Eneh Akpan Writes: Salem's Lot

Showing posts with label Salem's Lot. Show all posts

Saturday, January 11, 2014

Count Dracula: Traits and Peculiarities

Bram Stoker absorbed Central European folktales into his vampire novel which on publication became the definitive volume for every other book and film in the genre. His eponymous character, Dracula has also become the modern vampire archetype. From Stephen King's Salem's Lot to Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles to the Television's Vampire Diaries.

The film 'Dracula' portrayed by Christopher Lee is the first vampire movie I ever watched.
Courtesy: Wikipedia

The name “Dracula” is Romanian and stands for Son of the Dragon. It is the self-given name of Vlad III the Impaler, an historical figure whom it is assumed is a partial inspiration for Stoker's character. It is widely believed among scholars that Stoker, while researching for his novel, came across papers on Romanian history and folklore and was inspired to alter the name of his character which he'd formerly named, Count Wampyr.

Dracula is the most portrayed of all characters in the horror genre and is the second most adapted character in film behind Sherlock Holmes. He is so ingrained into popular culture that he has become an Halloween staple.

According to accounts in the novel, the blood-sucking Count studied the black arts and is a master of alchemy and magic. And that qualifies him as a sorcerer.

He died and was buried in his castle but as we all know, he returned as the nosferatu (undead). Dracula is immortal though not invincible. He is a centuries-old vampire with dreams of world-domination which was his underlying reason for luring Jonathan Harker, the main narrator of the novel and an English solicitor to his castle. Harker taught him a great deal about England.

Dracula, the powerful vampire, lives in a ruined castle on the Carpathian Mountains with three beautiful female vampires. Their relationship to him is unclear with suggestions ranging from lovers to sisters to victims. He is a Transylvanian nobleman, a “voivode” or Wallachian prince. He commands an air of aristocracy. Unlike most modern day vampires, Dracula walks in daylight and the sun is not fatal to him. Even though, his supernatural abilities are drastically subdued by daylight. He can only cross running water at low or high tide.

Being a powerful sorcerer, Dracula is also a shape shifter who on different occasions transforms into a wolf, a bat, and a dog. He can also dissolve into a mist. He possesses superhuman powers to control some animals like bats and rats. Yet, even in his human form, the Count could slip through a crack in the wall.

He craves rest/sleep to regenerate. He can only regain his strength by sleeping on Transylvanian soil which he keeps close to himself inside large boxes. He has hypnotic and telepathic abilities. He also controls the weather, invoking storms on “The Demeter,” the Russian ship that brought him to England and by creating a mist so his presence remains undetected.

Count Dracula Courtesy: Helgi Halldórsson/Freddi

Dracula's bite transfers his vampire genes into his prey automatically making them slaves of the vamp. When the victims die, they turn into vampires. Count Dracula's demise lifts the curse of the vampire off a living victim so that when they die a natural death, they stay dead. That’s kind of a blessing, of course. But would it not be nice to be immortal?

Stoker's vampire character can levitate and he flies when he transforms into a bat. His image is not reflected in mirrors and he can vanish at will and reappear someplace else. However, despite all these supernatural abilities, this most powerful of vampires cannot step into an abode unless invited in.

Dracula drinks blood-fresh blood.

Count Dracula shape shifts freely at night. However, he can also do it at dawn, noon, and dusk but he is restricted. In his employ, are gypsy body guards. These servants of his know his real nature, but remain fearless and loyal to him, regardless. He exercises a certain degree of influence over other vampires, even ones he didn't transform. He can retract his fangs.

The undead blood-sucking fiend is not a big fan of holy symbols like the crucifix and communion bread. Besides, he has a fierce aversion to garlic. The vamp can be destroyed through all the traditional means of killing vampires however, in the novel, he is vanquished by one character slitting his throat and another driving a Bowie knife into his heart.

What Bram Stoker did was give to the world an immortal character; a vampire we love to hate, whose very memory transcends fiction and now lodges in the darkest regions of our hearts.

Keep your pen bleeding!

Akpan

Friday, February 22, 2013

10 Less Common Vampire Traits

Photo credit: sodahead.com

Updated: Nov. 6th, 2016

Ever since Stoker created his Dracula-probably, the greatest anti-hero of all time and definitely, the most adapted villain in film and literature-vampire writers as well as film makers have added several improvisations to the vampire genre.

Just like the more commonplace, the less-known traits exist as well. And thing is, each of these gains a better foothold with the release of every new film and lit.

1. Sympathy Towards Humans
It's not every day you hear a vamp sympathize with humans. Why should they? Humans are food to vampires. Blade is a fine example of a vampire with heart. Edward Dalton, head hematologist (blood doctor) in Daybreakers felt sympathy towards humans, as well.

