo
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The Beginnings 11that is produced o
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The Beginnings 13The History of the
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The Beginnings 15emphasised that su
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The Beginnings 17turalism,” but i
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1. The Ancestry of the DemonicÑH.
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 41- in
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 43Chris
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The Ancestry of the Demonic 51tween
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2. The Demonic in the SelfBut ancie
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The Demonic in the Self 55Individua
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The Demonic in the Self 57should be
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The Demonic in the Self 61A number
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The Demonic in the Self 63tion. 36
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The Demonic in the Self 65the nethe
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The Demonic in the Self 67sciousnes
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The Demonic in the Self 69influence
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The Demonic in the Self 71LEADER:Yo
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The Demonic in the Self 73Particula
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The Demonic in the Self 75NIETZSCHE
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The Demonic in the Self 77ing into
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The Demonic in the Self 79Nietzsche
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3. Unravelling the Demonic TextThe
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Unravelling the Demonic Text 83in o
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PART II
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114Demonic Texts and Textual Demons
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The EpilogueIf there are answers to
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BibliographyA note on this bibliogr
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Index2001: A Space Odyssey; 207abje
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