Through the evolution of the vampire novel, the search for knowledge and information remains a unifying theme that characterizes the genre. In Bram Stoker's Dracula, Stephen King's Salem's Lot, and Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire, this quest for understanding about vampires and their origin serves to propel the stories forward. Each of these novels, however, approaches this quest for knowledge in a different light.
[...] The search was over, and Louis had to be appeased with his return to New Orleans. In the novels Dracula, Salem's Lot, and Interview With the Vampire, the theme of the quest is prevalent in each work. The differences lie in the type of quest that is the main focus of each novel. Dracula and Salem's Lot are concerned with a search for knowledge of destruction. The character's Mina, good scouts,” Mark, and Ben are seeking information on how to destroy the vampires and find peace and comfort in the destruction of the [...]
[...] While the question of the origin of the vampire is not overtly addressed in Dracula, the question does remain of how all vampires can be accounted for. Though Mina and good scouts” think that they have rid the world of the evil of the vampires, doubt ligers. The idea of the undead and uncontainable evil propels this novel. The audience now questions whether the vampires have all truly been destroyed or have only a select few been tracked down. Written over 75 years later, Salem's Lot investigates a similar question in regard to the vampire. [...]
[...] plunged into the heart [of Dracula] and almost in the drawing of a breath, the whole body crumbled into dust and passed from our sight” (399-401). Dr. Van Helsing takes care of the three vampire women, but not without difficulty. He recounts, “Then began my terrible task, and, I dreaded it. Had it been but one, it had been easy, comparative. But three! To being twice more after I had through a deed of horror: for if it was terrible with the sweet Miss Lucy, what would it not be with these strange ones who had survived through centuries” (394). [...]
[...] Anne Rice's Interview With the Vampire takes a different approach to the theme of the quest. This novel is told from the point of view of the vampire rather than the human prey, and it deals with the quest for knowledge as a quest for information about origin. Louis and Claudia make plans to leave their native New Orleans for Europe in search of knowledge. Louis recalls, “meantime, she [Claudia] made a plan. It was her idea most definitely that we must go first to central Europe, where the vampire seemed most prevalent. [...]
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