Vampires, Obsession Throughout Eternity Obsession Essays - Fiction

Vampires, Obsession Throughout Eternity Obsession Vampires, Obsession Throughout Eternity Obsession. A persistent, disturbing preoccupation with an often-unreasonable idea, feeling, object or person; broadly: compelling motivation (Collegiate Dictionary). Many stories have been told of obsessed men and women who waste their lives on lost causes, calling them tragedies. But what if you were immortal? What if you were forever? Then your life would not be wasted, but instead a reason for living would become instinctive. And what if having an obsession, something criticized by mortal humans, was the only way to keep your sanity and appetite for life through eternity? When looking through the vampires eyes in film and literature, we see that the foremost vampires have an obsession, a calling that drives them. Without this obsession, it seems, vampires would be lost through time, wandering the earth with no motivation, and though this may sound redundant, with no life. Vampires, it seems, are more capable of going through time when they have a passion. Whether this passion come s from love, knowledge, or power, vampires such as the ones from Blade, Bram Stokers Dracula, and Interview with the Vampire are all driven by their own obsessions, without which they become lost, empty. According to the film Bram Stokers Dracula (1995), Count Dracula was a man who had sworn to protect the church from its enemies until he found out that his beloved had committed suicide because she thought he had been killed in battle. His love and obsession for her, Whom he prized above all things on earth, was so strong that he then swore off the church and thus became vampire. When we again see Count Dracula, he looks old and weak, and has become very eccentric and seemingly insane. But when by accident he discovers that his beloved is alive in Mina, the fianc? of Jonathan Harker, he embarks on a quest to be with her. He becomes youthful and cunning; his mind seems to be that of a charming and intelligent nobleman; instead of that of an elderly recluse. We see the undead come to life, with powers that overwhelm the imagination. But when Mina decides to leave him to wed Jonathan Harker, he again turns into a monster, a shadow of his former self. The life seems to have drained out o f him. This proves that it was his love for Mina, his eternal infatuation with her that had kept him going through the ages. It is this obsession that forced him to become a vampire, and he then hoped that one day he would be reunited with his love, because he knew that she would not have been able to join him in heaven. And though he knew of the dangers that surrounded him, he risked everything to be with her, for he would have rather die than to lose her again. Love also drives Louis, the hero (or victim, depending on the point of view) of Interview with the Vampire. Louis was a sad person when Lestat turned him into a vampire; his sole reason for living was his own guilt and misery. He did not even allow himself the ultimate pleasure a vampire has and needs, human blood. He feeds off rats and other animals, and wanders the street aimlessly, lost. As he puts it after Lestat tells him that there is no hell, But there was a hell, and no matter where we moved to, I was in it. But when Lestat gives him an undead companion, a young girl named Claudia, his whole world is turned upside down. He has a new thirst for life, literally. He begins to enjoy the very things he had denied himself. As he put it when narrating his story, Time can pass quickly for mortals when theyre happy. With us, it was the same. But when his search for knowledge leads to Claudias death at the hand of other vampires, he loses his spirit and once again becomes lost. As he d escribes his new life: For years I wondered: Italy, Greece all the ancient lands. But the world was a tomb to me. A graveyard full of broken statues. And each of those statues resembled her face. There was another driving force for