Ghettoiserade Vampyrer. En studie av barnvampyrlitteratur och dess betydelse för vampyrlitteraturgenren

Abstract

Abstract Master’s Thesis in Comparative literature Title: Ghettoiserade Vampyrer. En studie av barnvampyrlitteratur och dess betydelse för vampyrlitteraturgenren (Ghettoized Vampires. A study of children’s vampire literature and its significance for the vampire literature genre) Writer: Peter Kostenniemi Department of Literature, History of Ideas and Religion Supervisor: Anna Nordenstam Examiner: Yvonne Leffler Key Words: Vampire literature, children’s literature, Der kleine Vampir, Nattens Børn In vampire literature research the focus usually lies on adult and, to some extent, young adult fiction. Children’s vampire fiction is seldom addressed and when it is, the conclusions are that the vampire in it is kind and unharmful. To view children’s literature as a category by itself is to ghettoize it from adult literature and that is what often occurs in vampire literature research; children’s vampire fiction is seen as first and foremost children’s literature and not vampire literature. The aim of this theis is, in accordance to the hermeneutics of Paul Rioeur, to decontexualize three works of children’s vampire fiction as children’s literature and recontextualize them as vampire literature. The three works are the series Der kleine Vampir (The Little Vampire) (1979–2008), the series Nattens Børn (Children of the Night) (2006) and The Vampire Hunter’s Handbook (2007). With the use of Gérard Genettes categories of transtextuality the analyzis views the vampire in these works as both good and evil, both harmful and unharmful. Der kleine Vampir also combines characteristics of the ‘old vampire’ from the 1900th century with a contemporary context, something that serves as a metatextual commentary to the rise of the modern vampire. The portrayal of vampires in Der kleine Vampir serves as an anti-thesis of vampires such as Louis in Anne Rice’ Interview with the Vampire. Der kleine Vampir and Nattens Børn is also about a lovestory between a human being and a vampire, but the relation is viewed differently from vampire romances such as The Twilight Saga. In vampire romances the vampires are represented as male objects of perfection, very much alive and eternally young. In Der kleine Vampir and Nattens Børn the female vampire is portrayed as being both dead and alive, both eternally young and aging and constitutes a connection between femininity, death and aging that is reoccurring in vampire romances. The vampires Rüdiger and Anna in Der kleine Vampir transgress the borders between the vampire world and the human society and serves to develop a common genre convention in works such as The Southern Vampire Mysteries and the tv series Being Human where these borders are challenged. The conclusion of the thesis is that the children’s vampire literature should not be ghettoized from the vampire literature genre, but instead integrated in it. When this is done it is possible to see that the children’s vampire literature is not only influenced by the vampire literature genre but also serves to influence