Vampires as 'meaning machines' : signifying the monster through race and sexuality.

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Authors

Turner-Debs, Isabel

Issue Date

2017

Type

Thesis

Language

en_US

Keywords

Undergraduate research. , Undergraduate thesis.

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Alternative Title

Vampires as 'meaning machines'.

Abstract

This thesis examines the complex imbrication of race and sexuality in the vampire figure during the course of its literary life. It examines traditional, nineteenth-century representations (Polidori's The Vampyre, Le Fanu's Carmilla, and Stoker's Dracula) of the vampire as monstrous because of its racial and sexual deviance as well as two twenty-first century reinterpretations of the vampire. The first of these is Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series, which reproduces the vampire as the ideal romantic hero through his whiteness and heteronormativity. The second of these is Octavia Butler's Fledgling, which reappropriates the vampire as black and sexually queer in order to challenge the normative systems of white privilege and heteronormativity.

Description

iv, 96 leaves.
Includes bibliographical references: leaves 89-96.

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Publisher

Wheaton College (Norton, Mass.)

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