While fighting temptation to return to St. Croix, Missouri (my fictional town) and begin rewriting the story of the Levreau family, I have found myself wondering about temptation and our mortal struggles against it. The modern vampire tale, as it has evolved from the masterpiece of Bram Stoker to the works of Anne Rice is a story of resistance of, submission to, and damnation of temptation. The vampire is often seen as the source of the temptation, but in reality he (or she) is the outlet of the “mortal’s” temptations with things they have suppressed.

We see the vampire tale coming to life in the Victorian age, a time known for sexual repression. It is also a time when opium and other drugs were emerging as an addictive blight on society. Blind eyes were turned to sex and narcotics and people slinked into the shadows to find escape from their repressed lives. Others found release through acts of brutal violence. This was the birth of the popularization of tales of ancient spirits or undead feeding on the living, but what about modern day?

We do not live in a culture of sexual repression—or do we? The viewing of sexual temptations is almost blasé in this world of cable television and the internet. Actually, in many ways it can be argued that sex is beginning its first steps into the fictional world of “The Brave New World,” a novel written about a society were sex was recreationally and promiscuity was promoted. In the modern world, we see in the lore of the vampire transform into a symbol of the vampire trying to return to his humanity and obtain those connections that his undead state has denied him.

As for drug usage, the temptation seems to be as great as the blood lust of the vampire. The need for the taste that is forbidden has not changed. The world seems to have thrown that temptation from the smoke filled opium dens into the streets of the inner city, and with it we see the vampire leaving his keep or secluded mansion for the company of night clubs and humans. Even the light of day itself no longer bothers them in some series of stories. Is there any part of the ancient lore still around?

The hunter still exists. He moves as a shade in the shadows of the natural world and the darkness of the human society. Vampires still represent temptation—sometimes the lure into their world representative of the darker side of man—sometimes the embodiment of the attempt to escape back into to the light of humanity. The vampire tale is still a story that stirs and weaves itself around us. The old masterpieces and the new inventions still hold their place and beacon us to step into their world of temptation asking if we recognize our own world in the process.

Thank you for reading and please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for updates on the blogs, short stories and novels I write.