As we all know, Dracula by Bram Stoker is one of those books that have influenced and will always influence the horror genre and many others. In particular, what I found fascinating the first time I read this novel was the way people think about Dracula’s quotes as Stoker’s original thoughts while what most people don’t know is that Stoker was such a brilliant writer with such a wide knowledge and culture that used many references in his book. As a consequence, nowadays watching a movie, a TV-series, or reading a book, we point at those sentences as quotes from one of the many characters in the Victorian Horror Masterpiece.
There are many examples of what I stated above, but the one that stuck in my mind most is when in Chapter XI Dr Seward is writing in his diary about Renfield’s aggression that instantly stopped right after he cut the Doctor’s arm because << he was easily secured, and to my surprise, went with the attendants quite placidly, simply repeating over and over again, “The blood is the life! The blood is the life!” >> (Dracula, 152).
It is not a surprise that Bram Stoker himself explains later on the text what he was referring to through Renfield’s words: << The doctor here will bear me out that on one occasion I tried to kill him for the purpose of strengthening my vital powers by the assimilation with my own body of his life through the medium of his blood, relying of course, upon the Scriptural phrase, “For the blood is the life.” >> (Dracula, 249)
The Scriptural phrase he is talking about comes directly from the Bible, Leviticus 17:10-14: << And any man from the house of Israel, or from the aliens who sojourn among them, who eats any blood, I will set My face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from among his people. “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement.” Therefore, I said to the sons of Israel, “No person among you may eat blood, nor may any alien who sojourns among you eat blood” >>. According to this passage nobody must eat blood, but somebody does: Dracula, the one that disobeys the orders of Christ making him the one who is closer to the Anti-Christ than anybody else.
That simply explains why still nowadays blood and vampires are always link, only one person so far could turn this “Stokerian” theory upside down: Joss Whedon. The director of Buffy the Vampire Slayer cleverly used the connection between vampires and blood to come in handy when Buffy is again the only one who can safe the world, as a sort of Goddess herself, ennobling the function of blood once for all. Blood is not only something that is helpful for the “undead” but also something that could save the world. After all, Spike sums it up pretty well so that Buffy can actually understand the real meaning of this mystic substance:
“Blood is life, lack-brain. Why do you think we [vampires] eat it? It’s what keeps you going. Makes you warm. Makes you hard. Makes you other than dead.”
Spike, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 5 Episode 22