A Writer's Notebook, Day One-Thousand-And-Four

 I am thinking about my vampire essay quite a bit, and have been hoping to get a new version of it drafted soon.  I've had a number of thoughts that seem really significant.  For one thing, I think I need to press beyond the initial framing of exploring the anti-Semitic tropes themselves, but to press into a space of cultural criticism.  The modern vampire is not written with an intent to make it anti-Semitic, but what does it mean that the qualities that make the vampire intriguing are derived from stereotypes about Jews?  It is not merely that the vampire was anti-Semitic, but qualities which make these characters appealing for appropriation by various communities are the very tropes that make Dracula an anti-Semitic work.  To offer an example, I think few would deny that the hypnotic, seductive allure of vampiric characters is alluring.  Anne Rice certainly drew upon that quality in crafting the modern vampire, as have other authors.  Adaptations of Stoker's novel have played up this aspect, as well.  To a modern audience, their is no recognition of the meaning of this detail, as it would have been understood in the context when and where it was written.  Consider, the most popular novel of the era at the time Dracula was published, George du Maurier's Trilby.  The book is far less remembered today, but the plot concerns a young woman who falls under the sway of an evil, manipulative singing teacher, Svengali.  Under his tutelage, she is able to sing, but it becomes clear, it is only when he has her deep in trance.  She is shown to lose her will, to succumb beneath his influence, and when he is finally killed, at the end of the novel, Trilby herself soon follows, as though her lifeforce were still subservient to his.  Svengali, of course, is overtly a Jew.  The book makes no bones at pointing this out, including illustrations that make the point clear (in one, even, Svengali is presented as less than human, transformed into a monstrous man-spider).  Many others studying the subject before me have pointed out a physical similarity between Svengali and Dracula (I might even contend that the belief that Dracula's physicality is based on actor Henry Irving is, at least in part, a misreading of Stoker's description of Irving as Svengali).  The point is, the seductive, hypnotic qualities we associate with vampires are a carryover from notions about the dangers of Jews.  There are tracts from the middle ages which speak of Jewish mean seducing, or even abducting and raping, Christian women.  Even today, one stereotype that is played up in comedies is the Jewish man who is a bit of a letch.  Larry David falls into this trope, as, in a more problematic way, does Woody Allen.  How can it be meaningful to adopt the vampire as a mascot for outsiders, when what they are adopting is, though they do not know it, a trope intended to defame another group of outsiders?  What does it mean that we have erased the clear anti-Semitic origins of a major literary work without ever addressing them, using the very qualities that make the work so problematic into points of identification for other communities?  I do not know, but it seems important to me.  

I really need to work on this essay again.