Vampires in the Sunburnt Country

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Vampires in the Sunburnt Country Vampires in the Sunburnt Country: Adapting Vampire Gothic to the Australian landscape by Jason Nahrung Submission to the Faculty of Creative Industries, Queensland University of Technology in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (Research) in Creative Writing, 2007 J Nahrung Vampires in the Sunburnt Country i Keywords Vampire, Gothic, fiction, Bram Stoker, Dracula, Mudrooroo, Master of the Ghost Dreaming, Australian fiction, horror, Dani Cavallaro, Ken Gelder, Gina Wisker, David Stevens, Edmund Burke, darkness, earth, blood, ruins, Milissa Deitz, Tracy Ryan, Jackie French, Keri Arthur, Outback Vampires, Thirst, Bloodlust J Nahrung Vampires in the Sunburnt Country ii Abstract I first became enamoured with vampire Gothic after reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula in high school, but gradually became dissatisfied with the Australian adaptations of the sub-genre. In looking for examples of Australian vampire Gothic, a survey of more than 50 short stories, 23 novels and five movies made by Australians reveals fewer than half were set in an identifiably Australian setting. Even fewer make use of three key, landscape-related tropes of vampire Gothic – darkness, earth and ruins. Why are so few Australian vampire stories set in Australia? In what ways can the metaphorical elements of vampire Gothic be applied to the Sunburnt Country? This paper seeks to answer these questions by examining examples of Australian vampire narratives, including film. Particular attention is given to Mudrooroo’s Master of the Ghost Dreaming series which, more than any other Australian novel, succeeds in manipulating and subverting the tropes of vampire Gothic. The process of adaptation of vampire Gothic to the Australian environment, both natural and man-made, is also a core concern of my own novel, Vampires’ Bane, which uses earth, darkness and a modern permutation of ruins to explore its metaphorical intentions. Through examining previous works and through my own creative process, Vampires’ Bane, I argue that Australia’s growing urbanisation can be juxtaposed against the vampire-hostile natural environment to enhance the tropes of vampire Gothic, and make Australia a suitable home for narratives that explore the ongoing evolution of Count Dracula and his many-faceted descendants. J Nahrung Vampires in the Sunburnt Country iii Table of Contents Keywords ………………………………………………………………………… i Abstract ……………………………………………………………………….…. ii Table of Contents ………………………………………………………………... iii Statement of authorship ………………………………………………………….. iv Acknowledgments ………………………………………………………….…….. v Introduction (including methodology) ……………………………………………. 1 Literature review ………………………………………………………………….. 8 Case study 1: Vampires in Australia – An Overview ………………………..…..15 Case study 2: Mudrooroo’s vampire series ……………………………………... 27 Reflective case study: Vampires’ Bane …………………………....................... 32 Conclusion ………………………………………………………………….…….. 40 Bibliography ………………………………………………………………….…... 42 Appendix 1: annotated bibliography of Australian vampire stories ……………… 49 Vampires’ Bane …………………………………………………………………… 59 J Nahrung Vampires in the Sunburnt Country iv Statement of Authorship The work contained in this thesis has not been previously submitted for a degree or diploma at any other institution. The thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made. Signed: …………………………………………………… Dated: …………………………………………………….. J Nahrung Vampires in the Sunburnt Country v Acknowledgments I would not have been able to undertake this degree were it not being offered fee- free through Queensland University of Technology. I am indebted to my supervisors, Dr Nike Bourke and Craig Bolland, for their generosity, guidance and patience. I also owe a debt of gratitude to the other members of my cohort, in particular Louise Cusack and Rowena Lindquist, for their comprehensive edits of my MS, and Valerie Parv for giving me a much cooler name for the eventual work. Vampires’ Bane/Blood Memory has been a project in the making for several years and numerous people have offered support and critiques, for which I am extremely grateful. My deepest gratitude also goes to my “MA widow”, Mil Clayton, for giving me the space and time to devote to this project. J Nahrung Vampires in the Sunburnt Country 1 Introduction I saw the man slowly emerge from the window and begin to crawl down the castle wall over that dreadful abyss, face down, with his cloak spreading out around him like great wings. At first I could not believe my eyes. I thought it was some trick of the moonlight, some weird effect of shadow; but I kept looking, and it could be no delusion. I saw the fingers and toes grasp the corners of the stones, worn