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Katie Andraski's avatar

Wow! The monster’s deception is quite a twist! The people subdued by pleasure. Sounds pretty contemporary!

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Peter Harrison's avatar

Certainly! Contemporary, and still just classic vampire trickery.

I think the vampire myth is pretty important for our pleasure-seeking, over-sanitised age. The vampire is obsessed (to a soul-destroying, flesh-preserving degree) with purity, or endless virginity. I think of this story as a 'Lenten lay', because the vampire's primary sin could be conceived as 'not observing Lent'. Lent could be seen as the practice of contemplating how to die at the right time and in the right way, and preparing for that death. Death is seldom clean or pure, and so the vampire does not contemplate or prepare for it (for the same reason, the vampire seeks pleasure instead of sleeping or dreaming, for in sleeping and dreaming, our thoughts roam beyond our control or sanitisation, possibly becoming impure).

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Katie Andraski's avatar

So much insight here. Thank you.

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N. M. Collins's avatar

I visualized this one very well. I look forward to these every week. Thanks for giving them to us

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Peter Harrison's avatar

Cheers! That's awesome to hear!

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Joseph McMillan's avatar

Enjoyable read

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Peter Harrison's avatar

Thanks Joseph! Glad you enjoyed it.

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