2. Invitation into Private Residence
In Salem's Lot a vampire had to be invited by the occupant of a house or they were powerless to enter. A scene in Ninjas vs. Vampires has a female vampire asking to be invited in by a guy before she could go in. Most modern vampires don't need IVs. They know their way in.

3. War Between Vampires
In Blade II a vampire hybrid feeds on other vampires giving the idea of dissension within the bloodsucking world. In Twilight the Cullen family battle James and his team for the life of Bella Swan. In The Saga of Darren Shan, the vampires are at war with the vampaneze (a bloodthirsty variant of the vampire). Usually, vamps co-exist in mutual confidence and reciprocal virtues *clears throat*.

4. Telepathy
Markus from Underworld gains access to other people's memory bank by drinking the victim's blood. Throughout the movie, there is a bonding of minds through drinking of blood. In Bram Stoker's Dracula, Mina's mind bonds with the Count when he traps her under his power. An event like this one is scarce in the vampire genre.

5. Holy Symbols
Science easily becomes the new magic. Recently, somebody shared a link on Reddit about a group of scientists creating a zombie virus. Back in the day, zombies were strictly tied to voodoo. Back to vampires, in Underworld, Daybreakers, The Vampire Chronicles, Blade, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and many others, holy relics do not harm, scare, or kill vampire. You could scratch a few with 'em if you got close enough besides that holy symbols are just objects.

6. Flight
Most powerful vamps glide effortlessly. However, besides the bloodsuckers in Stephen King's Salem's Lot, Markus in Underworld and, the 'subsiders' (who grew wings) in Daybreakers most vampires have no business off the ground. If they really feel like flying they might catch a plane.

7. Blood Substitute
Blade used a special serum to fight off his thirst for blood. In Daybreakers where a plague turned the entire world into vampires reducing humans to a mere 5% of the population, blood was in scarce supply and research for a blood substitute was inevitable. You don't see this kind of stuff in every vampire movie.

8. Human Lovers
Dracula had Mina (Bram Stoker's Dracula); Edward Cullen had Bella (Twilight Saga); Selene had Michael, who later became a hybrid vampire/werewolf (Underworld); Darren Shan had Monkey girl (The Saga of Darren Shan), the list goes on. This trait is almost fit to be part of the common vampire traits.

9. Associate with Werewolves
The werewolf is a sworn enemy of the vampire but modern writers have added a new twist to the age-old feud between the two species. In Twilight, a pack of werewolves fought side by side with vampires against bloodthirsty vampires from another coven; Underworld has a hybrid of werewolves called Lycans protecting and serving vampires. Remember, Dracula can only be killed by a bite from a werewolf. This is a fine twist to the old vampire legend.

10. Resents Being Vamps
Now ain't that a bitch. Edward Dalton (Daybreakers) resents his brother for turning him into a vamp and fights relentlessly to find a cure. He also refuses to drink human blood. Darren Shan (The Saga of Darren Shan) was coerced to turn a vampire to save his friends life. For turning his mother while she was pregnant with him thereby, making him a half-vampire, Blade (Blade) hunted and killed vampires all his life.

The mentioned traits, with exception of one or two, are rare and unusual additions to vampire lit. and film. All of these are without argument, great plot devices which never cease to thrill vampire movie and book geeks the world over.

Keep your pen bleeding.

Akpan

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Stephen King: The Story Behind His Stories

Without Dracula, there is no Salem’s Lot. Stephen King himself said that he did a “restructuring and updating the basic elements of Bram Stoker’s Dracula to create Salem’s Lot.

Stephen King is possibly the foremost writer who gives away his writing secrets and intellectual recipes in his novels. He has somehow, made a lifestyle out of it and his fans love him for indulging them in this manner. I hardly start reading any of his books without a quick peek at the foreword. It’s where he tucks away how he came about the idea for the story and many times, these inspired moments are things any other writer would fail to notice.

Let’s get on with what we came here for, shall we?

Photo courtesy: talkstephenking.blogspot.com

Needful Things

“In a small town, the opening of a new store is big news.”

The book’s opening line grabs you at once. What store and why is it important to have it in the very first line of the story?

King said, “The idea for the story came all at once.” He was in a town a few miles from his hometown of Bangor, Maine when an idea struck him. Of course, it came as a “what if” question.

“What if somebody came to this town and forced all these people to do nasty things like pranks to get what they really wanted?”

