Assignment 4-1 Weekly Written Analysis

            In the last few years there has been a renewed fascination with the vampire lore. Author Stephanie Meyers has written the Twilight series which is about a human girl falling in love with a vampire and the battle they face to stay together and her bumpy friendship with a werewolf. The books had quite the following and were turned into a movie series. The first movie of the series Twilight was a low budget production because no one expected the results of that movie. The movie was such a huge success more than anyone expected. The movie featured primarily lesser known actors but now the actors are household names. The series portrayed vampires as capable of love and compassion quite a different perspective then the traditional vampire story.

In addition to Twilight there has been another supernatural series that has become very popular and it is The Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris. The series has become a HBO television series called True Blood created and produced by Alan Ball. The show features a girl with mind reading abilities who falls in love with a vampire. In addition there are other mythological characters such as werewolves, fairy’s, and shape shifters. The series has also helped to feed the flames of the vampire obsession that has begun in modern culture. A third book series focusing on vampires is The Vampire Diaries by L.J. Smith. The series focuses on a girl who falls in love with a vampire. The series has recently become a television show.

According to Ray B. Browne author of Profiles of Popular Culture: A Reader literature that relates to “adventure and romance have been particularly appealing to readers...both represent traveling either physically or emotionally into a world that is different from and superior to the everyday world around us” (2005, p.300). The popularity of novels discussed above is easy to understand because they all contain the romance and adventure factor. In addition the novels contain a mythological factor which draws in addition readers. Therefore it easy to understand the popularity of these novels and how these novels have helped bring the vampire lore back to life.

Resources

Browne, R. B. (2005). Profiles of popular culture: A reader. Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press.