The Black Vampyre: A Legend of St. Domingo (1819) by Uriah Derick D’Arcy and The Masque of The Red Death (1842) by Edgar Allan Poe both revolve around dark themes. The second story explores human nature at the sight of the inevitable, while St. Domingo’s story focuses on what comes after death and revenge themes. However, The Black Vampyre discusses the topic of death through vampirism and the challenges that come with never-ending life. The Masque challenges the concept of immortality presented in The Black Vampyre to reveal the inevitability of death.
The Black Vampyre suggests a new look at the vampire monster logs, introducing the first black undead. The author references the sorcery practices that were developed by the enslaved West Africans. D’Arcy writes, “Obeah remains difficult to define, as it is not a single, unified set of practices; but it does involve, for example, narcotic potions which make a living appear dead” (46). Even though the sentence reads as “the living appear dead”, it is more likely to be the other way around — the dead appear alive (D’Arcy 46). The statement may lead to philosophical discussions and a deeper understanding of mythology, but the general knowledge is that in order to become a vampire, a person has to die (Bloom 634). Therefore, those who chase vampirism in order to gain immortal life, become young forever, and escape demise, are actually in the rush for death.
In The Masque of The Red Death, Poe explores death as a part of human nature, which nobody can disobey. The novel has interesting twists that make the reader investigate moral and philosophical problems within self-reflection. Poe writes, “Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made” (60). In the given sentence, the author gives a powerful contrast — he states that an individual may see living as meaningless time and not care about dying, but even that individual could care about certain topics.
In contemporary times, people of all ages use black humor, and most of the time, they do not pay attention to it. However, there are specific issues people do not joke about, and they remain different for everybody, being determined by their personal experience and position. The author uses “life and death are equally jests”, but implies that “there are matters of which no jest can be made” (Poe 60). This leads to the conclusion that “utterly lost” will fight for life at the sight of death, as everybody, because there cannot be anything that matters for a person who has completely lost the significance of life.
A Legend of St. Domingo revolves around the slavery issue a lot throughout the storyline but also gives a description of what life could be like after death. From The Masque of The Red Death’s theme, death is inevitable, and this fact scares many people that end up trying to find ways or legends to stay alive. It could be magic, vampirism, or any other supernatural activity that humanity believes gives a chance for immortality. However, because of that fear of dying, the legends and fairy tales become idealistic. If one searches for old vampire legends, one would not find anything attractive about that curse. The older legends described night creatures as horrific; their skin looked like a carved stone, and the whole vampire look was scary, usually referenced as demonic: horns, claws, transformed body, and nothing human.
Modern books and movies promote vampires as attractive, irresistibly beautiful creatures. It may be because the vampires would not sell if they were genuinely terrifying because the banned romance between the monster and a girl next door is more thrilling than another horror movie. Looking at it from the other side, people could give vampires these extra superpowers and unapologetically ideal bodies and faces because that is something humanity wants to believe in. It is attractive to become a definition of strength, wisdom, and beauty while gaining a never-ending life rather than a constant death in an alive body. To suppress the fear feeling that comes from the understanding of never escaping death, humanity produced their own attractive vision of vampires in hope of becoming one to avoid demise.
If not take other topics in The Black Vampyre into consideration, its vampirism and sorcery make the inevitability of death discussed by Poe, destroyed. While being a vampire, the main character was between a human world and the world of the dead, not fitting into any. He got revenge on his master, married the newly widowed woman, made her a vampire, raised her previous husbands as vampires too, and took her lost son. After getting revenge, at a fear of being stabbed with a stake through heart, they drink an Obeah’s potion and become human again, gaining the same age they had when they turned into vampires.
The Black Vampyre is a supernatural story, where vampires are used for exploring certain topics and giving metaphors, such as banking clerks being vampires. The author himself reveals he is a vampire at the end of the story, meaning that he does things that drain people’s emotions too (Bloom 634). Despite it being metaphorical and hyperbolized, the story shows how hard people are trying to get immortality and divine power until they discover a weak spot of that kind of power. The Masque of The Red Death represents all of humanity’s fears that come along with the thoughts of dying or being murdered. The plague in the story is not realistic, but in the novel, there is practically no cure to it. Poe shows that money, status, reputation, social communication, and other factors will not save anyone from death — it’s not the human’s decision to make. The Masque of The Red Death argues with the concept of immortality in The Black Vampyre to erase the dreams about never-ending life to give humanity a chance to live while they have time.
The theme of inevitable death is important in the contemporary era because of that fear of dying; people forget that they have a life right now, being twisted into the thoughts of coming death. Many people believe in supernatural activities or powers, and while it is not exactly a bad thing or even surely does not exist, people often try to escape from their own life, turning to legends. Humanity lives their lives caring about the vampires they have never seen or loving that person they have never talked to. Understanding that life is not endless and I may end at any minute gives me the courage and strength to live every hour as the last one, making a difference, making an effort and definitely making an impact on the future.
Works Cited
Bloom, Clive. The Palgrave Handbook of Steam Age Gothic. Macmillan, 2020.
Poe, Edgar Allan. The Masque of The Red Death. Harper Collins, 2013.
D’Arcy, Uriah Derick. The Black Vampyre: A Legend of St. Domingo. Panton Plasma, 2020.