Monsters, Dreams, and Discords: Vampire Fiction in Twenty-First Century American Culture

Amongst recent scholarly interest in vampire fiction, twenty-first century American vampire literature has yet to be examined as a body that demonstrates what is identified here as an evolution into three distinct yet inter-related sub-generic types, labelled for their primary characteristics as Monsters, Dreams, and Discords. This project extends the field of understanding through an examination of popular works of American twenty-first century literary vampire fiction, such as Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series, alongside lesser-known works, such as Andrew Fox’s Fat White Vampire Blues. Drawing on a cultural materialist methodology, this thesis investigates vampires as signifiers of and responses to contemporary cultural fears and power dynamics as well as how they continue an ongoing expansion of influential generic paradigms. This thesis also incorporates psychological theories such as psychodynamics alongside theoretical approaches such as Freud’s consideration of the uncanny as means of understanding the undead as agents of fears and powerplays on a scale from individualized to global. Theories of power inform an argument for vampires as indicators of cultural threats, augmentations, or destabilizations within uchronic Americas. This thesis also draws on post-structuralism to inform an investigation of vampires as cultural indicators. Thus, theorists including Auerbach, Baudrillard, and Faludi are called on to underscore an examination of how modern undead narratives often defy – but do not disavow – cultural dominants, spanning a spectrum from reinforcing to questioning of environment. Through an assessment of central vampiric characters and their effects within the speculative Americas they inhabit, this thesis scrutinizes vampire narratives’ interaction with contextualities such as terroristic infiltration and a perceived need for martial hegemony, the fluid form of the American Dream, and the persistence of intra-cultural racial antagonisms. This will be carried out through investigation of two key ...