Unnecessary Digs At Servants In Classic Vampire Novels

VAMPIRES AREN’T SOCIALISTS. I mean, you knew this, obviously, no one is unfamiliar with the aristocro-porn in vampire mythology, BECAUSE VAMPIRES ARE THE UPPER-CLASS RESPONSE TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION PROBABLY, but still, this is subtext made text, friends! “Oh, wow, Mallory, did you just notice that vampires telegraph wealth and class privilege in literature? Have you picked up on the fact that Jim Casy is a Christ figure in The Grapes of Wrath yet?” FUCK OFF, it’s almost Christmas, I’m phoning it in.

Carmilla, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

“I must tell you now, how very small is the party who constitute the inhabitants of our castle. I don’t include servants, or those dependents who occupy rooms in the buildings attached to the schloss.”

“Did you remark what an ill-looking pack of men the servants were?” asked Madame.

“Yes,” said my father, who had just come in, “ugly, hang-dog looking fellows as ever I beheld in my life. I hope they mayn’t rob the poor lady in the forest.”

“She? I don’t trouble my head about peasants. I don’t know who she is,” answered Carmilla, with a flash from her fine eyes.

Dracula, Bram Stoker

After a while, finding no response, I knocked and rang again; still no answer. I cursed the laziness of the servants that they should lie abed at such an hour—for it was now ten o’clock—and so rang and knocked again, but more impatiently, but still without response.

The Vampyre, John William Polidori

“Aubrey, when he was left by the physician and his guardians, attempted to bribe the servants, but in vain. He asked for pen and paper; it was given him; he wrote a letter to his sister, conjuring her, as she valued her own happiness, her own honour, and the honour of those now in the grave, who once held her in their arms as their hope and the hope of their house, to delay but for a few hours that marriage, on which he denounced the most heavy curses. The servants promised they would deliver it; but giving it to the physician, he thought it better not to harass any more the mind of Miss Aubrey by, what he considered, the ravings of a maniac. Night passed on without rest to the busy inmates of the house; and Aubrey heard, with a horror that may more easily be conceived than described, the notes of busy preparation. Morning came, and the sound of carriages broke upon his ear. Aubrey grew almost frantic. The curiosity of the servants at last overcame their vigilance, they gradually stole away, leaving him in the custody of an helpless old woman.”

Varney the Vampire, James Malcolm Rymer and Thomas Peckett Prest

“Henry, after some trouble, got the hall door opened by a terrified servant, who was trembling so much that she could scarcely hold the light she had with her.”

“Come in, sir,” said George, “I will conduct you to Mr. Holland. I presume this is your servant?”

“Why, not exactly. That’s Jack Pringle, he was my boatswain, you see, and now he’s a kind o’ something betwixt and between. Not exactly a servant.”

“Ay, ay, sir,” said Jack. “Have it all your own way, though we is paid off.”

“Hold your tongue, you audacious scoundrel, will you.”

“He had never thought, so engaged had he been with other matters, that the servants were cognizant of the whole affair, and that from them he had no expectation of being able to keep the whole story in all its details.”