Before a conclusion can be made, one more sub-genre of the vampire narrative must be included. In the last decade, the female author has returned to the horror genre as never before since the Gothic novel. The vampires found in the collections of short horror stories written by women are almost incidentally vampires. That is to say, these female vampires face all of the contemporary issues human women are facing. A smattering of examples include Terri de la Peña’s “Refugio” (1996) whose central Latina character protects her barrio from racism of the deadly sort. She is capable of doing this because she is a vampire. Valeria, in Deborah Wheeler’s “Survival Skills” (1995) is a single vampire mom trying to cope with her children’s first day of school. In “I, Vampire” (1984) by Jody Scott, Sterling O’Blivion’s parents mimic the conversations associated with a daughter coming out of the closet and revealing herself as a lesbian. It is not that Sterling is a lesbian that has her parents wrought with concern, but that she is a vampire.
Responding to the use of the female vampire to perpetuate the fears associated with women in the early tradition of the vampire narrative—such as the fear of female sexual aggression—female authors now use the vampire to explode these myths, recreating the female vampire as a symbol of normalcy, even a coping mechanism for the challenges of contemporary female life. Certainly, this is not the case for all female vampires or all female authors of vampire fiction: literature is not this static. However, in the examples of literature provided, the female vampire created by a female author is more often than not a sympathetic, humanized figure. The male authored female vampire, in these examples, always embodies the traditional trope of the female vampire: she is insane, she is overtly sexual, her sexual aggression is violent and deadly to men, she has the potential to disrupt and dismantle the dominant power structure. In short, the male authored female vampire consistently represents male fear of women, whatever the period.
Tieck’s Brunhilda symbolizes the result of the sexually excessive man and the affronts he makes to God by raising his wife from the dead. At the same time the story represents the fantasy of a sexually aggressive woman, it is also a warning tale. Brunhilda-as-vampire is capable of killing her husband.
As representing the fears associated with the emerging New Women of the turn of the century, Lucy is sexually aggressive; any association with her, even so much as a kiss, means death for the mortal man. The vampire sisters, in addition to meaning death to the man who falls victim to their sexual charms, also represent a female society without men, the feared society of the New Women. This society is full of disavowalment and disobedience to dominant male culture, vampire or otherwise. Mina survives her stint in vampirehood because her vampire state is useful to the men, she refuses a female society in favor of the company of men, and ultimately represents the acceptable Victorian qualities of the New Woman: she is helpmate to her husband, she has a relationship with God, and she fulfills her biological role as mother.
Cave uses Stragella to associate not only sex with death and violence, but female sexual aggression with male impotence. Stragella embodies the characteristics of the Hollywood vamp, that is to say, she has power over men because of her beauty. She controls men’s hearts as well as their minds and instigates a love bond where none should be. Stragella is the attractive woman who threatens the masculinity of her would-be suitor.
Nasaw’s January is not so much a threat because of her sexual aggression, but like Stoker’s vampire sisters, rather, her refusal to submit to the dominant male society of vampires promises chaos to male order. While all of the previous male-authored vampires are non-human, though often portraying human qualities, January is even more inhuman because she is a human portrayed as a vampire; worse, a monster that is neither human nor vampire.
From the female perspective, Brontë casts Bertha, still a threatening figure, to represent the worst-case scenario for the woman who challenges dominant Victorian society. Jane insists on sympathy for Bertha, from both Rochester and the reader. Brontë makes it clear that Bertha, like Brunhilda, is a creation of her husband and cannot help the vampire she has become. Like Brunhilda and January, Bertha is both a symbol of excess and an agent of revenge.
Daniels writes about perhaps the first lesbian vampire since Carmilla. Unlike Carmilla, however, Sybil does not choose Lulu for companionship, only for nourishment. Nevertheless, the result of the homosocial encounter is sensual and erotic. Sybil, as a woman, is a victim of a social structure which would prevent her from marrying the father of her child because of their class difference, yet disapprove of her for being an unwed mother. Though she attempts to use all of her charms and wiles, Sybil is unable to maintain her façade and finally goes insane.
Moore’s vampire-like Shambleau superficially appears to be a continuation of the male perspective on female vampires. Shambleau is overtly sexual and needs humans for sustenance, which will ultimately cause their death. However, when examined closely, this text establishes a female who provides soul-shattering pleasure, and because of this can control men’s minds and souls. In this way, Moore attempts to make the Shambleau more terrifying than the vampires are the era. The establishment of the Shambleau’s sexual appeal serves to be as much as a commentary on male sexuality as female sexuality.
Finally, Collins consciously subverts all of the female vampire traditions while at the same time being, not only a champion of women who are victims of a male dominant society, but the champion of future generations of humans. Collins allows Sonja to have the power of the female vampire suggested by all of the previously reviewed authors, and more importantly, she allows Sonja to use her power and not be killed either by the dominant society that sees her as deviant or because a powerful woman are not acceptable, regardless of the genre, author, or time period.
In reviewing how male authors tend to use female vampires and what the vampires come to represent versus the construction and representation of the female vampires created by female authors, one must wonder if the traditional representation of the female vampire would be different if the fiction of women authors of vampire fiction had survived as well as the fiction of men authors. Nevertheless, when a reader finds a female vampire in the text, male- or female- authored, she will be a woman of impetus. In any century, the female vampire while often acting as an agent of revenge or representing the sexual aspect in women is a forceful woman in one way or another. This might explain why so many women have chosen to use the female vampire as a protagonist. When the reader finds a female vampire in the text, one thing is for certain: a power struggle will occur, but whether or not the dominant structure will remain intact is any body’s guess.
Next Works Cited
