Final Project Propasal

I have decided for my final project to is to create a series of songs to go along with Let the Right One In. I have not read the whole book yet but I did watch the movie a couple weeks ago in another class and I think I understand the emotions of the characters. What I'm planning to do as of right now is to write some songs from the different characters points of view, mainly from Oskar and Eli's. From seeing the movie I have a visual of what some of the scenes look like so I will write songs that I feel will go with a scene from the book. I hope to get their emotions across in the songs that I will write.

Interview with the Vampire 2

I generally liked reading this story. There were some areas of the novel that seemed a bit slow but the rest of it was pretty good. I was kind of surprised by the ending. The whole novel revolved around the struggles and the hard times Louis went through as a vampire and yet at the end of it all, the boy wants to be just like him. This was not what Louis had set out to do when he started the interview. He wanted people to be aware of the trials and tribulations he went through in his long life. He lost the people he cared about, his brother, mother, Claudia, as well as himself. If I conducted an interview with a vampire, I believe I would have been terrified the entire time I was there. Because I understood and could sympathize with Louis about the story he was trying to tell as a reader, had I been the interviewer, I do not believe I would have reacted the same way the boy did. I think that story would have scared me straight and I would appreciate the life that I have as a human being. To me I think the boy was more like LeStat.

Interview with the Vampire

I really enjoyed the reading this week. It was nice and a change of pace to hear the story told from the vampire's point of view rather than the 'victim.' This is one of the differences between Louis and the other vampire's we have read about. The reader gets to hear how Louis felt, how he was affected by his change and how it was that he was changed. Louis also seems gentler than the others we have read about. While the boy has been “visibly shaken,” he is still able to talk calmly with Louis and carry on a conversation with him (Rice 26). He's not in fear of his life while he's talking to Louis. All the other vampire's we've read about have only wanted their victim's blood and nothing else. I think our concept of the monster is complicated with this novel because we want to feel sympathy for Louis but at the same time all we've known about vampires is that their cold, dead, blood sucking monsters. It's hard to change ones opinion of something that's been engrained in our mind for so long.

Force of Habit

One topic I was thinking about writing in my blog last week was the similarities between the vampires and Robert Neville. I know I had discussed how Neville was a hero in my opinion, but I have read my peer's comments and thought back to this topic and started to rethink my original claim. It occurred to me while I was reading, this week and last week, that Neville shares some qualities with his blood sucking enemies. Both Neville and the vampires of Matheson's novel are creatures of habit. Neville has lived alone fighting off the vampires by himself for quite awhile and his day to day activities turn into a daily routine of “carrying away of bodies, the repairing of the house exterior, the hanging of garlic” (Matheson 50). “After breakfast he threw th paper plate and cup into the trash box and brushed his teeth” which Neville saw as his “one good habit” (Matheson 23). While he stayed cooped up in his house at night because of the vampires outside, the monotony continued. “Every night it was the same. He'd be reading and listening to music. Then he'd start to think about soundproofing the house, then he'd think about the women” (Matheson 19). He would try to break up the routine but in frustration he'd give up almost immediately. “He'd go to bed and put the plugs in his ears. It was what he ended up doing every night anyway” (Matheson 21). Once in bed, “his mind spoke the words it spoke ever night. Dear God, let the morning come. He dreamed about Virginia and he cried out in his sleep and his fingers gripped the sheets like frenzied talons” (Matheson 22). Day after day he did the same things and more than the vampires, he realized “monotony was the greatest obstacle” (Matheson 111). Neville never realized how much alike him and the vampires were. He would ask himself “why didn't they leave him alone? Did they think they could all have him? Were they so stupid they thought that? Why did they keep coming every night? After five months, you'd think they'd give up and try elsewhere” (Matheson 20). Neville thought they were stupid but they were just doing the same thing he was doing. They were trying to survive and the way they knew how to do that was to do the same things every day. Part of their survival comes from “staying inside by day” (Matheson 27). Neville goes out during the day and hunts and then spends his nights inside. The vampires are the exact opposite of that; they spend their days inside while their nights are spent “outside on the lawn, [their] dark figures st[and] like silent soldiers on duty” 'hunting' him (Matheson 22). Lastly when Neville goes out to collect the bodies the next day of the vampires that were sacrificed, “they were almost always women” (Matheson 23). The vampires in Matheson's novel are just as habitual as Neville is.