A Comparative Study Of Gothic And Neo-gothic Fictions

Gothic literature has a long history and it has a special and cultural significancethat the other genres don’t. As a branch of gothic culture, the prototype of vampires isinborn Porphyria patient. Nowadays, with popularity of big screens, vampire literatureis frequently made into cultural commodities for audiences to appreciate. The reasonwhy the thesis chooses vampire images to study is its particularity among gothicimages. Due to the fact that the study on vampire fiction is inadequate in China, thisthesis tries to make a comparative study on two classical vampire fictions.An Irishman Stoker is called “the father of vampires”.“Bram Stoker Awards”that is named after him is considered as the highest authority awards till now in thearea of horror fictions. His masterpiece Dracula is considered as the first foundationworks for opening horror fictions. American female novelist Anne Rice is anotherrepresentative writer pushing vampire literature up to the peak, she is also known as“the mother of vampires”. Her masterpiece Interview with the vampire is consideredas a landmark creating a neo-gothic world. The former is completed in the late ofVictorian era, and it makes a classical style of vampire culture. The style is constantlyused and developed by later generations. The latter is completed in post modern time,and it breaks the simple form of binary opposition between kind and evil. On thisbasis, the latter enriches and diversifies flat characters that having simpler nature ofthe former. Rice also makes vampire images become more and more humane, andthey enter readers’ hearts more deeply.The thesis expounds origins, definitions and developing veins of gothic literatureand neo-gothic literature in chapter one, and it also lists the representative writers andtheir masterpieces in each period. On the basis of theories in chapter one and chaptertwo, chapter three analyzes characters, plots and settings in both fictions, the thesisalso quotes some classical paragraphs for readers to sense their special features moredeeply. The thesis analyzes and compares features of classical vampire images,settings and plots in last chapter, and summarizes their similarities and differences, atthe same time, it explores the progressive succession of Dracula, Lestat and Louie.And it also resets Dracula, Lestat and Louie in the background to explore theirprogressive succession.