Isabella Brown-Quigley

Professor Holly Batty

English 102

01 November 2017

We Are Monsters Too: Analysis of Dead until Dark by Charlaine Harris

Where are the monsters hiding? Everywhere and deep inside our unconscious minds. In

everyday life, we walk amongst and contain monsters without realizing. The corrupt human

nature is what is monstrous. An author commented on monsters in nonfictional stories and said,

...not all monsters look like monsters. There are some that carry their monstrosity inside

(Fredrik Backman). In the small southern town of Bon Temp, Louisiana, vampires come for the

first time and chaos rises amongst the townspeople. The white townspeople want segregation

between them and the vampires while the monsters are seeking equal rights similar to African-

Americans. Whereas vampires are the obvious monsters, Harris novel depicts humankind as

being even more monstrous for failing to resist primal desires, and engaging in acts of murder,

necrophilia and prejudice.

A major theme in Harris novel is desire, which is a base for destruction. According to

Purdue OWL, Freuds psychoanalytic theory describes that the Id is the part of the unconscious

mind that contains instinctual drives. Throughout the novel, the characters are connected with

primal desires. These desires include sexual intercourse and the sucking of blood. Libidinal

desire can be caused by primal instincts. Hed strangled her with her apron strings. And hed

had sex with her, after she was dead (Harris 277). Rene murdered his sister and had sex with

her dead body. He displays necrophilia and incest. Usually, primal instincts are similar amongst

humans, but the two atrocities part of Renes libidinal desires are abnormal. Harris designed
Rene with these abnormalities to portray the most repulsive monster. The monster is not only a

murderous pervert, but he is a human. It is horrifying to think that another human is capable of

committing those loathing acts.

Bill Compton, the vampire, is not the most monstrous monster. His nature and

appearance are monstrous, but his interior is humane. He was turned into a vampire when he

was infected with a virus and was killed during the Civil War. Bill fought for the South during

the Civil War in his hometown known as Bon Temp. He is a cautious, intelligent, and

respectable gentleman and treats Sookie like a lady. Bill falls deeply in love with Sookie and

wants to stay in his hometown with her. He went through traumatic events of becoming a

vampire, killing humans, and leaving behind his wife and children. His libidinal desire is to

connect with Sookie, which is done through sex and the exchange of blood. The Id is wanting to

drink blood, but he controls his hunger and mainstreams, which is when a vampire relies on a

bottle of synthetic blood. The synthetic blood is an alternative food source to stop feeding on

humans. Mainstreaming is when a vampire relies on bottled blood for a source of food,

instead of feeding off of humans. The synthetic blood removes the monstrosity of the vampires

and we are left with just the monstrosity of the humans. The vampires need to change their diet

to be accepted by humans while an awful prejudice based purely on the color of a persons skin

is innate. A diet is easily changeable, but the color of skin cannot be changed. The white

townspeople want the vampires to control their primal instincts and for African-Americans to

change the skin they were born with, yet most of the townspeople cannot control their primal

instincts. The white townspeople cannot and choose not to control their instincts and prejudices.

Harris demonstrates prejudice in her novel. It takes place in a small town that fought for

the South in the Civil War. During the Civil War, the Southern states were pro slavery. They
were pro slavery because they wanted to make a gargantuan profit off of their resources or

workers. Their resources were African-American slaves and treated them like they were

nothing. This town is initially racist toward colored people. The setting sets up the tone for the

racism that occurs. Harris only includes two African-Americans in her novel with very little

dialogue. She wrote, He was furious that someone had killed a woman he knew, and he was

hoping it wasnt a black man because that would make his relationship with Kenya even more

tense (81). The white people in the town are prejudice towards colored people. The white

townspeople seem more willing to accept the white vampires rather than their own species that is

a different color. They try to accept a species that kills humans and does not accept other

humans. Humans are monstrous towards one another. Psychoanalyst, Dr. Mark J. Blechner,

provides a great example in his journal, which states, We are prejudiced about genocides. In

the last 20 years, the United States intervened vigorously in the genocide in Kosovo, where the

victims and the perpetrators were white skinned. But in Rwanda and Darfur, where the victims

are black skinned, we have shied away from active intervention (Blechner 245). Racism is a

profound issue, especially in America. The United States has been dealing with the issue of

prejudice since the early settlers and the first colonies. The colonists from Europe had it

programmed in their head that whites were superior to every other color. That learned prejudice

was brought to America and stuck with the whites, even to this day. According to Blechners

psychoanalysis, racial prejudice is learned and often covert. He states, Even the most open

minded of us cannot completely eliminate the prejudices that were programmed in us from a

very early age (244). It is nearly impossible to stop a seed of prejudice that has already been

planted into someones head at a very early age. Harris comments on the real world of racism

towards African-Americans through the fictional world where there is prejudice towards
vampires. The author comments on such a heavy and deep topic to make people aware of their

monstrous actions such as racism. A lot of the humans in this town do not take kindly to

vampires because they are unknown. In an interview with psychoanalyst, Dr. Sullivan, he said

