How Vampires Became Goblins: A Look At The Victorian Vampire

Bryce LeCroy   

Vampires! Everyone loves vampires! From movies like Twilight to television series like Buffy The Vampire Slayer, these mystical bloodsuckers have a powerful grip on recent pop culture. However, Victorian vampires were an entirely different breed. Rather than the almost redeemable vampires seen in pop culture today, Victorian vampires were entities of pure evil built on ideas of sexual deviance. Depictions of vampires during this time portrayed mostly male vampires using their powers to force Victorian women to become the idea of a “fallen woman.” Even ideas as simple as the sucking of blood held sexualized imagery. This presentation will cover some of the general mythos surrounding vampires during the Victorian era, it will show how this mythos was used to portray sexual deviance and gender norms inside vampire literature, and it will delve into how these ideas were used and explored even in non-vampire writing like that of Christina Rossetti.            

• Bryce LeCroy is a senior English major with an emphasis on professional writing. He has been published in both Lander’s New Voices and the LU Forum and is a member of Lander’s Honors College. In the Fall of 2023, Bryce spent a semester abroad studying at the University of Winchester.