As someone familiar with vampire literature, what signs would you point out as clear indicators that a certain character is a vampire?
Okay (*cracks knuckles and gets ready for a long post*) I’m going to make the assumption from your username and useof the word “character” that this is a question about vampiric traits you can eitherincorporate into your writing as an author or identify in the fiction of othersas a reader. If it isn’t and you like… need to make a call on your creepy nextdoor neighbor who is never around during the day and hisses uncontrollablywhenever they pass the church down the block, you should probably get off theInternet and contact your local eccentric ex-priest/librarian or something.
Moving on, though, the big thing about determining whattraits a vampiric character might have lies with exactly what type of vampirethey are and what aspects of vampirism are being emphasized in a narrative. I don’t think any set of traits will ever be 100% “clear” signs, as folklore and literary traditions regarding vampires can be incrediblyinconsistent and contradictory. Depending on what you’re reading, vampires may have a ruddy complexion or be deathly pale; they may cause dogs to go silent or theymay cause dogs to howl; they may achieve their final rest through marriage orbe under compulsion to get married to prolong their unlife. Furthermore, a singlevampiric trait may be written in different ways depending on who is doing thewriting. For example, there are a lot of stories about vampires being repelledby certain classes of plants. For Paul Barber, who comes at the issue as afolklorist/historian, these plants are significant because many of them havethorns in which a rising vampire could become entangled and thereby be stopped;for my friend who is writing interactive fiction regarding vampires, theseplants are important because some of them are still green in the winter, andthereby symbolize an overabundance of life which repels the undead; for me,back when I ran a very Catholic-flavored Vampire: The Masquerade game, theseplants were significant because several of them have legends claiming that theywere the wood from which the true cross was built. These sorts of things can work in a ton of different ways, and with that in mind, I’m going to try to break them down into broad categories, based on what traits might be useful foremphasizing certain types of vampires
Compulsions: Goodfor emphasizing vampires as condemned former humans, as entities tied tocertain aspects of their pasts, or as static creatures locked into certainmodes of behavior
Vampires must always use some variant on theirreal name (Carmilla, all thosespin-offs of Dracula where he callshimself “Alucard”)
Vampires must always tell their life’s story totheir lovers, although they may frame their tale as being about somebody else (PaulFeval’s La Vampire)
Vampires must marry and drain virgins to prolongtheir lives or may attain rest through being married… making them want to marrypeople a lot (numerous plays based on John Polidori’s “The Vampyre”, Étienne-Léonde Lamothe-Langon’s La Vampire, Varney the Vampire)
Vampires must steal people’s hair to continue tolook youthful… making them look like they’re dying it a lot (La Ville-Vampire which is like… super weird)
Vampires must stop to count spilled seeds, knotsin fishnets, or other groups of items (folklore… also Sesame Street)
Eerie Traits:Good for emphasizing vampires as creepy, unnatural, or just “wrong”
Vampires have glowing eyes or bodies (La Ville-Vampire, Dracula, probably some other stuff)
Vampires disturb or anger animals (“The Familyof the Vourdalak”, Dracula)
Vampires have cold bodies and/or icy,unnaturally strong grips (“The Mysterious Stranger”, Carmilla, Dracula)
Vampires smell unnaturally good or unnaturally bad(“Wake not the Dead”, Dracula)
Vampires are really pale or have a ruddy,blood-tinged complexion (folklore, waaaay too many books for me to want to lookup and list)
Vampires have some manner of unhealable woundfrom their days as a mortal (Étienne-Léon de Lamothe-Langon’s La Vampire, Varney the Vampire)
Religious Traits: Good for emphasizing vampires as condemnedby God, inherently demonic, or cursed for their sins
Vampires cannot pray, use/touch holy symbols, enterchurches, or are otherwise repulsed by holy symbols and holy things (“TheFamily of the Vourdalak”, Étienne-Léon de Lamothe-Langon’s La Vampire, “Le Morte Amoureuse”, Carmilla, Dracula)
In a manner similar to Mephistopheles and otherdevil figures, vampires cannot cross thresholds or enter dwellings withoutinvitations or assistance (Dracula)
As with demons and evil spirits, vampires losetheir power at the crowing of the cock… even if said cock does that thing from Hamlet and crows at night (Le Captaine Vampire, maybe Dracula)
Stuff Vampires Hate: Good for emphasizing vampire’sconnection to folklore or removal from the everyday world of men
Vampires can be repulsed, stopped, or harmed byX plant, with X plant having the potential to be acacia, aspen, ash, blackthorn,hawthorn, garlic, juniper, linden, maple, oak, wild rose, rowan, or greenshells from nuts (folklore regarding plant-based repellents, stake materials, andother vampire countermeasures, Dracula)
Vampires cannot cross running water, or will berejected by bodies of water, or have to navigate bodies of water by floatingaround like they’re a plank (folklore, Varneythe Vampire, La Ville-Vampire, Dracula)
Vampires are generally nocturnal and don’t wantto be up during the day (folklore, waaaay too many books for me to want to lookup and list)
Unrecordablity: All of this comes from Stoker; good foremphasizing vampires as soulless or in an unnatural state
Vampires do not show up in mirrors (Dracula)
Vampires cast no shadow (Dracula)
Vampires may not be photographed; yourphotographs either won’t show them or they will show up as a dead body (BramStoker’s notes for Dracula)
Seriously, if you even try to paint a vampire,your painting will turn out wrong and look like someone else (Bram Stoker’snotes for Dracula)
Werewolf Traits: There was something of a perception in the nineteenthcentury that vampires and werewolves were sort of the same thing, and BramStoker used a lot of stuff from Sabine Baring-Gould’s The Book of Were-wolves in writing Dracula. These might be useful in creating vampire-werewolf hybridcharacters or in emphasizing the animality and beast-like nature of vampires.
Werewolves/vampires have joined eyebrows (Dracula)
Werewolves/vampires have hair on their palms andpointed, talon-like nails (Dracula)
Werewolves/vampires can’t follow people intofields of rye (The notes and typescript for Dracula)
Vampires are insensible to music (Bram Stoker’s notesfor Dracula)
Vampires can fit through tiny cracks and holesand may just show up places that they shouldn’t (folklore, Dracula)
Vampires can make themselves look young afterfeeding and may look like they got plastic surgery or something (“TheMysterious Stranger”, “The True Story of a Vampire”, Dracula)
So yeah… that’s all that I have/am-willing-to-look-up for now, but I hope it helps! You might also consider looking at superstitions relating to other supernatural entities, like witches, devils, succubi, etc… as vampirism in literature (as is pretty clear in the case of Stoker) often borrows from a lot of bits and pieces of non-vampiric folklore, but if you want info on just vampires being vampires in (admittedly mostly nineteenth century) literature, you now know pretty much what I know.
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