You cant learn to trust white people by one nice one (98). Sookie for example demonstrates

compassion that is not show by the townsfolk. Sookie is among a minority of townspeople who

accept vampires. The humans sense of superiority is used to justify denying vampires not only

equality, but life itself. In the beginning of the novel, a couple attacks the vampire, Bill, to drain

him and sell his blood as a drug (Harris 8). Vampire blood is illegal with effects including

heightened senses, improved libido, and strengthened muscles in humans. The couple treated

Bill like he was a commodity. This is similar to how African-Americans were treated in slavery.

African-Americans were considered livestock and inhumane. The white slave owners were the

inhumane and monstrous ones, though. The couple in the novel slashed and wrapped Bill with

silver chains like how slaves were whipped. Harris compares Bill to a slave here. The couple is

prejudice towards Bill, but also want to use him like an object or tool. White owners used their

slaves as tools to produce goods such as cotton and tobacco. The blood that the couple wanted

was simply a product to sell. In a separate instance, some humans set fire to a house knowing

the vampires could not escape because of the daylight. The most monstrous human, Rene,

goaded the arsonists and murdered three fangbangershumans who volunteer their necks to

vampires because they enjoy the pain. His prejudice against vampires led him to believe that,

Anyone whod let a vampire do that deserved to die (277). When he found out that his sister

was a fangbanger, he killed her and then had sex with her corpse. He repeated this act with other

women when Bill first came to town, giving the appearance that he was the culprit.
 Rene is the ultimate monster, but this is hidden throughout the novel until the end. He

flies under the radar by not verbally voicing his hatred for vampires and seems like a

goodhearted man. Rene exclaims, You dont touch anyone who works here. Thats the rule

(43). He defended Sookie when a customer was acting rude. This is a humane action of Rene.

He appears to be a kind man throughout the novel to the townspeople, but he ended up being a

murderer. Sookie was shocked to learn that Rene was the killer all along. Motivated by his

prejudice, he murders his promiscuous coworkers fangbanger lady friends. His prejudice

against vampires was exacerbated when his sister became a fangbanger. As his prejudice

manifested, his hatred spread to his own kind and kinfangbangers. Renes act of murder,

necrophilia, and prejudice are what make him monstrous. His actions contradict his thought

because he is worse than the monsters he is prejudice towards.

Through a psychoanalytic lens, Harris depicts primal instincts, murder, necrophilia and

prejudice to illuminate the monstrosity of humankind. The Id is where primal instincts are

located and some people cannot or choose not to control them. Renes sexual desires include

necrophilia and domination. Dead until Dark is a commentary on centuries-old prejudice against

African-Americans. We create images of other monsters to encapsulate our true Ids and

what we dread most in life (Donovan). We do this to make ourselves feel like less of a

monster by comparison. The vampires represent our primal instincts--what makes them

monstrous is beyond their control until synthetic blood is available. Prejudice is a monstrous

quality possessed by humans. We are the monsters. Humans kill for sport, commit acts of

genocide and torture our own kind. Martin Luther King once said, Dont judge someone by the

color of his or her skin, but by the content of his or her character. We are prejudice towards
innocent African-Americans for their appearance and towards vampires for their actions, yet we

do not even glance at our own kinds actions.

Works Cited

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https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/722/04/

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Blechner, Mark J. The Role of Prejudice in Psychopathology and Psychoanalytic History.

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content/uploads/2015/08/Blechner-MJ-The-Role-of-Prejudice-in-Psychopathology-and-

Psychoanalytic-History-p239-250.pdf

Donovan, Patricia. UB Reporter. University of Buffalo, 27 O

Oct. 2011. http://www.buffalo.edu/ubreporter/archive/2011_10_27/monster_culture.ht

ml. Accessed 1 Nov. 2017.

Fields, Hannah. TTU. Texas Tech University, 26 April

2017. https://www.depts.ttu.edu/vpr/focus/posts/2017/erin-collopy-

vampires.php. Accessed 3 Nov. 2017.

Hansen, Michelle Kay. Monsters in our Midst: An Examination of Human Monstrosity in

Fiction and Film of the United States. University of Nevada, Las Vegas. May 2012.

Harris, Charlaine. Dead until Dark. Berkley. May 2001.

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