King wrote a novel of over 700 pages from that innocent idea. A black comedy about a new store in the town of Castle Rock where buyers can get all their heart desires–sexual pleasure, power and items of mysterious origin. But for a price–each customer has to play a prank on a neighbor, an old enemy or a total stranger. Nobody was to know about the prank(s) or all bets were off. A simple prank with lethal repercussion.

The story of an evil clown, Pennywise who returns every twenty-seven years to unleash untold horror on a town.

About writing IT, King said he sort of wanted to write the final exam on horror and put in all the monsters that everybody was afraid of as a child. And then, he asked himself, “How are you gonna do that?”

He decided to create a massive work of fiction, a doorstop of a book, if there ever was one. He created a town where all kinds of evil happen and everybody ignores them.

He had to relocate to Bangor (they were living in the country at that time) because he wanted the story set in a town.

The gay assaulted by a gang on the bridge, and even the gang itself, the military Base that burned down, the flood and much of the disaster that makes up the telling of the story were actual events.

King went around town asking people about weird events and occurrences. He said he wasn’t out to get the facts. What he really wanted was people’s take on the subjects–the legends folks usually build around such stuff. He wanted what they believed.

When he got all he wanted, he sat down and wrote his story (about 1,093 pages in all!).

Under the Dome

“She got back into the Volvo (the sticker on the bumper, faded but still readable: OBAMA '12! YES WE STILL CAN).”

This novel marks a triumph of fiction. In UR, an eBook written exclusively for the Kindle, King hinted (you might miss it, if you don’t have a careful eye) Obama would become the American president if he contested for the post. Obama did and he won. In this novel, Under the Dome published in November 2009 (you might think it was too early to gamble), King predicted Obama’s reelection and I don’t have to tell you but it came to pass!

Shortly before noon on Saturday October 21 of an unspecified year after 2012 (evident by mention of a faded bumper sticker for Barack Obama's successful 2012 re-election campaign…

Wikipedia (synopsis of Under the Dome)

King’s inspiration for his novel was the abuse of power by the previous administration. He was peeved about “how sometimes, the sublimely wrong people can be in power at a time when you really need the right people.”

The novel, as political as it sounds, tries not to bore you with politics. It’s just a straight shot at fiction about bad guys trying to run a little town. The plot “concerns itself with how people behave when they are cut off from the society they’ve always belonged to.”

Pet Sematary

Stephen King considers this his scariest book ever!

And here’s the story behind the scary story. At a point in his life, Stephen King had to teach at the University of Maine for just a year in return for a favor. He had to find residence close to the higher institution. He got an apartment on a busy road that led to a factory.

One day he decided to go for a walk and while out walking, he noticed a sign that read, Pet Sematary. King borrowed the phrase as title of the book the event inspired. (He said he believed a kid made the sign because of the incorrect spelling of the word cemetery) Driven by curiosity especially, because of the pet cemetery he noticed in the woods, Stephen King discussed the subject with his neighbor who told him, “This road uses up animals.”

King later discovered the highpoints of the statement when his daughter’s cat became a “jam in a fur coat” after it got run over by one of the factory trucks.

His youngest son, who at the time was a boy of 18 months, also had a close call.

And then voila! The idea struck him. “What if a child is killed and then buried among all these pets in the cemetery? What if the cemetery possessed power to resurrect the dead and the person returned to avenge his/her death?”

Secret Window

The trailer for the movie adaptation of the book goes like this, “Every story is a window into another world.” That sums up this book’s synopsis.

How did King come about his story?

Secret Window is actually my favorite Stephen King novella. The story revolves around a writer exhibiting rare symptoms of dissociative disorder. Only recently, the author and his wife separated (he caught her with another guy and she opted to stay with the other guy) and then, his childhood nemesis popped up from his past, a former high school junior (who he had helped critique a short story at the time) returned to demand for his story. This writer, Rainey had submitted the story to a magazine a few years back, passing it off as his.

One day, while doing laundry in his house, Stephen King developed queer interest in a window almost obliterated by the laundry machines. The laundry room is a small, narrow alcove on the second floor of his house. And the window in question is difficult to look out of because of the situation I just explained. This particular day, King decides he might as well try to see what lies beyond the window.

The view was familiar but the angle was new. Standing there and looking at the flowerpots his wife placed in the sun on the brick paved alcove, he seemed to be viewing someone’s secret garden.

And he thought, What if the window between reality and unreality breaks and the writer plunges through down into the abyss in a maddening rush?

The story was born right there and King set himself up to create yet another beautiful story about a writer in distress.

Ideas are everywhere. Practically, reaching through the mesh in our psyche and grabbing for our lapels. We only need to open our eyes and really look to see.

Keep your pen bleeding.

Akpan