clear of the mortar by the stress of years, and by thus using every projection and inequality move downwards with considerable speed, just as a lizard moves along a wall (Stoker 1985, 471). I remember this passage as being the moment in Bram Stoker’s Dracula in which all my childhood interests in myths and legends crystallised into what was to become something of an obsession. I was sixteen, at home in the farmhouse bedroom, with a late-night storm scraping the branches of a tree across the window. This is the moment when Jonathan Harker can be left in no doubt at all as to the supernatural nature of his host; when the vampire is made real. J Nahrung Vampires in the Sunburnt Country 2 The Dracula passage is also a wonderful example of the stereotypical Gothic landscape: a ruined castle perched on a cliff, “bathed in soft yellow moonlight”. This incident is the epitome of Edmund Burke’s sublime, often evoked by landscape and in particular mountains – that moment of astonishment in which all thought and sensation are suspended save for “some degree of horror”. Burke says the sublime is composed of terror, obscurity and power, and all three are present here (Sage 1990, 33-38). The sublime is one of three key concepts underpinning the functioning of the Gothic. The other two are Freud’s theory of the uncanny and Todorov’s concept of the fantastic. For Freud, the uncanny is anything that “arouses dread and creeping horror” (cited in Sage 1990, 76-77) and is strongly linked to what he termed the unheimlich, or ‘unhomely’, in which something familiar is made unfamiliar, causing fear. Todorov divided the literature of the Gothic into two streams – the uncanny, in which supernatural events could be rationalised within the laws of nature, and the marvellous, in which they were simply accepted as being outside of nature. His concern was with the effect these events had on the viewer, terming that point of confusion or fear “the fantastic” (Todorov 1973, 25, 41). It is the sublime and its direct relationship to the power of landscape which most informs this paper, although the theories of Freud and Todorov will be referenced where appropriate. 1 Originally published 1897. All references to Dracula refer to this 1985 edition of Stoker’s book unless otherwise stated. J Nahrung Vampires in the Sunburnt Country 3 When I decided to write horror stories set in Australia, the challenge was to translate the sublime elements of this quintessential scene from Dracula to a landscape that, at first glance, does not seem to support direct comparison. Where in Australia would a vampire find a crumbling castle overlooking an abyss upon which to exercise his or her lizard-like prowess? Herein lies the problem that has plagued Australian writers of Gothic fiction since colonial times: the apparent absence of the key elements of the Gothic setting. Vampire Gothic The vampire of European2 folklore is “a bloodsucking creature … that leaves its burial place at night … to drink the blood of humans. By daybreak it must return to its grave or to a coffin filled with its native earth” (Britannica 2007). Dracula’s impact on me is mirrored in the wider community, with the Encyclopaedia Britannica noting Stoker’s “ ‘undead’ villain from Transylvania, became the representative type of vampire” (ibid). Some of the traits exhibited by Dracula that have persisted in contemporary depictions of vampires include vulnerabilities to sunshine, garlic, holy symbols and running water, and death by decapitation, sunlight or wooden stake through the heart. Dracula not only provides the epitome of the Gothic vampire, but also the quintessential Gothic vampire setting characterised by darkness, ruins and underground spaces. 2 As this paper draws on the Western Gothic tradition, it restricts itself to Western vampire mythology. J Nahrung Vampires in the Sunburnt Country 4 In her masters thesis, Kim Wilkins offers a strict historical definition of Gothic fiction as the “literature of terror which was in vogue in England between 1764 and 1820” (2000, 3). This definition excludes the evolution of Gothic fiction to the present day, but Wilkins does provide a key set of Gothic conventions by which to judge texts and films under consideration. Amongst recurring tropes such as incest, ghosts and burial alive are several geographic tropes – historical settings, ruined castles and abbeys, underground spaces – which help to define the Gothic setting. Wilkins also supplies a caveat for the term Gothic, noting it is polysemous: the Gothic tag is “indifferently applied to any piece of writing which employs even one of the conventions associated with the genre” (2000, 3). David Stevens acknowledges the historical definition but also, as Wilkins also notes, sees the Gothic literary genre as a
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