Week 2- Interview with the Vampire

Due to a lot of the more recent vampire stories consisting of teenage romance with brooding mysterious handsome vampires being in love with a mortal girl, I thought the Interview with the Vampire was refreshing new, despite it seeming to be that this is what vampires were originally meant to be like: scary, bloody, violent, and vicious. What I found particularly intriguing was the pattern of killing and turning mortals into vampires, not just out of thirst for blood, but for more strategic purposes, like forcing mortal into the situation where they have no choice but to help the vampires because they are one of them now. Also, unlike the contemporary vampire stories where the immortal vampire just happens to meet a girl at school (why is an immortal being even still attending high school??? do they just go to school for hundreds of years for the funsies?) the vampires in this story have purpose. Although I can understand the appeal of the romantic view for the vampires due to the "forbidden love" aspect, I really do appreciate and enjoy vampire stories like this one much more. The thrill of killing out of necessity and turning a mortal into another being like yourself, turning on your own kind for your own survival or need, killing the vampire that turned you into a monster, etc, are much more interesting and enjoyable for me to read about than a girl who fell in love with a guy, whose only traits that sets him apart for humans are the facts he drinks blood, unnaturally pale, and doesn't sleep at night. It also has a more complex mentality as you read it, due to it asking questions of morality and the value of life.

Week 1- Frankenstein

When I hear about Frankenstein, the first image that pops into my mind is the green 9 foot tall monster with a giant forehead and bolts sticking out of his body. I had skimmed through the book once before as a child, but I had skipped most of the book and only read whatever parts I could find with the monster in it. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Frankenstein was actually the name of the scientist and not the actual monster itself. I was also surprised to learn that the monster was not some mindless creature moaning about and destroying everything in his path. I actually grew to sympathize for the monster, whose isolation drove him to commit evil acts. He didn't ask to be brought to this world, but he was, all for the sake of Frankenstein's curiosity, and when he succeeds, the monster is tormented for being ugly and monstrous. Throughout the story, the monster commits many acts of evil, but only out of spite for his creator. When even the creator can't take it anymore and dies hunting down the monster, the monster's reaction to the death was only sorrow. Not having anything to live for, the monster sentences himself to exile and death. Reading the story was a much different experience from any of the movies or what media had me believe the story of Frankenstein to be like. There weren't so many cliches in the book like the movies. Although both shared gothic traits, the book was no where near as cheesy as the majority of the movies.