In this weeks reading, Interview with a Vampire, something that stood out to me was the way the author depicted what was considered good versus evil. Since the majority of the book is told from Louis's perspective, through dialogue in his interview, we get to learn about his beliefs as a vampire versus the other vampires around him. For example, Louis is depicted as a generally good character at the beginning. This is shown through his squeamish and hesitant nature about killing humans and his empathy towards their lives. He also points out that he doesn't realize he is able to take animal's blood rather than a humans. This appears as a sense of morality. This morality is directly contradicted with the personality of Lestat. He is depicted as a tough vampire who doesn't feel empathy and will hunt anyone he pleases. Later in the book he turns a little girl into a vampire which leads to his "death." He later comes back to life on more than one occasion to get his revenge. There is a constant comparison of this good vs. evil, and Louis is made out to be a romanticized and good vampire, even when his actions could be considered questionable in modern society. When he sets the theatre on fire, it is justified because the other vampires had killed Claudia and Madeleine. While the good vs. evil trope is the over-arching theme here, the most interesting part of that is how the vampires and their actions are still written in a romanticized way. Rather than just the fact that they kill and turn humans into vampires, there's much more context and perspective of their side. Overall, the vampires in this book seem to depict very similar emotions and themes as human society; such as love, hate, dissatisfaction, and lust. The good vs. evil can appear to be between the vampires on the surface, but it is more about the individuals fighting the evil inside of themselves. Most of the vampire characters are seen as mostly-human with the disease that is being a vampire and needing to survive off of blood. This is where the internal struggle of morality comes through. Overall I thought it was a slow read but very interesting and makes me think that is a precursor to many vampire stories that we know today.
For this week, I read the short story Come to Venus Melancholy by Thomas M. Disch. The story had quite a bit of dark tones to it, as well as taking some time to understand. I think the element of surprise was something that played a big part in this story. Something that appears to be so normal, so close to what we know, can be the complete opposite. In this story, in the beginning, I thought that the character was monologuing about their life. The element of surprise here is that the "her" is a cyborg of sorts, that used to be a human, but is now a computer in a house. The second surprise is that the environment of the swamp isn't from planet Earth, it's on planet Venus. The final surprise was the cyborg's confession of both love and craziness. This was quite a short read and an interesting perspective since it's told from the cyborg's point of view. I feel like in many of these stories there is often a hero, and the story is narrated from that hero's...
What a great entry this week! I thought you make some great points on the topic of good verses evil that was explain throughout the book.
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