irst is the equivalent of becoming like the stereotypical vampire. At one point in the novel the vampires Louis and Claudia journey to Eastern Europe on a quest to find others like themselves. Elegant, intelligent, and beautiful, Louis and Claudia are shocked to find that the fabled vampires of Romania are little more than zombies, rotten half-eaten corpses who suffer the fate of being animated. "I had met the European vampire, the creature of the Old World," Louis pronounces as he kills the last of these. "He was dead." (Pg. 322). The previous passage is literally a comparison of monsters. Around the same time vampire books written by Stephen King and Bram Stoker gained popularity. Salems Lot and Dracula featured vampires who resembled, to a remarkable degree, the kind that would repulse Louis. The vampires were of course, the norm. The vampires, although similar to humans and in some way charismatic and clever, one could not see past them as a villain. When the clever and beautiful Louis met the vampires of Eastern Europe, he was meeting one hundred and fifty years of monster stereotype.In Dieting and Damnation, Sandra Tomc, presented the view that in order to separate her own vampires from those indigenous to the genre, Rice borrowed heavily from the 1970s trend of androgyny and dieting. The belief was that the same potential of gender and mental metamorphosis could liberate Rice's vampires from the boundaries of their heritage, also restrained them. The time period brought about upheaval around bodies and weight, particularly women's bodies. The idea was that by dieting one could become a new person, a new monster, a new woman. This change was brought about through confinement and limitation. Tomcs view applies to Interview with the Vampire. The concept of dieting and metamorphosis is prevalent throughout the novel, however not in terms of losing weight. A majority of the book is about Louis attempts to stave of his h...
